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Just what was the Wiggly-Wire Experiment?

Back in 1965, shortly before its passenger service was withdrawn, the Staines West branch was used for a research and development project. I took little notice of it at the time, although the evidence appears in virtually every photograph of the line taken from then until the track was lifted in 1981.

I knew it as the Wiggly-Wire Experiment’. It involved laying two copper wires – one straight and one zig-zagged – in the middle of the ‘four-foot’ throughout the full 5½miles of the branch. The wire was attached to hundreds of plywood strips, nailed to the sleepers, and