The Last Train
On Saturday 5 May 1951 the Crab and Winkle carried its last passengers. Over four hundred people crowded aboard the final train, decorated with streamers, the local MP Tom Driberg riding on the footplate as honorary fireman. Chalked on the engine were the words “Born 1904. Died 1951”, and on the bunker the line that everyone remembered: “There be many a poor soul have to walk.” The train left to fog detonators, football rattles and cheers. Within two years the track was lifted and sold off, and by 1962 the very last freight had gone from the far end of the line. The rails vanished, but the Crab and Winkle never quite did – it survives in the village’s memory, in the shape of a footpath and an embankment, and in walks like this one.