March Traction Depot

Rare and previously unpublished images documenting the final decades of this now-closed traction maintenance depot. March is a small market town in the Fens, about 30 miles from Cambridge. The arrival of the railways transformed March and reached their peak during the Second World War, when March could lay claim to having the largest and most modern marshalling yard in Europe. With such a busy yard, locomotive maintenance was a necessity, and March boasted two steam sheds at its height. This book concentrates on the diesel depot constructed to maintain the new locomotives introduced under the 1955 modernisation plan. It stood from 1963 to 1996 and has not previously received the recognition it deserves in the history of the railway at March. Here Mark Foreman’s collection of previously unpublished images and informative captions goes some way to filling this gap.