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Journey by Journey => South Western services => Topic started by: CyclingSid on May 19, 2020, 18:45:34



Title: Fovant military railway
Post by: CyclingSid on May 19, 2020, 18:45:34
Not far from Chilmark is what used to be the Fovant Military Railway.
http://www.fovanthistory.org/railway.html (http://www.fovanthistory.org/railway.html)
And a family route march
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OYR-s0QEcs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OYR-s0QEcs)
with reference to four other "military" railways, including Chilmark.


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Marlburian on May 19, 2020, 21:37:26
Twenty years ago I had a postcard showing the staff of the "terminus" of Fovant Military Railway.

Peter Adcock, who contributed to one of the articles in your link, begged me to swap it for five or six very routine cards. I've always been a soft touch and wasn't very knowledgeable about postcards then, so I agreed.  :( >:(

The respective retail values were about the same, but those half-dozen or so cards were quite easy to find. I exchanged Christmas cards with Peter for many years. dropping very broad hints about did he still want to hang on to the card, but he never responded. It's the only card relating to the FMR that I've ever seen.

At that time a short section of the railway that had crossed a track was exposed by wear and tear from traffic. It was close to a bungalow built on the site of the camp cinema whose doorsteps were retained in the new building.


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: grahame on May 20, 2020, 07:11:33
Lots of military rail installations in Wiltshire ... these threads have had me looking around:

Fovant
Larkhill
Dean
Chilmark
Porton
Codford Camp
Chislden Camp
Heytesbury Camp
Chapperton Down Artillary Range
Shrewton Folly Tank Practise Rilway

Warminster sidings (*)
Boscome Down siding
Westbury - sidings to what is now West Wilts Trading Estate
Stanton Siding
Wilton Siding
Lacock Sidings
Bulford Branch
Tidworth Branch
Ludgershall platforms
platform at Patney an Chirton
East to north curve at Westbury (*)

* - Still in place

What have I missed?


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: CyclingSid on May 20, 2020, 08:27:14
It becomes difficult to separate Military Railways, and railways serving Military establishments.

Lockerley Ammunition Depot http://www.woodleynet.co.uk/us-dunbridge.htm (http://www.woodleynet.co.uk/us-dunbridge.htm) is a possible addition.

Would you describe Ludgershall vehicle depot as separate from Ludgershall platforms?

I presume the Warminster sidings are the ones that used to serve the REME Workshops.

There are possibly more.

Such as the ammunition depot in Savernake Forest. Prior to D-Day just about any wooded area in the south of England hosted military stores of some kind.


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: grahame on May 20, 2020, 08:38:28
It becomes difficult to separate Military Railways, and railways serving Military establishments.

Lockerley Ammunition Depot http://www.woodleynet.co.uk/us-dunbridge.htm (http://www.woodleynet.co.uk/us-dunbridge.htm) is a possible addition.

Not Wiltshire, though (or has the county boundary moved?)

Quote
Would you describe Ludgershall vehicle depot as separate from Ludgershall platforms?

I presume the Warminster sidings are the ones that used to serve the REME Workshops.

There are possibly more.

Such as the ammunition depot in Savernake Forest. Prior to D-Day just about any wooded area in the south of England hosted military stores of some kind.

Yes - my thought on Warminster is the REME sidings. And I'm sure there are others.  A lot of history could be uncovered ...


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: eightf48544 on May 20, 2020, 08:56:16
Lockerley ammo depot is the oposite side of the railway to my cousin's house. It was big enough to have it's own signal bax.


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Marlburian on May 20, 2020, 16:51:41
The National Archives contain several files about the ammunition nitrate factory at Stratton, near Swindon. A brief history is given in MUN 5/365/1122/22. MUN 7/47 includes much more detail; a paper of December 12, 1916 estimated construction costs at £150,000 and output at 1,000 tons a week. Prior to building the factory, the "only depot in the district is a large stores for filled shells and for shell steel. The branch [railway siding] to feed these stores leaves the mine line quite close to the Highworth branch but runs on the south side of the railway instead of the north side, so that our traffic would not interfere with theirs."

A 1904 atlas of railway lines used by the Railway Clearing House (which determined payments between the 120-plus railway companies) shows a projected link-up of the Bulford and Tidworth lines. This never materialised, though on May 13, 1907, Richard Haldane, the Secretary of State for War, admitted in the House of Commons that in bad weather it was preferable to take the "high road" route of eight miles between the two barracks rather the four-mile track connecting them; he noted that the journey by train was 26 miles. A rail connection would have been easy to lay over flat ground, but instead the track was improved.

