Military Railway Roundabout Memorial

In December 2018 this remarkable  railway-based memorial  was unveiled on a road roundabout at the junctions  of the A6196, Richmond Rd and Scotten Rd at the urbanisation now known as Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire, England.  Catterick Garrison  provides the civilian infrastructure for the largest military  garrison complex in the UK, a role played by Catterick since 1907 when it was founded by Lord Baden-Powell,  initially as a base for training reservists. Catterick  Garrison road roundabout was unusual  in that the track of a military  railway used to run straight through it. This military  railway linked the Catterick military  complex to the Dalton  to Richmond branch of the main North Eastern Railway line between  Newcastle  and York.

A great photograph  showing the roundabout, when it was in use with the railway, is available on the website of an organisation  which is dedicated  to documenting disused railway stations (http://disused-stations.org.uk/c/camp_centre/index16.html).

The line was built in 1915 as a light railway  which, under UK law, limits the speed and nature of the trains. Apparently these limitations  were largely ignored by the military  in that the line was regularly used to carry railway  guns of enormous size. The most common use, however, was for the arrival  and departure of troops before and after training (and travelling to and from leave). In WW1, for example, it is believed that some 75,000 men used the line. The railway was so important to the military  that when the UK rail system was statutorily  reorganised in 1923 the line remained an independent company. It also remained independent following full nationalisation of the rail industry in 1948.

The memorial  takes the form of a stone sculpture  of a Type J72 locomotive  which used to serve the line up to 1951. It was made by A D Calvert Architectural Stone Supplies Ltd of the nearby  town of  Leyburn.

The statue (and 3  associated  statues of military personnel, including Lord Baden-Powell) is dedicated  as a war memorial  to those troops who left Catterick  by train for the trenches of WW1 to subsequently  lose their lives. It also commemorates  the 4 soldiers killed in 1919 when a train ran away  whilst parked at the station.