Britain’s newest agricultural railway opened on December 16 for the commercial haulage of Christmas trees. The 12¼ inch gauge Oakberry Farm Railway at Dunton Bassett, Leicestershire, has been almost five years in the making since rails were acquired from Shropshire’s Hughley Light Railway and the Romney, Hythe &Dymchurch Railway in 2018 (RM March 2019).
A line of just over a kilometre (two-thirds of a mile) now runs through the farm’s extensive fir tree plantations and began operations nine days before Christmas using Hughley-built Class 37 No. 37309 Endurance to convey freshly-cut trees from the fields to the sales area on custom-built bogie wagons.