Where There is Smoke There are Shells
The railway at Duxford was laid down at the time of the Land Warfair Hall (LWH) being built. the intention was to show the use of the Simplex Petrol engines during WW1 in the trenches. the infomation to hand at the time was as follows..
The forward artillery batteries would use in the region of 38 Tons of amunition per day, Horse drawn transport was not able to cope in winter periods. Steam engines gave there positon away to the german artilery spotters and would be shelled. So narrow gauge railways were laid to supply the forward positions with ammo, rations & replacment troops. The petrol simplex was the engine that did the job without giving its positon away.
]The exibit in the LWH was at the time thought to be of enough interest to be be rolled out on occations, so a roller shutter was included in the building and track laid to the airfield rails.
The airfield rails were laid to public transport standard by Balfor Beatie. Two Lister powered engines were obtained along with a number of tiping trucks
from Orffod Ness coastal defence works that had been carried out some years before, an ammount of track was also brought to DX, this with the tipper made the shunting yard in the loop at the far western end of the airfeld.
The carridges were purpose made for the job to public transport standards of the time but with austair period design.
The reasons for its disuse are veried between Cost, HSE,CAA
The good news is that it all went to railway meuseums to be loved and cherrished as we do with our aircraft.
The doG still cant spell
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