I usually manage to fit in a railway-related detour on any long car journey and last week's trip to North Norfolk was no exception with a brief stop being made to photograph a sand train at Middleton Towers.
Located on the former Great Eastern Railway (originally Lynn & Dereham Railway) line between King's Lynn and Swaffham the former Middleton Towers station site is now used as a loading point for sand trains from the SIBELCO UK quarry at Leziate.
We arrived just as GB Railfreight's 66722 Sir Edward Watkin was about to leave (27 minutes early) with train 6E84, the 08.20 Mondays and Fridays only (MFO) service to Rockware Glass at Doncaster.
Sir Edward Watkin (1819-1901) had links with numerous railway companies and projects but is probably best known for being Chairman of both the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway (that changed its name to the Great Central Railway in 1897) and the South Eastern Railway and for his aborted scheme to build a railway tunnel under the English Channel. Work began on the latter in 1880 and a pilot tunnel extended over 6,000 ft from Shakespeare Cliff before Parliament brought the project to a halt believing it would 'compromise Britain's national defences.'
The '3M 11C' marking on the crossing gatepost refers to the location's distance of 3 miles and 11 chains from the station at King's Lynn, a chain being a unit of length that measures 66 feet (there are 80 chains in one mile).
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