Pressure from the War Office during the Boer War and the need for rail access to Tidworth led to improvements being made at Wolfhall Junction (one mile south east of Savernake Stations), where the MSWJR crossed the GWR; the £1,000 costs were shared equally between the two companies, the new arrangements being brought into use on July 28, 1902. (The MSWJR was a useful link to Tidworth, albeit a single-track one, from the West Midlands, but heavy GWR traffic to Salisbury Plain from Wales, the West Country and the Midlands had to run over MSWJR track from Wolfhall to Ludgershall, where so many troops bound for the Plain de-trained.)

It was also probably pressure from the War Office that led  to the construction in 1904 of the "Grafton Curve", a double-line connection from the GWR running south west to the MSWJR just south of its Wolfhall Junction. But it may well have been that the GWR wished to ensure a proportion of Tidworth-bound traffic used its lines rather being transported on  the London &  South Western Railway to Andover.  (In 1903 the MSWJR had granted running powers to the GWR from Wolfhall Junction to Ludgershall.)

In September 1916 a loop and junction between the MSWJR and LSWR at Red Post were installed at a cost of £5,131, paid for by the War Office,which would sell it back at the end of government-controlled control of the railways, each company paying half of the expense.

Works on main line at Dinton to facilitate extra workings caused by camp railways:National Archives: MT 6/2435/5

There were at least two incidents on the Sutton Veny railway involving runaway trucks; in late 1915 a gateman was killed in such an incident, and early the next year soldiers took the brakes off trucks standing at the top of an incline close to Number 6 Camp; two of the trucks crashed through the level crossing on the Sutton Veny main road, coming to a stop at Heytesbury Station. See Warminster Journal, February 6, 1916, p5.

During the Great War, the LSWR built a siding for the loading of timber at Wilton. A similar siding and platform were built near Stanton Station on the Highworth branch.

An article, "Real War on Vast Stage", by F A Talbot in the January 1907 issue of the Technical World Magazine describes training on "the rugged waste known as Salisbury plain" and refers to "a narrow-gauge railroad fully equipped in every detail, with semaphores, switches, crossovers, signal cabins and other railroad devices", along which trundled an armoured train with Maxim and other quick-firers, passing by mocked-up buildings, including the "Jolly Farmer inn". Definitely not Salisbury Plain! There were only two  lines on the Plain in 1907, both standard gauge and providing a civilian service. And, apart from those on the first page, the scenes in the photographs don't look much like the Plain. Perhaps Talbot was thinking of the Woolmer Instructional Military Railway at Longmoor, laid with narrow-gauge track in 1903 and re-laid to standard gauge in 1905-07.

Ridge Quarry ammunition depot, where there was a two-foot gauge track within the workings and a tramway connecting with dedicated sidings at Corsham station. (This tramway was part of a network connecting various other quarries in civilian use.)


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Marlburian on May 20, 2020, 17:19:34
Shrewton Folly Railway c1961


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Marlburian on May 20, 2020, 17:37:52
This locomotive shown at Fovant c1915 was built by Kerr Stuart & Co Ltd, in Stoke-on-Trent. It was given the works number 1252.

It was a standard "Wren" class locomotive of the "old" type, the class being revamped in 1917 to reduce production costs.

No.1252 was supplied on 15/12/1914 to the War Department at Fovant in Wiltshire for use by MacDonald Gibbs & Co, during construction work at Fovant Camp. It was later sent to the Air Ministry at Halton Camp in Buckinghamshire, where a narrow gauge line was built from the Camp across the Tring Road (Icknield Way) into the Halton Estate of Alfred de Rothschild for the removal of timber, being felled for the war effort. It as advertised for sale at Halton Camp in “Surplus” between 1/8/1922 and 1/6/1923. However no further trace is recorded.


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: CyclingSid on May 21, 2020, 07:07:17
Quote
Ridge Quarry ammunition depot, where there was a two-foot gauge track within the workings and a tramway connecting with dedicated sidings at Corsham station. (This tramway was part of a network connecting various other quarries in civilian use.)

And several threads could be filled, I am sure, about the railways connected with the quarries at Corsham/Box.


