(Copyright Steve Sainsbury - Salisbury 14.4.1986)
You can still get to Templecombe via rail if you use the excellent Salisbury to Exeter route. This is a line that almost vanished in the mad sixties, it was reduced to practically a llong siding with many local stations closed including Templecombe. It had dreadful problems with timekeeping thanks to the long stretches of single track.
Get real. This is a main line, wonderfully engineered and serving many towns en route. It was deliberately run down because the idiot Beeching thought that one main line to the west (the ex GWR route) would suffice in the Oil Age. Many useful branches were closed depriving seaside towns of modern transport. With the loss of the S&D even more useful track, diversionary routes and alternatives were lost - for a while! Yeovil lost its incredible useful shuttle service between the three Yeovil stations. I remember walking between Yeovil Junction and Pen Mill in the 80s - an absolute nightmare!
But things are happening. Stations have been reopened, new stretches of double track have appeared and services are improving. But the line has a long way to go before it matches, then surpasses, its glory days.
Here's a new website that will champion the route. We at the S&D obviously have a big interest in this route as we will connect with it in the future.
