The Booking Hall Café - Rayne Station History (continued)
By the end of 1971 all freight traffic had ceased, and on 27 July 1972 a final enthusiast's trip ran from Bishop's Stortford to Easton Lodge and back. By the autumn of that year most of the track had been taken up, apart from the last mile out of Bishop's Stortford. British Rail were considering the possible role this section of line might play in carrying additional traffic to a growing Stansted Airport, but proposals came to nothing and in 1974 the remaining track was removed.
Much of the old track bed now forms the Flitch Way, a walking and cycling path from Braintree to Bishops Stortford along the 15-mile course of the Bishops Stortford, Dunmow & Braintree Railway line
Rayne Station was on the down side of the line with substantial brick buildings comprising station masters house, booking office, waiting room, porters room, lamp room and toilets. A shunting spur gave access to the goods yard with a goods shed. Other sidings served a cattle dock and coal yard. There was a signal box on the up side of the line.
Rayne Station is now on the Flitch Way and is part of Great Notley Country Park. The old booking hall is now a cafe with a model of the site in its heyday and the stationmasters' house is now lived in. The local Scout hall now occupies the far end of the site where the goods yard was.
Information from www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/stations/r/rayne/index.shtml.