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Clan Line on May 21, 2020, 10:45:20

And several threads could be filled, I am sure, about the railways connected with the quarries at Corsham/Box.

..........oh yes..........and all those steam locos still stored down there waiting for WWIII   ;) ;)


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: CyclingSid on May 21, 2020, 13:44:37
Fable, fantasy and conspiracy theories. Don't want to let facts get in the way.


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: rogerw on May 21, 2020, 14:56:56
As someone who has been down to the old station area in the Corsham mines twice I am sorry to say that I could not detect even a whiff of steam. However the sound of trains going through Box tunnel was quite eerie


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Marlburian on May 21, 2020, 16:04:40

And several threads could be filled, I am sure, about the railways connected with the quarries at Corsham/Box.

..........oh yes..........and all those steam locos still stored down there waiting for WWIII   ;) ;)

Some of you may remember the two idiots who went into the tunnel with pick-axes to investigate the stories and brought train services to a halt. Fifteen years ago???

One flaw in the claims was how would the locos replenish their coal.  Mind you, there's a coal merchant at Cholsey Station ...


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Marlburian on August 14, 2021, 16:55:13
I might as well add this minor note there> I've just come across a reference to Stockton Crossing Halt, on the Warminster-Salisbury line, said to have been "opened after 1907, this was a private station for the use of workmen" and to have been closed after July 1915. This may have been a short-lived facility for the benefit of workers or troops at Stockton and Sherrington, where there were tented camps late in 1914, with the soldiers going into billets towards the end of the year.

During the Great War "Sir John Jackson specials" ran between Codford and Salisbury carrying Jackson workmen who built hutted camps in the locality, but not many - if any at all - would have been needed at Stockton and Sherrington. A local rail historian had not heard of it, but is canvassing colleagues. A Web search leads only to the name in lists.


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: AMLAG on August 14, 2021, 20:56:25

As another aside but with a strong railway connection to my Great Grandfather Sir John Jackson, was the building by his Civil Engneering Firm of the railway over the Andes between Arica and La Paz.


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Clan Line on August 14, 2021, 21:14:54
I've just come across a reference to Stockton Crossing Halt, on the Warminster-Salisbury line,

Another one along that bit of line was the spur from Heytesbury to Sutton Veny/Longbridge Deverill - which I think was built in 1915 and lifted in the 20s.


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Marlburian on August 15, 2021, 19:39:19
Contemporary postcard


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: ellendune on August 15, 2021, 20:01:34
Not really a spur if it is a different gauge.  This looks like a narrow gauge railway.  Am I correct?


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Marlburian on August 16, 2021, 07:58:02
Yes. It's Decauville track, portable, quickly laid and easily replaced in the case of damage, and probably used at Sutton Veny to move stores and materials from the standard-gauge track, often during the construction of a camp.

Many of Wiltshire's military railways flourished during the Great War and photography of them would have been forbidden for security reasons. Bits of track within camps can be made out in some photographs but very seldom is there anything on them. One exception (on a postcard) is attached.

There are several postcards showing rolling stock on the newly-laid Larkhill Military Railway in the first months of the war before censorship was introduced.

Just about the only other wartime postcard photographs of railways in Wiltshire in a military context are of George V and the Royal Train at Ludgershall Station (which, of course, was on the "public" network) on one of several visits to troops.

I was in Ludgershall yesterday. The MoD sidings at the end of what is left of the M&SWJR line to Marlborough and beyond looked little used, with just a few flat-bed wagons parked there.

(Many pre-WWI cards exist showing Volunteer and Territorial troops arriving at Ludgershall Station for summer camp. There are far fewer for Amesbury and just two or three for Patney & Chirton and for Lavington.)




Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Clan Line on August 16, 2021, 09:20:23
Some more info on Sutton Veny spur here:
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol4/pp280-293

According to this it was actually operated by the GWR for a while.


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: infoman on August 16, 2021, 11:29:31
Sutton Veny and codford st luke were two locations where ANZAC's were being treated for war injurie's sustained in world war one.

I think a lot more who were hospitalised died from the flu epidemic in the early 1920s
Correst me if I am wrong


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Clan Line on August 16, 2021, 13:04:23
Sutton Veny and codford st luke were two locations where ANZAC's were being treated for war injurie's sustained in world war one.

