St Ives to Huntingdon via Godmanchester
This video simulates a steam train from the 1950s leaving St Ives station and travelling to Huntingdon via Godmanchester. Peter Swinson created the simulation. Below the video is a history of the St Ives to Huntingdon railway line.
The St Ives to Huntingdon line opened on 17 August 1847 and was troubled from the start. Built by the Lyn & Ely Railway Company, intended as an extension to the St Ives to Ely line. That line wasn't built until 1878, so for 30 years the St Ives to Huntingdon railway was an extension to a line that didn't exist.
This created problems, since two different companies operated the track and trains. The line became the property of East Anglian Railways when it took over the old Lyn & Ely Company. The Eastern Counties Railway operated the trains. When customer numbers between St Ives and Huntingdon proved disappointing, Eastern Counties pulled out. On 1 October 1849 they stopped running trains.
East Anglian Railways found themselves the owner of a line with no trains. And they had no means of getting carriages and locomotives on to the track until the line from Ely was built. So for the last three months of 1849, services between St Ives and Huntingdon comprised a single carriage pulled by a horse.
The law required passenger trains to travel at least 12 mph. The Railway Commissioners insisted a proper service was reinstated. East Anglian Railways had no choice but to offer the line for lease to Eastern Counties for a paltry 25 shillings a day (today £125).
Built through Huntingdon in 1850, the East Coast main line came to the rescue. East Anglian Railways built a short stretch of line to join their route to the new main line at Huntingdon. They were so short of money they paid the builder in carriages, 10 first class, 5 second class and 5 third class. At last peace settled on the little branch line between St Ives and Huntingdon for a century to the 1950s .
An unusual feature of the St Ives to Huntingdon line was several weak wooden bridges allowing the line to cross and recross the River Great Ouse. Only light locomotives were used. Fire was a constant hazard from sparks in dry weather. There was a 40mph speed limit, reduced to 10mph over some wooden bridges.
The line closed to passenger traffic on 15 June 1959. The local fruit orchards allowed the line to stay open for freight. Willow baskets full of apples, pears, cherries and plums were taken by rail to Covent Garden market in London. The line closed in 1964. You can still find traces of the line. Banking snakes across fields to the south of Hemingford Meadow and some wooden trestles exist to the east of Houghton.
To read about how the railway came to St Ives, the heroic role George Game Day played in the affair, and the amazing way St Ives recognised George's contribution, go to Bringing the Railway to St Ives.
Some content from Bob Burn-Murdoch's Hunts Post article, 3 June 2009.
You can also trace the line as it enters Eastside Common from Hemingford, and I think if you stand in Wilhorn Meadow and look across the river there is still a trestle at the water’s edge (in a private property). There’s also the change in brickwork on the London Rd viaduct where the level crossing was.
ReplyDeleteThanks Paul... good points.
Deletei grew up at Hemingford Mill when it was still a working watermill and used to see the trains from St Ives cross the river from the embankment along Hemingford Meadow and across our Island, called the Goose Hills, on a double track Iron Bridge similar to the one that carried the line across the river, past Enderbys Mill from St Ives ..Either side of the river, the three Iron circular supports for the St Ives Bridge are still in place although the center three were removed. The brick abutment for the bridge at Hemingford is still in place but all the circular supports across our Island have gone.
ReplyDeleteI learned to swim in St Ives pool which was fed by the river . It is interesting to note that my Grandmother, ran a boat hire
boat hire business from the old Coal and Lime wharf in Wellington Street, the lime kiln was still there though the chimney, visible in some of the photos, had gone. her house backed onto the Friends Meeting House (which is still there.
The outside Toilet was in the yard, built over the river, the wooden seat had three holes, one for men, one for women, and a
smaller one for children. you could look down and see the fish waiting.
My Nans house, where my Mum and I lived during the war, backed onto the St Ives March Railway. her outside toilet was emptied by a man at night with a horse and cart, (he smoked a very strong pipe of tobacco). the cart was tipped into a pond which overflowed via a stream into the river above Holywell.
On our Sunday afternoon walks to Holywell, my Nan never explained why the footbridge over the stream down to the river had high corrugated sheeting sides..
Water supply was from a well, with lead pipes, coal fired kitchen range, coal fire in the living room where me, then my Mum, then Nan, had a bath in front of the fire in a tin bath, same water, which had been heated in the coal fire copper in the corner of the kitchen. A pantry with a stone slab for the milk and a perforated zinc meat safe. (milk was warm from the cow) and frost on the inside of the window panes of your bedroom in the winter. I suppose if we survived our early years we must have built some sort of immunity.
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Thank you for such amazing memories! How lucky people are today, with central heating and inside toilets.
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