Below is an article from The Railway Magazine of February, 1942. This magazine is one of a growing number of booklets and books available for loan from our Community Archive.
“The [second world] war has had peculiar effects on the light railways of this country, causing some of them to be removed for their scrap value, and giving others a new lease of life, according to the wartime development of the areas in which they are situated.
Reference has been made in these columns more than once to the scrapping of such minor railways as the Southwold and the Welsh Highland, and now we have the more pleasant task of recording the resuscitation of the Wissington Light Railway in connection with the reclamation of fenland for agricultural purposes.
Some 35 years ago, Mr. A. J. Keeble endeavoured to develop the Wissington, Methwold, and Feltwell areas, and built a standard gauge railway from Abbey & West Dereham station (on the Stoke Ferry branch of the then Great Eastern Railway) across the River Wissey to Wissington and Methwold. The railway was later extended to the heart of Feltwell.
The Wissington sugar beet factory stands on the line of this railway, about two miles from the junction with the L.N.E.R., and the section serving the factory has continued in use, but beyond that point the track had been neglected. The whole line was leased by the British Sugar Corporation (the owner of the Wissington factory) from the Wissington Estate. The lease expired in March 1941, and the corporation did not see its way to undertaking a renewal. As it appeared probable that the railway would cease to be worked, the Minister of Agriculture took over this line under war emergency powers and has had it renovated.
The Minister [Lord Frederick Leathers] himself formally reopened the railway on July 12, travelling on the footplate of an 0-6-0 saddle tank locomotive.
The line is at present 18 miles long and its management is vested in Mr. W. McAuley Gracie, Assistant Goods Manager, Southern Area, L.N.E.R., as Administrator by appointment of the Minister of Agriculture under seal.
The Wissington Light Railway was built without Act of Parliament or Light Railway Order. Its track is of 60-lb. flat-bottom rails, spiked to sleepers spaced 2 ft. 6 in. to 3 ft. apart, and laid directly on the ground formation without ballast. There are many loading sidings and loops, and several long spurs of line. The track is carried over waterways by some ten bridges, mostly of rolled steel joists, with timber-piled abutments, and over a county road by level crossing with cattle guards and public road approach signs. There is no signalling or telephonic system.
Until May last, the British Sugar Corporation transported its own beet to the factory and also undertook (as lessee of the railway) all other agricultural traffic to and from the main line. The Minister of Agriculture secured the co-operation of the L.N.E.R. in reconditioning the line and undertaking general supervision, and of the British Sugar Corporation to maintain the traffic service as a haulage contractor on agreed terms. The five locomotives, as follow, are staffed and worked by the corporation :-
Date Maker Works No. Type [Name]
1899 Hudswell Clarke 533 0-4-0 [The Sidar]
1909 Andrew Barclay 1,158 0-6-0 [The Ellesmere]
1917 Manning Wardle 1,927 0-6-0
1921 Manning Wardle 2,006 0-6-0 [The Hayle]
1938 Hudswell Clarke 1,700 0-6-0 [The Wissington]
The Stoke Ferry branch of the L.N.E.R. leaves the main Cambridge to King’s Lynn and Hunstanton line at Denver. There are two intermediate stations between Denver and Stoke Dereham, namely, Ryston and Abbey & West Dereham. The passenger service on this branch, usually called the Downham & Stoke Ferry branch, was withdrawn on September 22, 1930.
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