A train enters Bicester Military Railway - geograph

Thomas_Hill_(Vanguard)_319V_(5676879108)

The Bicester Military Railway (BMR) is a railway in

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

belonging to the

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

. It links military depots at Piddington,

Arncott Arncott or Arncot is a village and civil parish about southeast of Bicester in Oxfordshire. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 1,738. There are two neighbourhoods: Lower and Upper Arncott. Upper Arncott is the larger neighbo ...

and Graven Hill with the

Oxford to Bicester Line Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...

History

The Bicester Military Railway was built in 1942 within the Bicester Central Ordnance Depot and was used extensively in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, particularly in the preparations for

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...

. The

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Harold Wilson James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from October 1964 to June 1970, and again from March 1974 to April 1976. He ...

visited the BMR in mid-1965 prior to a government spending review. On his orders it was spared from the railway cutbacks that were left over from Richard Beeching’s railway review of the early 1960s. .

Railway Squadrons

The BMR has about 40 miles of

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 ...

track in use. The BMR is the main base for 275 Railway Squadron, a unit of the

Royal Logistic Corps The Royal Logistic Corps provides logistic support functions to the British Army. It is the largest Corps in the Army. History The Royal Logistic Corps (RLC) was formed on 5 April 1993, by the union of five British Army corps: * Royal Engine ...

. Before 1999, 275 Railway Squadron was a stand-alone Squadron. Other RLC Regiments refer to the squadron colloquially as the ''Railway Children''. The Sub Unit recruits exclusively from the railway industry. Every soldier in the unit is a tradesman, able to drive a locomotive, operate railway signals, shunt, and do permanent way work. The unit's regular sister unit was

79 Railway Squadron The modern-day 79 Railway Squadron was part of the 17 Port and Maritime Regiment, The Royal Logistic Corps, of the British Army. They were responsible for maintaining and providing the British Army with its railway transportation requirements. Ori ...

and sometimes undertakes permanent way work with the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

unit 507 STRE. 275 Railway Squadron's now defunct insignia is a cross section of flat bottom rail in a blue diamond. This dates back to unit's involvement with the

Longmoor Military Railway The Longmoor Military Railway (LMR) was a British military railway in Hampshire, built by the Royal Engineers from 1903 in order to train soldiers on railway construction and operations. The railway ceased operation on 31 October 1969. Route ...

Sources

References

{{coord, 51.869, -1.132, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title Rail transport in Oxfordshire Military railways in the United Kingdom Railway lines opened in 1942 Royal Logistic Corps Bicester