Roadside Picnic Areas

You could be more realistic by just having lots of JCBs grubbing out hedges.

That's why he said "West of the county" and then referred to something as being East of Peterborough.

Do keep up at the back!

MBQ

In message , Mark Goodge writes

Too true. I have literally hundreds of old photographs taken across the period, many of them clearly showing major changes in the landscaping.

It helped create a much bleaker landscape too.

I am still digging into the major changes to the rail infrastructure around March over the period. No doubt I will have to draw a line somewhere and then take a broad overview of the surroundings.

Many thanks for your advice. I never did think that this was going to be easy :0(

Cheers.

"Roy" wrote

Ahh, promising, especially in the earlier era. Still not a picnic area apart from the hardier sort of CTC cyclist (you could do a club run taking refreshment at an Elgoods pub! said beer being my main motivation for cycling north of the Bedford River into cannibal territory) but a distinctive scenic challenge. I've long thought someone with the room ought to do March station justice as a model: it's a handsome building even now in its half-used form, there's a lot of rail formation to build plus loads of LNER signals and the famous high North box, and the possibilities for workings, especially freight from all directions (not just Whitemoor in its heyday) are considerable. Last trains to Wisbech and Spalding included!

Tony Clarke

"Roy" wrote

True. Much of the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway's traffic in peak times was fruit. Wisbech St Mary (though on the old M&GN branch) was a heavily orchard-based area, and there's still some now. I can recall a lot of fruit orchards being grubbed up in the Fens in the late 70s, and shamefully round the north edge of Cambridge the orchards are still there, just abandoned to brambles. It's not even worth the farmer's while to go in and cut the trees for logs. That whole belt served the Chivers jam factory at Histon, now long gone under a "business park" though a campaign group is battling to rescue the line which still has track on it and a station at Histon:

In the mid 50s Whitemoor yard and its associated flows were possibly at their peak, and March MPD was at its fullest with representatives of very many loco classes including Black 5s, 8Fs, just about every LNER type, BR standards, etc. The line to Chatteris and St Ives closed in about 1967, to Wisbech for passengers in 1969 and freight in about 1999 (latterly Spillers Petfoods and Carnaud MetalBox packaging weekly), and to Spalding via Murrow in 1983. I can recall how busy the station was in about 1972 when my dad worked odd days in March during the school hols and would leave me to stay on the footbridge all day with a cheese roll as his robust idea of childcare. (I was 13 at the time). Lots of 31s and DMUs thrashing back and forth through most of the platforms - possibly not the bay for Wisbech between 2 and 3 though. If you were to do the steam heyday pre-1962 you'd be in modeller's paradise, you could probably not build enough locos and vans to do it justice. Floreat Marcia!

The Middleton Press books on that area (mostly by Peter Paye IIRC) are a good starting point. March town museum has probably got a lot of useful material too.

Tony Clarke

In message , Tony Clarke writes

Thanks for the info. I will visit March [again] later in the week and will attempt to chase up a few more books covering the area.

Cheers.