Shippea Hill railway station

Shippea Hill railway station

Ship pea Hill is a railway station in the county of Cambridge shire, England. It was opened in 1845 as Milden hall Road. In 1885, its name was changed to Burnt Fen, and finally in about 1904 to Ship pea Hill.[1]
Ship pea Hill is situated on the line between Ely and Norwich. According to 2003 Strategic Rail Authority figures, Ship pea Hill was (and remains) one of the least-used railway stations in Great Britain with at one point just eleven passengers a year.[2] Passenger figures saw an increase on the 2004–05 report with 37 tickets being sold that either originated or exited the network at Ship pea Hill. A surprising rally saw passenger usage increase seventy fold in 2007-2008 from the low of 2004.
Situated some distance away from any substantial settlement (although not many miles from Milden hall) in a totally flat fen landscape, Ship pea Hill in fact has no hill.
Despite not being within walking distance of any large settlement, most of the station's car park was closed and sold off after the Privatization of British Rail.
The level crossing adjacent to Ship pea Hill Railway Station is not automated; the gates are opened and closed manually by Network Rail staff.

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Shippea Hill Station

 Ship pea Hill Station

Ship pea Hill Station is managed by National Express East Anglia and is located in or near Ship pea Hill, England. You can see what other attractions are near Ship pea Hill Station if you follow this link to other attractions and event locations in the area of East Cambridge shire on this website or you can get detailed information regarding opening times and other facilities if you follow this link to it's own website (if available). At the bottom of this page you will find hotels near Ship pea Hill Station and, railway stations near Ship pea Hill Station too.
We classify this location into our section about Railway Station's and we will be adding below a summary description, and possibly pictures, of Ship pea Hill Station over time.

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RAF Menwith Hill

RAF Menwith Hill

ref Men with hill station is a Royal Air Force station near H arrogate, North Yorkshire which provides communications and intelligence support services to the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The site contains an extensive satellite ground station and is a communications intercept and missile warning site and has been described as the largest electronic monitoring station in the world.
RAF Men with Hill is commanded by a Royal Air Force Officer, supported by an RAF element, whilst the majority of support services are provided by the United States Air Force, 421st Air Base Group.
The site acts as a ground station for a number of satellites operated by the US National Reconnaissance Office, on behalf of the US National Security Agency, with antennae contained in a large number of highly distinctive white radomes, and is alleged to be an element of the ECHELON system.

