Chris Bates, formerly of the KWVR sent me the following information about an exhibition he has been involved in. Sounds like there might be a physical exhibition in the future, depending on the covid sitation.
If you follow the above link, it will take you to the section of The Railway Hub website which features in full the Society's* recent media release on the forthcoming virtual exhibition commemorating the closure of the branch line from Woodhall Junction to Woodhall Spa and Horncastle.
The Railway Hub has used the two images from the William Woolhouse Collection bequeathed to the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway Historic Vehicles Trust and used with their kind permission, together with an illustration of a ticket to Horncastle which recently sold on eBay for £32 and also, an image of the drawing of the station as it was, when opened in 1855 and which is now in the archives of the *Horncastle History and Heritage Society.
The site pulls together information, illustrations and articles from the railway-themed magazines produced in Horncastle by Morton's Media - proof that even 50 yeas after the last train left Horncastle, the railway industry in its widest sense still plays a significant role in the economy of the town.
It will be interesting to see whether The Railway Hub's inclusion of the possibility of a narrow gauge "train" being buried in the old brick pit at the rear of the erstwhile Railway Hotel in North Street, Horncastle, (behind Kemp's hardware shop) creates any further interest.
I'm grateful to everyone who has played a part in helping to prepare this information and who worked on the Wm Woolhouse photos to tidy them up; also the Trustees of the LCLR's Historic Vehicles Trust for their generosity in allowing them to be used.
I am a little late in joining this thread, but I have a copy of the January 1953 issue of Trains Illustrated which has a article on the Horncastle Branch by J Cupit. The was written at the time that withdrawal of passenger services was threatened and describes the author's journey on the branch before the axe fell. If anyone is interested, I will attempt to scan the article and photos and post them on this thread. Please let me know.
I believe the exception from copyright restrictions in respect of research and private study would apply here. My copy is a bound set of the entire 1953 volume so might prove a little difficult to scan properly. in addition the font originally used was microscopic! I may have to run it through an OCR program to convert into a Word document. I'll see what I can do.
Incidentally what do others plan to do with there collections of similar historic publications when they arrive at the great terminus in the sky? Would their descendants appreciate the historical (and, perhaps, monetary) value of these works or they end up in the skip (the publications, not the descendants)?
Atlantic 3279
Here is the text of the article I referred to earlier;
Twilight on the Horncastle Branch by J Cupit
Passenger trains in the Lincolnshire Wolds may soon be no more than a memory. Of the three lines which serve this area, only the 7 1/2 mile branch from Woodhall Junction Horncastle still operates a passenger service, but even that, according to a recent observation by British Railways, is no longer an economic proposition. It was this suggestion of impending closure which prompted me to make sure of a trip on the Horncastle Branch before it was too late.
When we arrived at Woodhall Junction, exactly midway between Boston and Lincoln on the old GNR loop line, we found the branch train standing in a short bay on the up side. An ex-GC 0-6-2 tank with a Lincoln shed-plate was simmering at the buffer stops, hemmed in by a quaint articulated twin saloon of what appeared to be Great Northern origin. This was the 2.0 pm to Horncastle, described in the working timetable as “mixed”, though there was no evidence to support the claim on that day. Promptly to booked time, with several passengers on board, No. 69327 pushed its train out onto a spur, stopped, reversed, and set off again, this time on the branch line proper. This reversal is necessitated by the layout, for the junction of the main line and branch faces south-eastwards to Boston, whereas Woodhall Junction station stands on the Lincoln or north-western side of the connection, so that direct running from the platform on to the Horncastle line is impossible.
From the spur the branch makes a sharp turn to the North East and after a run of 1 ½ miles reaches Woodhall Spa, one of our smaller health resorts, whose waters are said to be unequalled in England for their richness in iodine and bromine. The spring of medicinal water, around which the township has grown, was discovered about 140 years ago when abortive coal boring operations were in progress. The simple layout at Woodhouse Spa, the only intermediate station on the line, incorporates a passing loop, though no trains are now booked to cross here, flanked by two wooden platforms, one with a prim little bookstall, a single siding is provided for the use of coal traffic. The signal box, open throughout the. of the daytime train service, exchanged our staff and we were launched on the three-mile climb through birch woods, bracken and heather - landscape quite out of keeping with the traditional Lincolnshire scenery - until we reached the only overbridge on the line. On the gentle descent from this point to the terminus we had the company of the now disused on Horncastle canal.
Horncastle, a quaint little market town at the southern end of the Lincolnshire Wolds 7 ½ miles from Woodhall Junction, we reached in the 22 minutes allowed. Our engine was cut off and busied itself in the yard, making up the evening freight train which it would later take out for Lincoln. The yard at Horncastle is quite sizeable for there are private sidings to malt kilns and to a petrol depot, as well as the usual cattle pens, loading docks and sidings, and a water tank and crane are provided for the use of the locomotives. Passenger accommodation consists of one main platform with run-around facilities and a short bay.
By 3:30 p.m. the shunting of the yard was completed, the evening freight train has been assembled and No. 69327 was coupled up to the saloons ready for the 4.5 p.m. to Woodhall Junction. Our guard and the signalman were up in the box chatting of this and that; the driver and firemen were dividing their attention between cold tea and sandwiches and an honest appraisal of the British education system in the company of a sympathetic schoolmistress who was to travel with us: over in the yard a coal wagon was being unloaded. It was a delightfully peaceful scene so typical of the rural branch lines of Britain. A few school children arrived and by the advertised departure time we had mustered almost a dozen passengers. The tank laboured noisily up to the summit, but once over the top we rattled away quite smoothly on the steep descent to the Spa and so came to the final stage of our sentimental journey.
The branch traffic is not heavy. There are five daily passenger trains each way, and one round freight trip with no Sunday service. Boston shed supplies the engine for the morning passenger service, for the 6.25 am from Boston to Woodhall Junction includes the Horncastle parcels van and becomes the 7.15 am from Woodhall Junction, making two round trips over the branch before arriving back in Boston at 10:24 a.m. The two afternoon passenger trains each way and the freight run are Lincoln shed duties. The pickup freight leaves Lincoln at 7 a.m. for Woodall Junction, whence, after shunting the yard, it pulls out at 9:35 a.m. for Horncastle. After shunting there it picks up the branch coach set which has been standing in the station overnight, to provide the 12:42 p.m. service Woodhall Junction. Two round trips with the saloon brings the locomotive back to Horncastle at 5.7 p.m., where it disposes of the coaches, picks up the outgoing freight wagons and, at 6 p.m., begins the homeward run to Lincoln. The final turn of the day is around passenger working from Boston to Horncastle and back.
In the years before the first world war there was a daily through service between Kings Cross and Horncastle, the coach being attached to the 4 p.m. down Leeds (Horncastle arr. 7.10 p.m.) and in the reverse direction leaving Horncastle at 9:20 a.m. attached at Peterborough to the 9 a.m. from Leeds and reaching Kings Cross at 1.5 p.m. Between the wars the coach ran on Fridays and Saturdays only going down, and on Saturdays and Mondays only up; latterly it was attached to the 4.5 p.m. Cleethorpes (Horncastle arr. 7:28 p.m.) and the corresponding up train (Horncastle dep. 9.10 a.m.; King’s Cross arr. 1.3 p.m. Note the 13 minutes deceleration going down and 8 minutes up, even before the last war. Since the war, no through service has been restored. It was run mainly for the benefit of golfers at Woodhall Spa. The Horncastle coach was detached from the Cleethorpes portion (later the Cleethorpes train) at Boston and run forward specially along the Boston-Lincoln line as far as Woodhall Junction to reach the branch.