I think a lot more who were hospitalised died from the flu epidemic in the early 1920s
Correst me if I am wrong

You are quite correct. The Sutton Veny Military hospital is listed as having 938 beds. There are 168 Commonwealth War Graves in the churchyard at St John's Sutton Veny.
https://suttonveny.co.uk/village-matters/anzac-day-services/

Bit more info on the railway here: https://maps.nls.uk/view/101463542


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Marlburian on August 16, 2021, 16:44:38
And a bit more here!Note that the line goes onto Longbridge Deverill Camp, better known as Sand Hill Camp. D**n, uploaded the Codford railway map by mistake and had to add that for Sutton Veny.


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Clan Line on August 19, 2021, 19:48:21
And a bit more here!Note that the line goes onto Longbridge Deverill Camp, better known as Sand Hill Camp. D**n, uploaded the Codford railway map by mistake and had to add that for Sutton Veny.


What a fascinating pair of maps !!


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: stuving on August 19, 2021, 20:11:58
And a bit more here!Note that the line goes onto Longbridge Deverill Camp, better known as Sand Hill Camp. D**n, uploaded the Codford railway map by mistake and had to add that for Sutton Veny.


What a fascinating pair of maps !!

Aren't all old maps fascinating?


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: PrestburyRoad on August 19, 2021, 20:28:29
Yes, old maps are indeed fascinating.  And 'dangerous' too - because one can so easily spend a long time exploring them.

[Warning: this may swallow your time]  If anyone hasn't already visited the old maps on the National Library of Scotland's website I strongly recommend doing so.
For example, Gloucester 25-inch  c 1880
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=14&lat=51.85978&lon=-2.24270&layers=178&b=4&marker=51.7651,-2.330434


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Marlburian on August 20, 2021, 09:40:53
I frequently visit the site recommended by PrestburyRoad - it's a fantastic free resource that includes 25in-to-the-mile maps that can be magnified.


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Marlburian on August 20, 2021, 09:49:37
What a fascinating pair of maps !!

Thus encouraged, here's a section from the same map (OS 1inch 1920) of the Bulford and Tidworth branches. A 1904 atlas of railway lines used by the Railway Clearing House shows a projected link–up of the Bulford and Tidworth lines. This never materialised, though on May 13, 1907, Richard Haldane, the Secretary of State for War, admitted in the House of Commons that in bad weather it was preferable to take the "high road" route of eight miles between the two barracks rather the four-mile track connecting them; he noted that the journey by train was 26 miles. A rail connection would have been easy to lay over flat ground, but instead the track was improved.



Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Marlburian on August 20, 2021, 10:52:27
Chisledon Camp railway (to west of "Stream").

The platforms are still there, covered in undergrowth and on private land. The sidings branched off the M & SWJR, the trackbed of which is now a popular Sustrans route.

I've never seen a contemporary image of the branch. >:(


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Marlburian on August 20, 2021, 11:05:07
Gas training coach, Salisbury Plain c1916

Army recruits were briefly exposed to gas to train them in what to do if they were exposed to it in warfare.


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Marlburian on August 20, 2021, 11:32:30
Military sidings, Weyhill 1901

(I'm sorting through my photo files of "military Wiltshire", hence the plethora of postings. I'm coming across images that I'd forgotten I had.)


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Clan Line on August 20, 2021, 11:51:57
I frequently visit the site recommended by PrestburyRoad - it's a fantastic free resource that includes 25in-to-the-mile maps that can be magnified.

Did the maps of Sutton Veny/Codford come from the NLS web site or elsewhere ? I can't seem to find them. I was brought up in that area, as was my father, which is what made them so fascinating. For example, I was never aware of the full extent of the camps alongside the (now) A36 outside Codford below the Aussie chalk badge on the hill side.......... and I went to school in Codford St Mary !!


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Marlburian on August 20, 2021, 12:32:34
No, I have a collection of maps of southern Wiltshire c1900-1926, and I've been showing sections from the OS 1920 1-inch edition "Published by authority of the Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries"; I've just checked and can't find it on the NLS website. The very small print notes a third revision in 1913 of the 1865-85 survey, but my edition must have reflected a further revision as it shows all the 1914-18 wartime infrastructure - some of which was being removed by the mid-1920s. And it's in bright, fresh colour as well. So a very happy purchase.

(My very first map acquisition was of a 1926 1/2-inch map covering several counties, including Wiltshire, which I came across when I worked in Civil Service offices (Market Place House, Reading) from 1974 to 1982. That too showed some, but not all, of the wartime infrastructure. It seemed of little use to anyone else, so it found its way to my house.)


