Category: History

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Does the river flood very often?

One question that I have often been asked over the years, especially when it was raining was does the river flood very often?

The answer is yes it does on a regular basis and depending on the amount of rain the level of the river can change dramatically.

This year Nene Park was quoted as saying that it’s one of the worst winters yet for flooding.

Here are three pictures taken a few years ago at Orton Mere showing how the river can overflow and how close it can get to the station.

The lock at Orton Staunch © Patrick Knight
© Patrick Knight
© Patrick Knight

The above show the waters flooding immediately behind platform 2.

As a visitor said to me a few years ago. It makes a change from photographing trains.

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Putting a label on things

Here are two labels from my collection of photographed items.

Whilst not connected directly with the NVR they do show that Peterborough was an important staging post for goods by rail through the area and across the country.

Now the one above is for fish from Mallaig in Scotland to Lowestoft on the East coast.
I would guess some will be thinking why send fish from Scotland to a port on the East Anglian coast?

Well as far as I can find out they used to follow the herring around the coast and it was sent to Lowestoft for processing, should you know differently please drop me an email.

This image above again shows fish from the West coast of Scotland to the East coast of England. But in this case to Gt Yarmouth.

Judging by the date on the top left of the second image these are from the 1930’s

Should you have any more you can add to what I have written above reference the transportion of the fish from one port to another then I would love to hear from you.
Contact details are in the right hand column.

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A few more tickets

Previous posts showing old tickets have been popular with some site visitors asking if we have any more.

So here are a few more old tickets. I hope you enjoy them.

Wansford to Penrith
Castor to Northampton for a bicycle
Castor to Northampton 3rd class
Peterborough East to Wansford
Uppingham to Peterborough via Wansford.
Peterborough North Platform Ticket
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Old Railway Maps.

There is a lot to be learnt from old railway maps.

Take this one for example:-

Right click on image and save to computer to view a bigger version

If you look at this map you will be able to follow the line from Wansford to Peterborough and beyond.

The keen ones will notice the line from just outside Wansford to Stamford. Also you will notice this map predates the Fletton Loop.

It’s interesting to use something like Google Earth to follow the old lines that whilst on this map don’t exist anymore, the Stamford one being a good example.

Have a try and look at what you can see from current on line maps of what still survives.

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Advertisements and tickets

Many tickets these days seem to have adverts on the back for a variety of things from half price burgers to free cinema tickets.

Well back in the day railway tickets also had advertisements , however these were in the form of slip in adverts into pockets in the ticket.

Here are a couple of examples, I do wonder how successful they were.

Would they have encouraged you to purchase anything?

Would you buy a ticket from Nassington and be tempted to buy China tea?

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Recreating events.

One thing the railway often does is recreate events.

Here is a recreation of “The Pines Express” non-stop through Ferry Meadows station. This event is from April 2011.

The format of the video has been changed so hopefully more will be able to play it.

We have done both steam and diesel recreations.

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The Slip Coach

For some strange reason over the years I have been asked on a fairly regular basis if the railway ever used slip coaches.

Looking at this video I am sure you will realise that the answer is no!!

Mind you would perhaps be interesting on Castor Bank.

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Displaying and printing tickets.

Now the keen ones amongst you will have seen the tickets I have posted on here.

Well we also displayed them at Orton Mere each printed to A4 size.

Over the years we lost count of the number of people who would look at the ticket in A4 size and then mutter… The tickets were much bigger in those days!!!

Before you ask it was both men and women who commented.