Burwell Tramway was a

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in Ea ...

industrial tramway Tramways are lightly laid railways, sometimes with the wagons or carriages moved without locomotives. Because individual tramway infrastructure is not intended to carry the weight of typical standard-gauge railway equipment, the tramways over w ...

which ran from the Ely- Newmarket line, just south of the

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- Wicken A1123 road (), to industries just north of Burwell Lode (). As well as serving

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chemical (fertilizer) works, the line also served the adjacent Burwell Brick Company

brickworks A brickworks, also known as a brick factory, is a factory for the manufacturing of bricks, from clay or shale. Usually a brickworks is located on a clay bedrock (the most common material from which bricks are made), often with a quarry for cl ...

, a cement works, and local fruit growers and farmers.

History

The line was in existence by 1900 and was closed in 1971.

Fruit Tramway

An Ordnance Survey map from the 1920s shows an agricultural tramway feeder, possibly narrow gauge from the cartographic representation, running west across Little Fen parallel to and south of New River through an area of orchards.

Locomotives

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4-wheel diesel-mechanical locomotive no. FH3887 at work c. 1959, photograph reference IND330, IND579

References

* ''Industrial Locomotives of East Anglia'' by C.Fisher, published by the Industrial Railway Society * Ordnance Survey map: 7th Edition, sheet 135, Cambridge & Ely, revised 1950, published 1954 * ''Forgotten Railways: Vol 7 East Anglia'' by R.S.Joby, published by David St John Thomas (map, p. 102) Rail transport in Cambridgeshire {{England-rail-transport-stub