The Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway opened a single track branch line from Honeybourne to Stratford on 12 July 1859. Long Marston station was opened just south of the village. The OW&WR became part of the Great Western Railway, which in 1908 upgraded the route into a double-track main line.
In 1966 British Railways withdrew passenger services from Long Marston station. Freight services through Long Marston continued until 1976, when the track between Long Marston and Stratford was lifted.
Long Marston Depot
Long Marston storage depot
The track between Honeybourne and Long Marston remains open for non-passenger trains to and from Long Marston depot, which was built as a Ministry of Defence facility known as Long Marston Central Engineering Park.[1] Since the privatisation of British Rail in the mid-1990s, rolling stock companies (ROSCOs) have used it to store out-of-lease rolling stock. The site is secure and secluded to minimise the risk of vandalism.
In 2014, it was announced that a volunteer-run working military railway would be created on the site of the former Ministry of Defence depot.[2] The Long Marston Military Railway project sought to keep alive military railway skills, such as re-railing of trains, as well as locomotive driving and track laying, following the disbanding of the British Army's last railway unit, the Royal Logistic Corps275 Railway Squadron, in March 2014 as a result of Government defence cuts.[citation needed] The 79 Railway Squadron had been disbanded in 2012.[citation needed]
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