Rediscovering the March to Spalding Line 

So much left to see. Stations, signal boxes, signals, lines themselves. Plate layer huts. - what a gem. superb film

Fabulous footage and revealing of our transport history. Bitter-sweet in that the historical pictures show how we've stoically marched backwards since the 1950s. Understandably, many lines were lost leaders, but had even 50% remained, the economy of the Fens and greater East Anglia would have flourished and the population demographic been more prosperous and better educated. Places like Wisbech, Spalding and Holbeach, once fine working and middle-class towns, have sunk miserably.

I think I remember as a child in July 1980 travelling from Lincoln to Norwich going on this route with the bumpy line due to subsidence, and certain the locomotive was a class 40.

To think that all lines into Spalding were nearly lost entirely. The existing Spalding to Peterborough line, now laden with dozens of huge intermodal freight, other various forms of freight, and a now improved faster passenger service was very nearly axed along with this route. Only through a massive campaign by the local community that fought to keep it open did it survive. It’s another very nostalgic, sad video to see this line gone, but it’s good to see so many old relics still standing, even with years of negligence!! Just shows how tough they built things back in the day! In essence, this line has effectively been diverted, as the new dive under at Werrington forms a direct connection with the Peterborough - March - Ely line and the Peterborough - Spalding - Lincoln line. Thank goodness it was saved. A little thing back then made the world of difference. It’s important to fight for what you have. Use it or lose it.

I think there is a growing interest for the possible reopening of this line

Amazing Footage!! Love railroad history!!! Greetings from Tennessee USA!

Another brilliant video. Those bridge piers on the river Nene are remarkable. Love it.

Excellent video as always. Amazed at the relics to be found along this route.

Love to trace the course of these forgotten routes now left over to mother nature, or built on for new purposes. A bygone era now a relic from the past. Times and circumstances change, as does their continued requirements, so things get swept aside and life goes on. Nostalgic memories to savour and view then and now.

Once again the music helped to convey the sadness of the demise of yet another section of our former railway heritage, thank you for showing us yet another lost line.

I suppose Vaughn Williams In the Fen Country was a natural for this. Very enjoyable as ever, thank you very much.

One of my favourites..

Noticeably more railway infrastructure left behind when this line closed than was usual BR practice. Makes the course of this railway even more poignant. Well done the people of Cowbit for maintaining the station house and signal box in tip-top order. Brilliant video as usual and an excellent choice of music.

Beautifully put together and with the most appropriate soundtrack.

I find it difficult to actually write about the feelings your videos raise. A mixture of sadness, interest and longing I think. Thank you

So many memories of such good days we had in the past , God alone knows how our country is better today

Years ago I visited HMP Whitemoor on several occasions (not as an inmate I hasten to add!) and your video captures the bleakness and solitary nature of Fenland wonderfully well. It is a unique and very lovely part of England. Thank you so much for this video.

Ther was a by pass built from spalding to Peterbotough a few years back. It brought in to view a semaphore signal that had remained out of sight for decades untouched. It wasnt more than a few days and a few spanners later, someone climbed the ladders and stole both the arms.!!!!!!!! It was a great sight to see in the middle of nowhere. Be about 2011. Just a post now. the Postland signal box was in good condition around 1998. I cant believe how the owner has let it go. there were sidings in front of spalding station where thr supermarket car park is now.

This is my favourite one. Vaughan Williams ' Fen music is perfect and the photography fabulous.

That's a fantastic video. I took that line once in my teens, just prior to closure so that I could experience it. I used to enjoy watching the trains rounding the final curve just beyond Spalding station, which was visible from the rugby field. Back in the 80's there was a lot of goods (flyash?) traffic on that line. Great memories, and I'm pleased to see some of the buildings and line furniture survives today....

Congratulations on yet another fine piece of work. The Anglia region is gradually yielding up its railway secrets! Once again the choice of music could hardly be more fitting. Bravo!

How short sighted if they had just mothballed this line they could have used it for all the north south freight avoiding the East Coast mainline. Instead millions are being spent on underpasses and bridges to make freight trains avoid crossing junctions. A lovely piece of footage I remember working in the fields at Postland in the summer seeing summer holiday specials on the line. Murrow always intrigued me with the old crossover of the M & GN

Just beautiful. Thoroughly enjoyed this, only the second of your videos that I have watched. Thank you for including the composer name and piece of music you use each time, too. Choice of music spot on, both in length and theme. Thank you for such a quality piece of work.

I was an office cleaner at March in 1986, saw all the plans for the prison spread out on the desks there

This is one of my favourites. The filming and music lend a great poignancy.

