Cambridge Area Railways – Yesterday & Today

At today’s meeting David Scudamore brought us Part 2 of his presentation on “Cambridge Area Railways, Yesterday and Today.” We started with a relatively early (1930’s) view of Cambridge station area, complete with workshops, engine sheds, turntable and many yards and sidings covering a very large area. We moved on, to the recent opening of Cambridge North station opened by Richard Tremaine in 2019 and then on to viewing some special trains in the area with several shots of 70000 Britannia and later with Class 31’s.

We looked at most of the stations along the branches to Huntingdon, St. Ives, Saffron Walden and several others. At Bramwell on 24^th July 1955 with loco 65662 David had picked out this RCTS rail-tour for us. We also saw photos from the explosion on 2^nd June 1944 at Soham, showing the devastation it caused.

When visiting Newmarket David showed the extensive rail traffic that arrived on race days with the horse boxes being ably shunted by the last known horse used on the railways.

An enjoyable afternoon for the good number of members attending.

Dave Elsdon

Branch Secretary