Leighton Buzzard opens Munday’s Hill extension

THE sun smiled on the Leighton Buzzard Railway’s (LBR) April 30 opening of its extension from Stonehenge Works to Munday’s Hill. This represented the culmination of four years of hard, and sometimes frustrating (not least due to delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic) work by LBR volunteers.

The opening train was hauled by Andrew Barclay 0-6-0T Doll carrying a ‘Return to Munday’s

Hill’ headboard (the extended line is on the trackbed of the original Leighton Buzzard Light Railway), and a huge red bow.

Kathryn Embley, daughter of the late Alan Moore who was LBR’s President at the time of his death, and who provided essential finance towards construction of the passengerstandard line, cut a ribbon across the tracks at Stonehenge Works to officially open the extension.

Right: Andrew Barclay 0-6-0T Doll hauls a passenger service up LBR’s new Munday’s Hill extension later in the day on April 30, the opening headboard having been replaced by one denoting that a party aboard the train was celebrating a child’s 4th birthday. A demonstration skip train is being worked top-and-tail by two Motor Rail Simplex locomotives on the long siding parallel to the extension. BOTH IMAGES: STEVE SEDGWICK Inset: Kathryn Embley cuts the ribbon in front of Andrew Barclay 0-6-0T Doll to officially open LBR’s Munday’s Hill extension.