Aspects of East Anglian Steam - Volume 4 The Stour and Colne Valley Lines & Associated Branches
The area through which the Stour Valley line ran undoubtedly contained some of the most outstanding countryside East Anglia can offer. Around the Essex/Suffolk borders immortalised by the paintings of Constable the railway meandered through the sweeping cornfields between attractive wayside stations (broken only by the larger towns of Sudbury and Haverhill) to Shelford Junction and thence to Cambridge.
Although constructed to accommodate double track, traffic did not develop substantially to warrant expansion, so it remained single track with passing loops at most stations. The sad fact today is that most of the railway is all but a memory, closed completely north of Sudbury in March 1967. Contraction had begun earlier. The Long Melford-Bury section lost its passenger service in April 1961, followed by complete closure when freight services between Lavenham and Bury were withdrawn in April 1965; also on this date the branch from Bartlow through Saffron Walden to Audley End closed completely. Following an abortive scheme to preserve the section between Sudbury and Long Melford, the Stour Valley Railway Preservation Society acquired the redundant goods yard at Chappel and Wakes Colne, and in autumn 1970 work commenced on relaying the track. The site is now the East Anglian Railway Museum, one of the region's firmly established steam centres.
Softback, 32 pages, black & white photographs
Condition: Good/Very Good with a little wear to cover
ISBN: 9781871277180
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