REVIEWS

REVIEW OF THE MONTH

The Melbourne Military Railway And the Derby to Ashby branch - Part Two: 1939 to Closure

Mike Christensen

Lightmoor Press, Unit 144B, Lydney Trading Estate, Harbour Road, Lydney, Gloucestershire GL15 4E J.

Tel: 01993 773927. Web: www.lightmoor.co.uk

Description: Hardback, 285mm x 225mm, 212pp

ISBN: 978 1911 038443

Price £35.00

A few scattered and derelict buildings next to a cycle path in a remote part of South Derbyshire are the only remaining clues to the existence of a major complex that once trained soldiers to maintain railways in the battlefields of the Second World War.

It was a well-kept secret that Chellaston Quarry was the home of the Melbourne Military Railway second only to Longmoor in magnitude as a training centre for the Royal Engineers.

The story of the War Department’s occupation of six-miles of the little-used Midland