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Menwith Hill Station

 Men with Hill Station


Men with Hill in the UK is the principal NATO theater ground segment node for high altitude signals intelligence satellites. The facility, jointly operated with the UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), is now capable of carrying out two million intercepts per hour.
Men with Hill Station was established in 1956 by the US Army Security Agency (ASA). Men with Hill was operated by ASA from 1958 until its turnover to NSA in June 1966. The Army 713th MI Group remains the Executive Agent for the NSA Men with Hill field site, which was awarded the NSA's "Station of the Year" prize for 1991 after its role in the Gulf War. The Air Intelligence Agency 451st Intelligence Squadron (451 IS) as an integral part of Men with Hill Station (MHS). Inside the closely-guarded 560 acre base are two large operations blocks and many satellite tracking dishes and domes. Initial operations focused on monitoring international cable and microwave communications passing through Britain. In the early 1960s Men with Hill was one of the first sites in the world to receive sophisticated early IBM computers, with which NSA automated the labor-intensive watch-list scrutiny of intercepted but enciphered telex messages. Since then, Men with Hill has sifted the international messages, telegrams, and telephone calls of citizens, corporations or governments to select information of political, military or economic value.
The official cover story is that the all-civilian base is a Department of Defense communications station. The British Ministry of defense describe Men with Hill as a "communications relay center." Like all good cover stories, this has a strong element of truth to it. Until 1974, Men with Hill's SIGINT specialty was evidently the interception of International Leased Carrier signals, the communications links run by civil agencies -- the Post, Telegraph and Telephone ministries of eastern and western European countries. The National Security Agency took over Men with Hill in 1966. Interception of satellite communications began at Men with Hill as early as 1974, when the first of more than eight large satellite communications dishes were installed.
In 1984, British Telecoms and MOD staff completed a $25 million extension to Men with Hill Station known as STEEPLEBUSH. The British government constructed new communications facilities and buildings for STEEPLEBUSH, worth L7.4 million. The expansion included a 50,000 square foot extension to the Operations Building and new generators to provide 5 Megawatts of electrical power. The purpose of the new construction was to boost an cater for an 'expanded mission' of satellite surveillance. It also provides a new (satellite) earth terminal system to support the classified systems at the site. With another $17.2 million being spent on special monitoring equipment, this section of the Men with Hill base alone cost almost $160 million dollars.
Men with Hill Station is an extensive complex of domes, vertical masts and satellite dishes, as well as more than 4.9 acres of buildings. There are 23 spherical domes and three satellite dishes, one of which is sixty meters in diameter, all pointing in an easterly direction. The tall radio masts appear to be high frequency radio supports. Since 1985 the number of domes and dishes at the base has increased from four to 26. Current expansion plans for the base include building two more radomes, and an earth-sheltered interruptible power-supply bunker and a Mission Support Building. The two 16-meter domes will require moving the site boundary, including fencing and lights, around 160 meters closer to the A59 Harrogate-Skipton road to the south. The base now constructs radomes before dish construction begins so that observers cannot determine which satellites the dishes are targeted against. The expansion is to establish a European ground relay system at Men with Hill which will be part of a new generation of satellite communications. In addition, an initiative to address security deficiencies at Men with Hill includes fencing the perimeter of the site.
In addition, the PUSHER High Frequency Direction Finding (HFDF) system at Men  with Hill monitors radio transmissions covering the HF frequency range between 3MHz and 20-30MHz, including military and civilian embassy, maritime and air radio communications. As with other HFDF stations, PUSHER consists of three concentric rings of monopoles, each ring having a total of 24 monopoles.
Initially, tapes containing data collected at Men with Hill were returned via air to the United States for analysis. The Post Office installed two wide band circuits to Men with Hill in 1975 which were connected to the nearby Hunters Stones microwave radio station, a part of the country-wide microwave network which carried British long-distance telephone calls during the 1970s and 1980s. Starting in 1992 British Telecoms [BT] added digital optical fiber cables, which by 1996 were capable of carrying more than 100,000 simultaneous telephone calls.
RAF Men with Hill is a Crown freehold site belonging to the Ministry of defense. The designation RAF Men with Hill came into effect on 19 February 1996. This was simply an administrative change to bring the base into line with other RAF sites made available by the Ministry of defense to the United States Government. There is no security of tenure agreement in place at RAF Men with Hill. The assurances that were given to the US authorities in 1955 and again in 1976 that the site would be made available to the US Forces by Her Majesty's Government for a period of 21 years, and which are known as the security of tenure arrangements, were given to facilitate the commitment of US funding to the station. They were an administrative mechanism, and did not constitute any form of renewable lease for the site.
Women have been permanently camped at the Men with Hill Women's Peace Camp for several years to draw attention to the facility. The camp is at Kettering Head lay-by on the A59 about 7 miles west of Harrogate. In the early 1990s, opponents of the Men with Hill station obtained large quantities of internal documents from the facility. The activists routinely climbed over the fence and go wherever they can inside to gather as much intelligence as they can about the activities and what is going on. In the past, this did not violate any British laws, even the trespassing law, as long as they leave at once whenever they are found by the guards. However a new 1996 military lands bylaw criminalize d trespass on the site. In September 1997 a judge at York Crown Court ruled that the new military bylaws at the Men with Hill US-NSA spy base were invalid because they took in land which was not being using for military purposes. The ruling was based on the fact that facility's lands were 70% occupied by sheep. The Ministry of De fence subsequently announced that the decision would be appealed to the High Court.
On 23 April 1997 Leeds peace campaigner Tracy Hart was sentenced by the High Court in London to 42 days in Holloway Prison for breaking an injunction banning her from Men with Hill. The injunction, imposed in March 1996, bans Tracy from crossing an invisible line surrounding the Men with Hill base. Tracy has trespassed onto the base at Men with Hill over 300 times in the last 2 years and is only the second peace campaigner in five years to have been served with a restraining order following protests at the facility.
In 1995, in addition to funds otherwise available for such purpose, the Secretary of the Army was authorized to transfer or reprogram funds for the enhancement of the capabilities of the Bad ailing Station and the Men with Hill Station, including improvements of facility infrastructure and quality of life programs at both installations. This provision would permit the Department of the Army to use up to $2 million of appropriated O&M funds per annum, at Men with Hill and Bad Aibling, to rectify infrastructure and quality of life problems. It would in no way obviate or modify current law or practice with regard to reprogramming amounts in excess of $2 million. Previously the Army was prohibited by 31 U.S.C. section 1301, from using appropriated funds to support an NSA installation, notwithstanding the fact that the Army has become the Executive Agent for these field sites. Although the Director of Central Intelligence could use his special authorities under section 104(d) of the National Security Act of 1947, the procedures available under that law are extremely time consuming and were not intended to accommodate relatively minor transfers of funds.

