OAKWOOD PRESS & VIDEO LIBRARY

This much enlarged New Edition features more railways, plans, and photographs than before.  Lincolnshire and South Humberside is an area not noted for its narrow gauge railways.  It is not generally appreciated that over 140 route miles of track were laid on farms in at least 50 separate locations, from Alkborough on the banks of the River Humber to Crowland in the south. They were a phenomenon of the Fenland, and, it must be said, not confined to Lincolnshire. However, their use in other counties may not have been as widespread. In agricultural terms, they were also used to serve bulb fields in the Spalding area, but this book is confined to their use mainly for the planting and the harvest of probably one of the County's best known products of the 20th century, the humble potato. It is because the railways are so little known, and because time will naturally take its toll of those who knew and worked on them, that it is appropriate that this book should be devoted to them. Many were of very short length, and used horses as their motive power. Others were longer, long enough in fact to employ the use of internal combustion engines, and even small steam engines.

‘An excellent addition to the Oakwood series.’
RCTS

176 pages containing 68 photographs, 12 maps, timetables, etc. Printed on art paper throughout, printed end-papers, casebound, gold blocked spine and two-colour laminated jacket. A5 format.

Until World War I, the Great Eastern Railway contributed further colour to this distinctive coastal area. The Great Eastern was part of the landscape, and its dark blue engines with their polished brasswork and vermilion lining seemed to enhance the green fields, blue skies and flint villages of Norfolk. The GER often relied on summer leisure traffic to make up for a lack of heavy industry. Not surprisingly, the Great Eastern system included several classic seaside branch lines, one of which - the Hunstanton branch - forms the subject of this book.

Encouraged by the success of their railway, the line’s owners built an extension to Wells-next-the-Sea in the hope that further resort development would occur elsewhere on the Norfolk coast. This unfortunately did not take place, and the West Norfolk branch was never entirely successful. The Hunstanton ‘main line’, however, had gone from strength to strength, carrying Royalty to and from the Prince of Wales’s country estate at Sandringham, and considerable numbers of ‘commuters’ in addition to its seasonal holiday traffic.

Traffic continued to increase throughout the first half of the 20th century. Still a busy line - at least in the summer - the Hunstanton branch was not listed for closure in the Beeching Plan but it was nevertheless closed to all traffic just six years later. This unexpected closure passed almost unrecorded, and indeed, very little had been published on this interesting line prior to the publication of the First Edition of this title in 1987. Since that time, many other books have appeared, but The Lynn & Hunstanton Railway, which has been out of print for around 15 years, has become a much sought-after title, and in view of this it seemed appropriate that a new, enlarged edition should be prepared, this Second Edition includes many new illustrations.

A5 format, 192 pages, 148 images, the book has a laminated card cover with a square-backed spine.

Also included is a sheet map showing the entire route from Kings Lynn to Hunstanton, as well as the West Norfolk line from Heacham to Wells. The map is printed to true scale (one inch) and is reproduced from the Ordnance Survey map of 1954.