Colne valley railway.

Any plans to extend the running line here?

 

I have asked the last couple of times I visited and was told the same thing each time that while they would love to do so money is the biggest problem as they said they would have to lay track over virgin agricultural land and cross a busy main road with a new level crossing so its not practicable in the short term. Its difficult to see if they will ever be able to extend the track further.

It would be nice to hear if that has changed though as their track is only quite short.

 

Its a shame that Colne face these challenges..... if your in Essex and length matters to you, you should try the friendly bunch down the Epping-Ongar; 6 mile in length and two original 1865 stations... and well on its way towards have the infrastructure ready for loco hauled trains (steam and diesel).... www.eorailway.co.uk

 

Right… First posting so please be gentle!

Just to add a bit more detail to what Pesmo has said, this is the situation we face. Our ideal line would run all the way back to Halstead, a distance of about 5 miles. Unfortunately some inconsiderate soul has built a house over the original formation where it crosses Nunnery Street in the village of Castle Hedingham. Beyond this the trackbed is largely clear for most of the way back to Halstead, but because of the housing we would have to deviate around the villages of Castle- and Sible Hedingham before rejoining the original formation the other side.

Looking the other way towards Haverhill, the next village is Great Yeldham, and to extend as far as here would give us a line of about 2-3 miles. The biggest obstacle to this would be crossing the A1017 which runs alongside our site before crossing the formation at the north end. To cross this would mean either a full level crossing (sadly it’s an A road so we couldn’t settle for a North Norfolk style restricted use crossing) or a bridge, which due to the nature of the surrounding land would need to be a bit like the East Lancs’ ‘Ski jump’. With the best will in the world I’m not sure that some of our smaller locos could manage that!

There have been one or two other ideas touted around for extending in totally new directions which I’d rather not mention on a public forum (wouldn’t want to jeopardise any future plans), but basically as things stand at the moment, the cost is currently prohibitive, whichever direction we tried to go in. If anyone happens to find a few million down the back of the sofa then we’d love to hear from you!

However this winter should see an extension of sorts, albeit only by about 3 coach lengths. The current layout at Nunnery Jn at the South end of the line is a run round loop in a cutting, along with a headshunt which is approx. 4 coaches long. Currently only DMUs and top-and-tailed trains can use the full length of the line, loco hauled trains of course having to stop and run round in the loop. The plan is to extend the loop, leaving just enough headshunt to fit the longest loco we’re ever likely to run (currently our biggest working loco is the class 31). This will extend our ‘useful’ running line a bit, and more importantly trains will stop beyond the cutting, giving passengers a view of Hedingham Castle and the surrounding countryside while the loco runs round.

Sorry for the long post, hope it’s been of interest.