This is my 8th video to watch !! I love history like this and the old structures still standing! I am glad I found you

I used to work with a guy at Boston Dock. He used to be S. & T. Supervisor somewhere in this region. He told me what the signal used to be near Cowbit, and the other one also near Cowbit. I think one was the section signal heading toward Spalding, the other was inner home to Cowbit. I remember when the line closed, I was offerred, but did not accept (pratt) a ride on the recovery trains after closure.

Thanks again for another trip down memory lane,your video`s are always a must watch for me,well done .

Wow! Thank you so much for a high-quality and evocative video. I've been a railway enthusiast for 60+ years and moved to the Spalding area a couple of years ago. We're not short of disused railways around here and I've already had a nose about on several of them. But your brilliant effort has inspired me to explore more of the March- Spalding route. Thanks again.

So glad to find this video. I’ve recently driven along the Feb roads in this area and noticed not only the evidence of the former railway, but also that there is so much left. It makes sense now I know it only closed in the 80s- thank you for this insight

Your videos are brilliant! Excellent research, coupled with superb camera work, accompanied by the relevant OS maps and perfect music. I have lived in various areas you've filmed and seen things I recalled and things I wish I'd seen, even felt homesick. I had the pub in Welton-le-Marsh for a couple of years, and loved driving by the converted signal hut (or Station?) at Burgh-le-Marsh about 3 miles away toward Skegness, it used to make me wonder what other villages were served by long closed branch lines. I could watch these forever, so well done. Thank you.

Again it was a pleasure to watch :) and you really found a good railway that showed off how good the remains are :) keep it up love the videos

Brilliant. That has cleared up what I was trying to find out. I was at Rings End recently, took some pictures and saw all that you show but I also noticed a small platform and I wondered if it was a Halt but I now I assume this was used for the loading of goods. Many thanks.

Brilliant once again, we are being totally spoiled by your fine work. So much left to discover on this line thankfully. I look forward to watching many more.

Excellent...I remember being diverted along this route back in the 1970s when i was on the footplate at Kings Cross...usually at weekends for engineering work on ECML...brings back some long lost memories...thanks!

I remember the signal box at French Drove, it was for sale and has now I see been converted to a home. The station and box were once owned by Contour Autocraft who occupy the goods yard still and I think the station is still a converted house. Great stuff and interesting to watch

Very good. Had to change trains at March a few years ago and during the long wait walked along to the Spalding line for a look. This video answers my questions about the route.

Brilliant nostalgic footage; love the music, and the mapping!

Here in Australia I worked in my youth for the Queensland Railway Dept., as did my father for many years, and his father for a few years till he went to war with the A.I.F. in 1916. He was just 21 when killed in France 8 Aug. 1917.

The first image in your slideshow is actuallys to be Wisbech East Station, showing the main two platform faces for March and King's Lynn trains on the left, and the lower level Tram platform face (Wisbech / Upwell Tramway) and its avoiding loop line on the right. The two victorian gas lamps on the island platform suggest a pre-1950 era in which the photograph was taken. The DVD 'Branch Lines Across East Anglia' (by TVP) has a rare 28 minute colour film edited journey along the entire former Great Eastern March to Magdalen Road Junction Branch Line, via Wisbech East, prior to closure in September 1968.

Another incredible video , so i subbed as these are amazing

Thank you that's brilliant

Driven this line many times a proper railway

I love the film I just moved to the area and have been filming the old railways keep up the good work

love this and the music

Such wonderful station names.

Many people blame Beeching for our lost railways but I don't. I am old enough @ 71 to have lived through Nationalisation, the decline under BR, Beeching and eventually Privatisation (something I applaud as it happens). My family were railwaymen and women and I did part of my apprenticeship at Swindon. Many years later I was Project Officer for the East West Rail Consortium seeking to re-open the Bicester to Cambridge line. Without much success! The real villains (IMHO) were the BR senior Managers who conspired to make out certain lines were not economic (when they clearly were) to have them closed under Beeching. The Settle / Carlisle line being the classic example especially as it survived. And of course when services were ended (as most should have been) by Beeching they then committed what I would class as industrial sabotage by lifting tracks, demolishing signal boxes and stations and then selling the trackbed to anyone as long as it was built on. What they should have done is mothball every mile and siding, run weedkiller trains along twice a year and simply maintained the railway rights over the trackbeds. A policy that would have cost next to nothing and certainly less than the cost of thousands of engineers trains lifting thousands of miles of tracks. Projects like EWR now have to spend £ Mns just to obtain rights that were held barely 40 years ago and bypass built on trackbed. And don't even get me started on the idiocy of lifting a second track and moving the other to the centre of the alignment! Sadly this beautiful line is a perfect example of this deliberate policy. Shame on them

A real pleasure to watch, thank you so much once again. The restored signal box is really good. Keep up the good work and I am looking forward to the next one.

