Welcome back and following on from the discovery posted on Facebook last week we pop over to Quest Pit to take a look at the current landscape and a talk about what has been and may still be to come.

Note, This studio project has no links (that I know off) to Universal Studios. It’s just by coincidence that both projects are so close.

Get more on Facebook, pictures, articles, all the latest Universal Studios UK news: https://www.facebook.com/ProjectUniversalUK

26 Comments

  1. Comment for the algorithm! Also, I don't know if it ever went ahead but I thought that Warner Bros were interested in buying the hangars at Cardington. They certainly used one of them as a sound stage for for some of the Batman films.

  2. I've been living around the area for years and never known that there's so much land. Having a full blown Universal theme park and next door a full blown film studio is going to Bedford right on the map. With infrastructure improvements around there hopefully it'll facilitate whats going to be 1000s traveling to and from both sites once they're done.

  3. The scientific name for the cancer caused by asbestosis is mesothelioma. The mini-goods-train was carrying water and washing compacted leaves off the rails with a high-pressure jet.

  4. Machines that dug the clay were called walking draglines. They were electric powered. All the pits had them at some point along with diesel powered dozers and other associated heavy plant. The Draglines, hoppers & conveyers were eventually cut up for scrap.

  5. I saw a black squirrel here where I am, over the border in Herts. They are spreading!

    Love these kinds of history vids, great filler content until the main event kicks off!

  6. I had to do dreaded school cross-country running around those pits!! lots of locations for Dr Who/Sci-fi .. Yes this was originally planned to be an Aquatic version of the Eden Project in Cornwall – Altho not sure how far the planning has got for HOP as they have a few site options.

  7. Planning permission was granted months ago but since then the council have said they've pulled out, i contacted HOP and they told me it was still going ahead but plans were taking a long time, however i e-mailed them again not long ago and the e-mail bounced back

  8. The train was a rail cleaning train. It is evolved out of the old 'sandite'' trains which were discontinued. In the autumn the rails get leaf residue on them which causes the trains to slide when the brakes are applied. The purpose of the train we saw is to blast the rail top with a high pressure water jet to clean it. The trains run regularly throughout the leaf fall season to maintain, as far as possible, a good rail head condition. The train is made up of water tanks to supply the water for jetting, a generator car to supply power to the pumps which do the jetting, and a locomotive at each end, so when the train gets to the end of the line there is always a locomotive on the front from which the train can be driven. Otherwise the loco would need to be taken off the end of what is now the back of the train and moved to the front. Not always possible since most of the railway sidings have been sold off. Hope this explains what the train was. I am a retired train driver, employed at Bedford depot and I worked alongside these trains for many years. In fact relying on them to give me decent rails to work over throughout the leaf fall season.

Leave A Reply