02/07/2019
Wir lieben alte Verkehrsanlagen
Bitte genießt sie, ohne sie zu zerstören
Although Corsham’s railway station closed on 1st January 1965 and was demolished soon afterwards, there is another station in the town which, although it closed at much the same time, is still completely intact, just as it was when the last train left. The only thing is that it is about 100 feet underground!
The station was built in 1936 to service the Central Ammunition Depot in Tunnel Quarry that lies just to the north of Box Tunnel, and entrance to the station… which has two terminal platforms, a long refuge siding and its own 4-road engine shed, is via a tunnel portal to the right of the eastern portal of the mainline Box Tunnel.
Central Ammunition Depot Corsham consisted of three underground sites: Tunnel Quarry at Corsham, Ridge & Eastlays at Gastard and Monkton Farleigh Quarry. The three depots were designed to hold all the war reserves of ammunition needed by the British Army during WW2, although as the war progress this requirement was to alter somewhat. Tunnel Quarry alone held approximately 150,000 tons of ammunition and during the build-up to D-day the underground station was despatching in excess of 4,000 tons to the south coast ports daily. Each of the depots had its own rail-sorting facility: Tunnel Quarry’s at Thingley Junction, Eastlays at Beanacre Sidings on the Melksham branch, and Monkton Farleigh at Farleigh Down Sidings on the main line east of Bath.
I’ve attached a few photo’s of the underground station and other features in Tunnel Quarry, together with a few images of the various railway facilities on the surface.
The full story of all the underground wartime installations at Corsham, and elsewhere in the UK, can be found in our most excellent, very heavily illustrated book ‘Second World War Secret Bunkers’ details of which can be found here: http://www.bradford-on-avon.org.uk/secondworldwarsecretbunkers.html.... A perfect Chridstmas pressy for anyone interested in the lesser known aspects of Box history.....
I’ve also attached a few sample pages from the book, relating to the Box & Corsham areas…..
