Benwick goods yard, looking towards the buffer stops. J17 No. 65572 is positioned with its train ready for the return working to Three Horse Shoes. To the rear of the train lay the railway’s wharf on the River Nene Old Course, provided for the interchange of traffic with the waterway. THE BENWICK BRANCH The Great Eastern Railway’s drive to revive fenland agriculture and horticulture after the early-19th-century depression hinged on rapid transit of perishable produce. In the Norfolk and Cambridgeshire fens, poor roads and winding waterways left black-soil crops stale and devalued by the time they reached market. Proximity to a station or siding was therefore essential; isolation meant economic stagnation. The GER responded with goods yards at stations and intermediate sidings, while briefly examining low-cost tramways. Only the Wisbech & Upwell Tramway (Outwell 1883, Upwell 1884) proved viable. Farmers around Three Horse Shoes, on the Peterborough–March main line, had pressed for a siding for over a decade. The GER finally opened facilities there in March 1881. Success of the W&U Tramway prompted calls for a southward tramway from Three Horse Shoes to Benwick. The proposal was rejected, but a goods shed and granary were added in 1886 to cope with rising traffic. The 1889 Somersham–Ramsey High Street branch further weakened the case; the board judged the district adequately served by that line and the GER-owned, GN-worked Holme branch. Growers persisted for another six years, eventually threatening to enlist a rival company. This forced the GER’s hand. The board approved construction provided the branch could be worked with ordinary goods stock rather than specialised tramway locomotives and vehicles. Authorised in May 1895, the line opened in stages: to Burnt House on 1 September 1897 and through to Benwick on 2 August 1898. A purely goods branch, it served the fenland for 67 years until closure in July 1964. The centenary of its full opening was marked in August 1998. Benwick Branch remnants At Three Horseshoes Junction (Turves): the GER signal box is still operational but modernised and the adjacent goods shed is extant but derelict. The Alignment the curve is visible in property boundaries near Poplars LC with intermittent earthworks & raised formation, some sections are now byways and farm tracks. The southern half has largely been absorbed into fen farmland. The Benwick terminus yard is gone but wharf site on Nene Old Course still has the working staithe. Photo: Dr JC Allen