Rail served airbases in WW2

[cbeagleowner]

Hello all. I’ve been thinking of asking this for a while so here goes. Where I live in Cambridgeshire we have loads of WW2 airbases. Mostly 8th AAF or Bomber Command. Some (eg RAF Kimbolton or RAF Glatton are next to railway lines or greater or lesser fame) and others are close-ish. I had a few questions therefore. 
 

1. would ordnance / other supplies be transported by rail to these airbases?

 

2. if this was the case woupd the trains have gone from factories to the airfields directly?

 

3. the base was on a secondary line - eg RAF Kimbolton on the Huntingdon- Kettering line would there have been unusual (for peacetime) motive power?

 

4. I appreciate that wartime pics were a no-no, but are there any good photographic books about the railway in ww2?

 

thanks fir any thoughts / help in advance

 

Richard

[pH]

Some relevant information in the account of this disaster:
 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soham_rail_disaster

[adanapress]

The 8th Air Force USAAF base at Ridgewell was most certainly served from the very nearby Great Yeldham station on the old Colne Valley Railway.  Trains delivered eg bombs ready filled, and in workshops adjacent to the station had their fins fitted, then lorried  jusdt a couple of miles to the various nearby farm track dispersal sites. then again lorried to the actual  airfield as required.  The last of the vast hangars in what was the station yard was only demolished a couple of years ago.  To

allow housing development.  Same proceedure at wars end when Ridgewell became a collection centre ( run by the RAF) for amament disposal from Afs in much of East Anglia..

[stewartingram]

Alconbury (north of Huntingdon) had a short branch, through the fence of Abbots Ripton goods yard on the ECML. Track was still there when Grandad took me trainspotting in the late '50s.

[jessy1692]

Not an air base really but there was the rail served 'petrol dump' between Harrogate and Starbeck on the Harrogate-York line. It was/is in the Starbeck end of the triangle between the old Starbeck-Northallerton route.

 

I believe the underground tanks held petrol diesel and aviation fuel for onward despatch to bases around the area so a nice literal corner filler.

Cheers

James

[KeithMacdonald]

Carterton (RAF Brize Norton) has been mentioned here

 

 

And here

http://www.fairfordbranch.co.uk/History.htm

 

And here's one that tried to park too close to the station.

 

[BroadLeaves]

There was (and it's largely still there) a very large ordinance dump at Arncott and Graven Hill, just south of Bicester.

Lots of information at https://rogerfarnworth.com/2018/08/01/bicester-military-railway/

[KeithMacdonald]

There's a nice article on the Lambourn Valley Railway site about the Welford Airbase railway connection.

 

https://www.lambournvalleyrailway.info/welfordairbase.html

[2750Papyrus]

7 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Carterton (RAF Brize Norton) has been mentioned here

 

 

And here

http://www.fairfordbranch.co.uk/History.htm

 

And here's one that tried to park too close to the station.

 

 

As Flight used to quip, "A bit low on the round-out there, Hoskins".

[KeithMacdonald]

Almost an airbase:
The Highworth branchline had a "secret" siding into the Vickers/Supermarine aircraft factory at South Marston.

 

Take-off and landing facilities were also needed for the four-engined Stirling so two 1,000-yard concrete runways were constructed close to the FS2 site. These were painted with woodchips dipped in camouflage paint while sections of hedges were also put together to be spread across the runway when not in use to complete the deception.

 

https://supermarinerfc.rfu.club/information/the-history-of-supermarine

 

When I say, "secret", well everyone knew the factory and runways were there, they just didn't appear on OS maps.

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16&lat=51.60145&lon=-1.74407&layers=193&b=1

[iands]

My two-penn'orth - Burn Airfield (just south of Selby) on the former ECML before the 1982 diversion. Access to sidings controlled from former Henwick Hall SB.

[MyRule1]

My Avatar is the cover of the LNER's account of the wartime years. The chapter on the "bomber offensive" has a somewhat poetic account of how the airfields were served containing an account about how Farmer Gile's cows had to make way for increased siding space.

 

The reality was that on a very limited number of sidings were actually built into airfields. Usually a local station was used as a railhead for one or more airfields. Most bomb traffic in East Anglia was handled by a limited number of stations, with other used for the more mundane, but essential, supply of food etc.. to the airfields. 

 

For fuel a limited number of depots were constructed as @jessy1692 mentioned.

 

As to photo's each of the big-four produced a book about their wartime actives and the government published two books: one of which was  "It can now be revealed" and  "British Railways in Wartime". The LNER books and "It can now be revealed" can both be pruchased from the Great Eastern Railway Society Files Emporium.

[MyRule1]

To add to my earlier reply the Military Railway Study Group (previously the WW2RSG) is the largest single source of information on this subject. http://www.ww2rsg.org.uk/    At the moment their website is undergoing some rebuilding but is worth watching.

 

As to @adanapress 's comments on Great Yeldham, this is a topic I have been researching for some time for my model "Hinckford Parva" / "Exercise Meteor". To date I have found no evidence for the yard at Great Yeldham being used for large scale ordinance delivery. Earls Colne being the main railhead in the area for this traffic. Mays in his history of Ridgewell Airfield does state that such traffic was handled but gives no source, his source for the post war activity is given.  The lack of passing loops and weight restrictions on the Colne Valley line being a significant issue in this respect. I would be extremely interested to hear of proof of such wartime traffic. The hangers were moved onto site in 1959-60 from Fersfield Airfiled in Norfolk by Whitlocks as an extension to their factory constructing excavators etc.. (source Whitlock Brothers by Adrian Corder-Birch).

[Fat Controller]

RAF St Athan retained a rail connection into the 1970s, though it was mainly used for deliveries of boiler fuel.

