Cleobury Mortimer and Ditton Priors Light Railway
The Cleobury Mortimer and Ditton Priors Light Railway (CM&DPLR) opened in 1908. It connected with the Tenbury and Bewdley Railway at Cleobury Mortimer. From there the line ran northwards for 12½ miles via Cleobury Town, Stottesdon and Burwarton to Ditton Priors.
At opening the Railway had two Manning Wardle 0-6-0 saddle tanks, numbers 1734 Burwarton and 1735 Cleobury. The railway was absorbed into the GWR in May 1922, following which the locomotives were re-numbered as GWR 28 and 29; they were later rebuilt as pannier tanks at Swindon in 1930. They remained as the regular engines on the line, although other small GWR tank engines would appear on the line from time to time.
The greatest use of the line was for the transport of stone from the granite quarries on Titterstone Clee and Brown Clee. Passenger numbers were never great and declined steadily after the First World War. As early as the 1920s some stations had effectively become request stops, and by the 1930s traffic had reduced to two ‘mixed’ trains per day. Passenger services ceased altogether in September 1938. However in 1941 the Royal Navy opened a Royal Naval Armaments Depot (RNAD) at the end of line at RNAD Ditton Priors, close to Brown Clee Hill. The line therefore remained open for both freight and military traffic, and locomotives using the line were fitted with spark arrestors.
GWR 28 and 29 were recoded as being at Kidderminster Shed in 1943.
The line became part of BR(W) under nationalisation in 1948 and continued in very limited use, sometimes with just one train per week. On 21 May 1955 the Stephenson Railway Society organised a ‘special’ from Birmingham via Kidderminster and Bewdley to Ditton Priors. Dean Goods No 2516 (now preserved at Steam in Swindon) hauled this to Cleobury Mortimer, where 0-6-0PT No 2144 (with spark arrestor) took over using CM&DPLR rolling stock. The ‘special’ travelled as far as Cleobury North Sidings, becoming the only passenger bogie-stock ever on the line.
Ownership of the line passed from BR to the Admiralty in May 1957, the occasional haulage by now being provided by Ruston & Hornsby 0-4-0 diesel shunters. Navy use of the line continued until 1960, when the railway finally closed (some Admiralty equipment was moved from the Depot by rail thereafter).
The line was considered as a possible candidate for preservation in the early days of the Severn Valley Railway Society, but was deemed unsuitable because of its remoteness and the relatively light axle load limits.
See also
Recerences
Leslie Oppitz (2004), Lost Railways of Shropshire