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Clan Line on August 20, 2021, 13:07:49
No, I have a collection of maps of southern Wiltshire c1900-1926, and I've been showing sections from the OS 1920 1-inch edition "Published by authority of the Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries"; I've just checked and can't find it on the NLS website. The very small print notes a third revision in 1913 of the 1865-85 survey, but my edition must have reflected a further revision as it shows all the 1914-18 wartime infrastructure - some of which was being removed by the mid-1920s. And it's in bright, fresh colour as well. So a very happy purchase.


Clever/lucky you !


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Marlburian on August 22, 2021, 19:39:48
I might as well add this minor note there> I've just come across a reference to Stockton Crossing Halt, on the Warminster-Salisbury line, said to have been "opened after 1907, this was a private station for the use of workmen" and to have been closed after July 1915. This may have been a short-lived facility for the benefit of workers or troops at Stockton and Sherrington, where there were tented camps late in 1914, with the soldiers going into billets towards the end of the year.

During the Great War "Sir John Jackson specials" ran between Codford and Salisbury carrying Jackson workmen who built hutted camps in the locality, but not many - if any at all - would have been needed at Stockton and Sherrington. A local rail historian had not heard of it, but is canvassing colleagues. A Web search leads only to the name in lists.

I've discussed Stockton with a local railway historian, who has conferred with others, but with no results. He mentioned Upton Lovell Crossing, which prompted me to search my notes,that had this summary of a National Archives file:

On March 14, 1915, an agreement was signed by the GWR and Sir John Jackson's company for the former to provide workmen's trains between Salisbury and Warminster, one a day in each direction, calling at all stations and Upton Lovell Crossing; the contractor would provide metal discs inscribed "Workmen's train Salisbury Codford to Warminster" and would pay the GWR "in respect of any works incidental … to the use of the Crossing for purposes of the said train and the access to and from the same to and from the public roadway", and also the expenses of a uniform, stores and wages "for a man to supervise the entraining and detraining of workmen to the said level crossing and of a signalman and other workman … to protect the said crossing". (NA file: RAIL 252/1800)

One might guess that there was a similar, short-lived arrangement at Stockton, with no platforms at either crossing.




Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Marlburian on March 01, 2022, 16:29:33
Just acquired this postcard showing the Fovant Military Railway inside the camp. In 25 years of researching and collecting, this is the first such image I've come across and I would have overlooked it as there's no caption or publisher's imprint but for the fact that on the back is scrawled "Dispersed at Fovant Camp 6-1-19". In 1919 Fovant was a major demobilisation camp and its railway had much passenger traffic with soldiers arriving and leaving as civilians.


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Marlburian on April 06, 2022, 16:10:56
Another new acquisition is this 1919 third-class ticket for a soldier travelling on leave from Codford to Salisbury. It cost him 1sh 2d then, equivalent to £2.73 today.  A 14-mile journey. I paid £7.25 for it, plus p & p!


Title: Re: Fovant military railway
Post by: Marlburian on June 04, 2023, 18:33:41
Today I re-visited Fovant for the first time in some years with the aim of following the route of the military railway as best I could. A bit disappointing (as is the Whitewicks' video to which there is a link in the first post). Even when knowing (more or less) where to look, I saw hardly any traces. The only suggestion was where the track ran along the eastern edge of the village on a "ledge" carved out of the hillside but now on private properties. About 20 years ago a resident - the aforementioned Peter Adcock - showed me a small stone retaining wall and also a rail embedded in Green Drove  south of Greystones,  that has disappeared. (The public footpath linking Fovant and Greystones was completely covered by crops; it was indicated by a waymark at its western end, but nothing at all at the eastern end, not even a gap in the hedge.)

I was struck by some of the gradients the trains had to tackle. I'm guessing that a camp railway hadn't been intended (elsewhere in Wiltshire they were laid very early in the construction of the camp), but the roads were reduced to quagmires after the very wet winter of 1914-15, leading to a necessary afterthought.

EDIT: Where I vaguely recall the rail to have been was a length of wood that I thought might have been a sleeper, though it looked very rounded. Having consulted Peter A Harding's The Fovant Military Railway,  I see that he too thought it was a sleeper. (After closure, local residents acquired many other sleepers.)



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