[Michael Hodgson]

One or two airfields had runways so close to a railway that the control tower had the ability to put signals to danger in emergency. 

 

The MR "Old main line" from Beford to Hitchin ran through RAF Henlow.

 

You wouldn't want whole train loads of bombs turning up too close to operational aircraft, you would want to unload them at a safe distance, and bring them into suitable dumps in more limited quatities at times of your own choosing (not in the middle of an air raid!).  I believe the ammo on this train which blew up (an open wagon of 500 lb bombs) was destined for the RAF (Soham, 2nd June 1944) though this was not at an airfield of course.  Incidentally the WD was repaired and later served on the Longmoor Military Railway.

 

The airfields in northern Scotland my father flew from were not rail-connected, though supplies of munitions, parts, rations etc generally would have come by rail.  And of course travel for airmen from one posting to another or on leave etc was also by rail using travel warrants (except when they could bum a lift on something that was flying direct)

 

 

 

[BrushVeteran]

RAF, later USAF Upper Heyford received its aviation fuel from underground fuel tanks adjacent to Islip station on the former LNWR Oxford-Bletchley line. The sidings are long gone but the disused fuel facility still exists and is up for redevelopment,

[Wheatley]

As mentioned, ordnance seems to have been worked to railheads for delivery to bomb dumps rather than direct to airfields, although no doubt there were one or two exceptions. Most direct connections to airfields were for domestic stores - coal for the boilers etc. (Not for airmen, they could walk from the nearest station). Boiler houses and coal stores would have been in the middle of the technical/domestic site, concentrated in one corner on a pre-war 'Expansion era' airfield, a bit more dispersed on later builds - the very last place you want the bomb dump ! Those would have been well out of the way on a far perimeter somewhere. 

[BrushVeteran]

11 hours ago, BrushVeteran said:

RAF, later USAF Upper Heyford received its aviation fuel from underground fuel tanks adjacent to Islip station on the former LNWR Oxford-Bletchley line. The sidings are long gone but the disused fuel facility still exists and is up for redevelopment,

In the case of Islip the fuel ran from an underground pipeline to Upper Heyford base and was later incorporated into the National Pipeline system.

[KeithMacdonald]

Blackpool Airport (RAF Squires Gate) had a small siding. Does any know what it was used for?

 

 

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=15&lat=53.77568&lon=-3.04369&layers=11&b=1

[2E Sub Shed]

14 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

And of course travel for airmen from one posting to another or on leave etc was also by rail using travel warrants (except when they could bum a lift on something that was flying direct)

 

 

Such was the use of railways to move airmen in the early post WW2 RAF mindset, that there is a story relating to a transfer of airmen from RAF Compton Bassett (or RAF Yatesbury which was next door)   to RAF Lyneham which was undertaken by  transfer to Calne Railway Station by lorry, train travel to Wootton Bassett Railway Station and onward transfer by another lorry to RAF Lyneham.

 

A look at a map of the area would show a more elegant solution.

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, 2E Sub Shed said:

 

Such was the use of railways to move airmen in the early post WW2 RAF mindset, that there is a story relating to a transfer of airmen from RAF Compton Bassett (or RAF Yatesbury which was next door)   to RAF Lyneham which was undertaken by  transfer to Calne Railway Station by lorry, train travel to Wootton Bassett Railway Station and onward transfer by another lorry to RAF Lyneham.

 

A look at a map of the area would show a more elegant solution.

My dad said he had to do a lot of marching!  It was different when he was promoted to officer status though.

[Banger Blue]

20 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Carterton (RAF Brize Norton) has been mentioned here

 

Although the Fairford Branch ran beside the perimeter of RAF Brize Norton (as far as I’m aware) there was never an actual rail connection into the RAF Station, however when the Airfield was expanded when the United States Airforce was in residence, some of the dispersal areas for the B-47 jet bombers were on the other side of the railway and they had to cross the line to get to the main part of the airfield.

 

 

18 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

One or two airfields had runways so close to a railway that the control tower had the ability to put signals to danger in emergency. ……………

 

The Oxford - Didcot line runs past the perimeter of what was Royal Naval Air Station Culham and the Signal Box there had a “crash bell” fitted and a direct link telephone between the box & the control tower (Harold Gasson - Signalling Days)

[KeithMacdonald]

16 minutes ago, Banger Blue said:

when the Airfield was expanded when the United States Airforce was in residence, some of the dispersal areas for the B-47 jet bombers were on the other side of the railway and they had to cross the line to get to the main part of the airfield.

 

Yes, we can still see that on the OS maps.

 

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=15&lat=51.74808&lon=-1.57655&layers=11&b=1

 

Use the "Change transparency of overlay:" and slide the slider to the left to see the railway line crossing the dispersal area.

 

[adanapress]

A couple of East Anglian comments,  Earls Colne was most certainly a fuel supply depot, and as a memorial there is a mounted and stuffed tanker there on display. The relevant storage tanks and kit now long gone and new housing in its place.  Banham in Suffolk was certainly a store for things that go bang  up to and including the cold war.   The Pulham Market Aerodrome in WW1 was used in WW2 for equipment in some way and the branch line serving it was still in use in the 50s.   As regards

the Ordnance Depot at Bicester,  this was a Royal Ordnance Corps Depot  and was simply vast, but I dont recall large  things that go bang being stored there,  all sorts of other things yes,  right down to ATS underwear!!  The bottom shelf was paid for by the US Govt. and they stock checked it continuously with American  Army officers doing that. The larger sheds had track inside.  I know cos I did a course there.   Great Yeldham info ex the late Dick Ruggles  post war the village head man.

[cbeagleowner]

Thank you very much to everyone who's replied - this is all very helpful!