Six schoolchildren took a trip to the Foxton signal box and level crossing for a rail safety lesson last week.

The children – who are junior travel ambassadors for the Meldreth Primary School – travelled with teachers and Sarah Grove of the Meldreth, Shepreth & Foxton Community Rail Partnership.

Under supervision, the children were allowed to operate the barriers for the passing trains. Inside the signal box, the crossing operator showed the visitors how the barriers are operated at both Foxton and, using CCTV, Shepreth.

Teacher Andrew Jones said: “The visit to Foxton level crossing offered a unique and fantastic leadership and learning opportunity for our junior travel ambassadors to extend their work on local transport safety issues into a whole new arena.

“They learned an enormous amount of important safety lessons about rail safety – which is tremendously important to us in Meldreth, where the railway line runs directly behind the school and can be easily accessed by anyone.”