Shippea Hill was busier in the 60s.

I'm not sure if this was a Beeching or a Barbara Castle Hack, but it was fairly obvious that some people in the railway industry were not as dedicated as they should have been to their industry, so deliberately ran things down to achieve their targets. The ones who tried to run a railway did not fit in with the Establishment. If only there had been the likes of Chris Green at the top then.

@@paianis interesting-

Shippea hill existed for a while as a means to get the signalman come crossing gate operative to his box. And as said it used to be slightly busier as it is just about in walking distance of RAF Mildenhall.

@@MervynPartin they were still at it 10 years ago. The Walsall Wolverhampton train left 2 minutes before the train from Cannock arrived in Walsall. Deliberately run down and closed.

No, they chose the annual timetable change date. Seems sensible to me. What other date do you suggest?

@@ianhenderson4560 rush hour on a Monday morning. Get bums on seats.

The christening of the bin bag is an important ceremony.

Someone from Network Rail spotted Geoff & said quick get a bin bag ready.

How long before those bin bags fill with rain water, considering they seem to have no lids and are out in the open.

So am I!

Agree totally! A great day !

Well, it was really Marples the road builder; Beeching was just his hatchet man.

Nothing to do with Beeching.

@@simonjames3845 really?

He did it with the NLE and said "he'll never do it again", just wait for Crossrail...

I lived on Nightall for a few years, Soham was a great town, allegedly it had the longest high street in the country.

Indeed, good to see all 4 remembered. Fireman Nightall (who died) and Driver Gimbert (who remarkably survived) received the GC and had engines named after them but Signalman Bridges, although he was killed, didn't have either. Nor did Guard Clarke. Certainly Gimbert's and Nightall's were the key actions that saved the town from annihilation, but Bridges and Clarke also did their duty.

They should have had Geoff cut a ribbon for the grand opening of the bin bag.

Geoff would even turn up and make a video of the opening of an envelope if he thought it would get enough views.

Ironically there probably is a new bus stop to service the station too.

Some bus stations get fancy opening ceremonies too, which I think is more comparable.

Looks to have about as many facilities as a bus stop, though!

@@TalesOfWar And even bus stops can get attention. Geoff paid brief attention to the bus that now serves Oakhampton station in the reopening video.

Haven't read anything about that recently, is it still in the pipeline for 2026?

@@robertyoung9611 A service from Wisbech via Ely, Soham and then a reinstated curve to Newmarket and Cambridge (and maybe on to London?) would be a great addition. I'm sure the majority of people in Soham will be wanting to go to Newmarket and Cambridge more than to Ely, Peterborough, Bury St Edmunds or Ipswich, so while having this new service is better than nothing, I don't expect it will be attracting anywhere near as many passengers as that potential new service would.

Nothing to do with Beeching.

well the mothballed line is still there potential for a Wisbeach Parkway edge of town station although alot of work will be needed to recommission all the crossings including the notorious one on the A47,

"The bin bag, my friend, is blowing in the wind..."

Money and funding! its the same reason there isn't two tracks back in Soham right now. We are working with other Rail Users groups to keep pushing the business case to reopen Chippenham Triangle and redouble from Soham to Ely. Apart from anything else, we need the capacity for freight!

Not just to Cambridge, it must also be a tad irritating for Soham locals that there is no direct service to the nearest town of any size (Newmarket) although the train passes close by it. I guess there is a bus service to both places from Soham, though.

Yes indeed this would be a massive benefit to the local area. Would be great too if the track could be redoubled from Coldhams Lane Junction in Cambridge to Chippenham Junction (or at least additional passing loops installed). The hourly services get too crowded at times especially when the races are on at Newmarket.

@@frglee A bus every hour to Newmarket and Cambridge (and Ely in the other direction), Monday to Saturday daytime only. No buses at all to the station, and while it isn't a _big_ town, some of the residential areas are a good 20 or even 30 minute walk away, so not as joined up as Okehampton.

Yes properly so the new station must enhance the value of land and entice people to move out to the leafy countryside .

Thanks, you too! it was a mad full on day, wasn't it?

@@geofftech2 Indeed, Full on, but really positive. As you've heard, plenty of people in the region have long wanted a station to return, so this was a great day.

Just passed through again, on the train this time, on the way home. Interesting to note to path to nowhere still goes nowhere!

For some reason, we all have to say 'train station' now.

There's no direct service to Cambridge

I'm always amazed at how many details know about specific railways.

47578 was there yesterday on the 14/12/21 along with a pair of 37s.

Can't beat bury station! Always weird having to go upstairs to get onto the platform.

@@haco6930 Always had such fond memories of that station as being this “route to a 1000 places” out of Bury. That and Thurston, my other local.

Well, considering he's been to every station in the British Isles, the odds of that happening are surprisingly high.

Thanks!

I hope the memorial is in a prominent position it is something not only as part of local history but to the train crew and others who were involved.

I'm pretty sure it's his birth year...

Or he was born in 1982.....?

@@666Tomato666 I’m pretty sure this was a joke lol

I heard that the footbridge is there just in case another platform gets built. I'll believe it when it happens.

Space I think

Yep, I thought that. It means when services run badly, you can get stuck before the platform waiting for the train from the other direction to come through.

I guess that extending the double-tracked section would have cost more money, and moving the station to the existing double-tracked section would take it further from the town centre and put it on "the wrong side of the river". As it is, you can have trains stopping in both directions on a single platform, whereas if you placed the station on the double-tracked section, you'd either have to have two platforms or run some trains wrong-way in order to allow them to stop at a single platform. That's the problem with Pilning station (or, at least, one of the problems) - the removal of the footbridge due to electrification of the London-Cardiff mainline means that only one platform is available, so only eastbound trains stop (two per week).

If the container traffic to the midlands continues to increase, then its a matter of when and not if they add the second line.

@Capt Shiny not at all, we just need to stop making things stupidly expensive...

Presumably the footbridge forms part of a right-of-way . . .