page_title: Cranwell branch
section_title: Rolling Stock
hierarchical_section_title: Cranwell branch / Rolling Stock
caption_attribution_description: English: Locomotive "Sir Berkeley" in steam at Ingrow West Repainted in early 1998 to a light apple green livery, reminiscent of the Cranford Ironstone Quarry livery where it worked but unkindly referred to as "Kermit Green".
context_page_description: The Cranwell branch was a 5.2-mile long single track branch railway line in Lincolnshire, England. It connected the Royal Naval Air Station at Cranwell, then under construction, to the main line railway network. It opened in 1917 from Sleaford in Lincolnshire, where it joined the Great Northern Railway. RNAS Cranwell was intended for training pilots and aircrew during World War I. Control soon passed to the Royal Air Force in 1918, and the location became known as RAF Cranwell.
  A public passenger service was operated from the outset, and there were three stations on the branch. The passenger service was loss-making and it closed in November 1926, but the goods service on the line continued until closure in 1956.
context_section_description: Five locomotives owned by the contractors Logan and Hemingway are known to have worked at Cranwell; these were all Manning Wardle 0-6-0 Saddle Tanks, with numbers: 3, 4 Epworth, 5, 7 Bletcher and 8.
  
  A surviving Logan and Hemingway locomotive of the type used on the RAF Cranwell Railway (a 0-6-0 Manning Wardle saddle tank originally known as Number 10, but which now goes by the name of Sir Berkeley) is owned by the Vintage Carriages Trust.
  Two diesel locomotives were tried out on the line after World War II but they were unsuccessful in view of the difficult gradients on the line.
  Thirteen four-wheeled and six-wheeled passenger coaches were acquired for the passenger service. They were bought second-hand from the GNR before 1919, having been in use on the GNR Metropolitan Service between New Barnet and Moorgate. Eight coaches were usually sufficient on any train except on Saturdays when all thirteen were often used.
caption: Locomotive "Sir Berkeley", which was very similar to the locomotives used on the Cranwell Branch, in steam at Ingrow West on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway.
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