Hitchin & Potton Snippets

We finished our programme for 2024 on a high, at Digswell, with our largest attendance of the year. Our speaker, Hitchin & Welwyn Garden City branch member George Howe, talked about his life & love for the railway at Hitchin & Potton, where he had lived all his life.

George had so much history about Potton, a village where he was born with his father working on the railway there before him. He had documented history going back to 1850’s, along with photographs, of the extensive yard at Potton station where trains from Cambridge, Ipswich carrying fruit, vegetables and wheat from East Anglia met traffic from Sandy and the Midlands for further distribution of the produce.

A local landowner, Captain Peel, was responsible for the building of the Sandy to Potton Railway as early as 1857. In its heyday there were summer excursions for the land workers and villagers from Potton to the seaside towns of Clacton, Yarmouth & Blackpool. Most of the motive power for the line was provided by Cambridge, March & Whitemore. The line was eventually closed in 1967.

After our extended break for special afternoon seasonal treats, George continued explaining the signalling, signal boxes & shunting movements, along with some photographs of mainline traction at Hitchin station in the 1960’s and earlier.

Dave Elsdon
Branch Secretary