“During the last war the railways alone used 15,000, by 1948 there were only 9,000, by 1958 there were fewer than 50, and now there are just three.”
Fyfe Robertson meets shire horses Butch and Charlie, two of the three remaining railway horses still working in Britain. Butch and Charlie work as shunting horses at the Newmarket goods station, while another horse works as a draught horse in Stoke. Once those three have retired, it will be the end of an era. What will they do when they retire? Fyfe visits the “retirement farm” in Larling, Norfolk – run by the International League for the Protection of Horses – which has just welcomed some new arrivals, a trio of shunters who have just retired from the hustle and bustle of Camden Market in London. The farm in Larling has a railway running through it, which should help old railway horses like Butch and Charlie adapt to life after work.
Credit to : BBC Archive