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DUDDING HILL station

DUDDING HILL station

 The Dudding Hill loop line was initially opened for freight traffic only and a small goods yard opined at Dudding Hill on 1st January 1872.
Dudding Hill station opened on the 3rd August 1875 and consisted of two side platforms with a substantial brick single story building on the down side at the end of a short approach road and a simple wooden shelter on the up side. There was also access to the up platform from a flight of steps from Dudden Hill Lane.
According to the Railway Clearing House the station was called Willesden & Dudden Hill when it opened being renamed Dudding Hill in late 1875 but the company timetables show the station as Dudding Hill (for Church End Willesden) from 1st February 1876 until 1st May 1878. It then reverted to plain Dudding Hill, although the bracketed suffix ‘for Willesden and Neasden’ was added from 1st June 1880.
    With the withdrawal of the passenger service in 1888 the station remained open for goods traffic. Dudding Hill station reopened with the line on 1st March 1893 and there was a gradual improvement in ticket sales towards the turn of the century but this wasn't sufficient to keep the station open. When Dudding Hill closed in 1902 it had taken just £1,996 in fares during its entire
existence. This was, in part, due to its rural surroundings. Once the station had closed the area began to develop and the Metropolitan Railway opened a station nearby at Dollis Hill in 1909.
After closure to passengers the station remained open for goods traffic and in 1920 part of the station building was converted into a house for railway staff. The goods yard continued to handle a fair amount of local goods and coal into the 1950s finally closing on 6th July 1964. A signal box had served the station since its earliest days, but closed on 10th May 1887 when it was replaced by a ground frame. This was deemed sufficient for a number of years, but a new box was subsequently constructed and brought into use on 23rd March 1923.
The main building survived and part of it was used as a goods office until the yard closed. It was latterly used as a workshop but remained in a derelict state for many years. The platforms were demolished in the early 1970s and the station building and was eventually demolished in 1989.

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MIDLAND & SOUTH WESTERN JUNCTION RAILWAY
 
The Midland and South Western Junction Railway was authorised on 14 July 1864 and although it was an independent company it was worked by the Midland Railway from the outset with running powers also being given to the London & South Western Railway to Brent. (Confusingly, the similar name Midland and South Western Junction Railway was later used for a completely different railway in Gloucestershire, which was eventually taken over by the Great Western Railway.)
The line which is often referred to as the Dudding Hill loop line, ran through open countryside and was opened to goods traffic on 1 October 1868 from a north facing junction at Brent, south of Hendon to Acton Wells where it joined the North & South Western Junction Railway. This meant through running into St Pancras was initially not possible but as the line was intended as a goods and mineral link between the Midlands and the south of England this was not thought to be a disadvantage. Within a short while however, it was felt that a south-facing connection would be useful, so in 1871 powers were obtained to build the south facing Cricklewood Curve to a junction with the Midland north of Childs Hill station. The line was absorbed by the Midland Railway on 30 July 1874.
With the opening of the Cricklewood curve it was now possible to run a passenger service from central London and stations were provided at Dudding Hill and Harrow Road opening on 3rd August 1875 with a circuitous service between Moorgate Street and Richmond. This service didn't prove popular and on 1st February 1876 it was replaced by a shuttle service between Childs Hill & Cricklewood (now Cricklewood) and Harrow Road.
From 1st May 1878 a new through service was introduced from St Pancreas to Earl’s Court on the Metropolitan District Railway; this immediately brought an increase in ticket sales. This new service formed the basis of the Midland Railway's Outer Circle, which ran from St Pancreas to Earl's Court via Englewood, Acton and the District Line.
The popularity of the new service was, however, short lived as the fortunes of the passenger service once again went into decline. Through services were again withdrawn and the shuttle reinstated from 30th September 1880. There was a brief resurgence but then ticket sales plummeted to an all time low. In 1887 the total receipts for Dudding Hill stood at just £7. Although Harrow Road (now renamed Stone bridge Park) was doing better the line would clearly never make a profit and the passenger service was withdrawn completely from 1st July 1888 although he line remained open as an import freight route.
 Five years later, the Midland Railway decided to have another attempt at running a passenger service and the two stations reopened on 1st March 1893. At first, the trains only ran between Child’s Hill and Stone bridge Park, but from 1st January 1894 they were extended southwards to Gunners bury.
Although passenger numbers gradually began to improve towards the turn of the century the line was still considered to be uneconomic and the passenger service was withdrawn completely from 1st October 1902.
War-time traffic was particularly heavy. The Dudding Loop became an important freight route and southwest-to-northwest chords were later added to the West Coast Main Line at Harlesden and what is now called the Chiltern Main Line (originally the Great Central Railway) at Neasden.
At present the line has not been electrified and has a 30 mph speed limit with semaphore signal ling. It is lightly used for freight with a dozen trains a day in each direction. The main traffic is aggregates (including to a cement depot at Neasden) and compacted household waste from depots at Brent Cross and Dagenham to the land-fill site at Calvert in Buckingham shire. The line is still authorized for passenger services and very occasionally, it is used for chartered passenger trains, including Pullman heritage coaches.

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Birmingham Snow Hill station

Birmingham Snow Hill station


Birmingham Snow Hill is a railway station and tram stop in the centre of Birmingham, England, on the site of an earlier, much larger station built by the former Great Western Railway (GWR). It is the second most important railway station in the city, after Birmingham New Street station. It is also the terminus of the Midland Metro light rail line from Wolverhampton (via Wednesbury and West Bromwich), pending the line's extension.
The present Snow Hill station has three platforms for National Rail trains. When it was originally reopened in 1987 it had four, but one was later converted for use by Midland Metro trams. The planned extension of the Midland Metro through Birmingham city centre includes a dedicated embankment for trams alongside the station, and this will allow the fourth platform to be returned to main-line use.

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