Beautiful choice of music!. I see from the photograph at Guyhirne that the local dignitaries turned out to greet you. Thank you from Toronto!

At 5.41. As you can see the signal box is a relatively modern replacement. The original which was hit in a 'crash' proved to be uneconomic to repair., I think. There was a crossing of the M&GN ( Peterborough to Sutton Bridge) at this point on the level. I would have to check but the 'crash 'was on the crossing.

You could always spot that signal gantry along the A16 Shame the line closed would have been really useful today

Great!

Great video enhanced by the music!

I have all 9 East Anglian railway DVDs from TVP (Transport Video Publishing. The most attractive one is 'Branch Lines Across East Anglia' as its shows Wisbech East in all its colourful glory with a Derby Lightweight 2-car DMU stopping train in the King's Lynn bound platform.

Thank you for another thought provoking beautifully made Film, I suspect that it must take Days to produce the finished Film. Once again such lovely Music.

thank you

Really sad to see that signal box next Postland station in such a state.

"Of course, he's not going to climb up the signal gantry, it would be far too dangerous ... oh ... he did!" :)

As usual brilliant video. This line shoud never have been closed

i remember so much FRIGHT and passenger train being diverted over the JOINT line from Spalding when there was a mishap on the main line i also remember the HUMP sidings before the PRISON was built and passenger working on PLT 3 and 4 to Spalding

Great video, the Holbeach, Postland and Cowbit stations are on one of the regular cycle routes I do, I just wondered if you might do the Wansford to Stamford part of the Stamford and Essendine railway,

When I was in the S&T installers at Cambridge we put the barriers in at Cowbit, BR was good at wasting money on lines doomed to close! During the whole time we were there - about a week - I only saw 2 trains!

Another great video! Other than the flat crossing was there any physical connection between the two lines at Murrow?

Destruction of this line is one of many..you only have to look at the bigger picture,to realise....it's not just our railways,but the slow dismantling of our country..very sad indeed?

This line shut in the early eighties? Looks like it went fifty years earlier, unbelievable!

I know I'm a year late but at French drove i saw railway tracks in there for their house

I like walking disused railways but your video is far more comfortable. Thanks for sharing.

I worked at Kilby signal box when this line closed,british rail was losing traffic so fast that this line was shut however now that the east coast main line is full there was some inquirery if it could be reopened

was good to see the concrete semaphore signal gantry at cowbit...Ty for taking the time to record it.. there are not many left now in situ and so complete... this what the one at Denver Junction on the Kings Lynn Line looked like before the junction and siding closed... incony.org/360Panorama/Denverjuntionpano1/New%20Panorama1.html

Like history was uprooted

I hope the Signal Box at Postland gets saved & restored

Hmm, that diamond xing at Murrow; I can find ref's for it, but can I spot where it would have been on google-earth... not a chance. Presumably that other line is defunct too and ploughed-up? Oh, and thankyou for these films! :D Ah-ok, just 'drove' the road (google again) and spotted the signal-box. Blimey there's almost no signs at all, of any railways! Will you explore that line too? (I'm new here so not seen all vid's, apologies if you've done it)

How do you find out about a stations history that has not yet been written about yet

One thing I've noticed throughout the videos that I've watched so far, is that most of the basic grading is still intact and ROW's (possibly) are still there . Couldn't these lines be rebuilt sometime in the future for rail and/or other purposes?

Such a shame. Many lines if there now would save lots of road traffic. Beaching was so short sighted and the destructer of British Railways.

How many people will mourn the loss of a road? Most are overcrowded with impatient drivers, so unlike the branch railways that were our heritage. Why the need to destroy the bridges, rip up track, sell off land to greedy developers? There seems to be a determination to prevent anyone ever restoring these lines, it is intensely sad.

Another short sighted closure as the government pushes for housing many find new town or extensions to town with no transport options and often objections are based increased traffic in unsuitable rural roads and congestion caused..

1st Civil Servant: "We need to build a new prison near March". 2nd Civil Servant: "In that case we need a disused railway line". 1st Civil Servant: "I can't seem to find one here on the map". 2nd Civil Servant: "Then we can't possibly build a new prison there, out of the question".

This is a great little series. the music is brilliant too, who is it ?

Black and white photo of march is wisbech not march.

At Murrow this line crossed the M&GN line from Peterborough to Wisbech.

Should be shown where the M&GN flyover was just outside Spalding considering you'd have walked past it to get some of the shots and quite alot of that is still there. Great film otherwise.

Really enjoying your videos Any chance you can keep the text on screen 5 seconds more as not all of us are fast readers. I do keep pausing but it spoils the video Keep up with the Dog bollocks

It’s guyhirn not guyhirne

3:07 Does this mean mum is 'The Beast'?