Woodford Halse

Woodford’s life as a railway town – or, more accurately, a railway village – was by railway standards very short, at just 67 years. It began life as Woodford & Hinton on the Great Central Railway’s ‘London Extension’ and, being midway between London and Nottingham, and connected to the GWR at Banbury, it was provided with marshalling yards and a large loco shed. As an outpost of the LNER at the Grouping of 1923, nationalisation saw it become part of the Eastern Region of British Railways. In 1958 the line was transferred to the London Midland Region and thereafter was allowed to wither and die. Woodford Halse, as it had become, closed with the line in September 1966. However, during its short life the line and station played host to a wide variety of former LNER, LMS and BR Standard locomotives, and many are depicted in this wonderfully evocative collection of photographs. They paint a picture of a remote yet once bustling railway location set deep in rural Northamptonshire.