Blandford Arches

FACEBOOK - NEW S&D BLANDFORD RAIL FUTURE

Good to see that this smaller project is going from strength to strength within the wider S&D revival!

Try to get along on Sunday 24 May 2015 if you can!

If you get the chance pop up to the station site where there is still some track set into the roadway plus an excellent walk northwards.

Blandford Arches Facebook group

blandford activity

The Blandford Arches group has started a series of fundraising quiz nights at Colin’s Community Club in Damory Street (first this Thursday March 25 at 8pm) and is also planning involvement in Blandford’s Hidden Gardens event on June 20 and Green Week coming up in July as a preliminary to seeking to secure a lease or whatever from the town council (which currently leases the arches from North Dorset District Council) and then to seeking grant funding etc.

They have also established a Heritage Trail through the former station and up the railway line which they hope to develop.

The Blandford Museum, which opens for the season next Saturday, has created and is continuing to create a scale model of the station which has taken over a large part of the first floor of the building in Bere’s Yard.

business appeal

The New S&D is very keen to help businesses along our route develop and for this reason we welcome reciprocal links from any businesses along the route, that is Bristol/Bath to Bournemouth/Brockenhurst and Evercreech to Burnham and Bridgwater.

Pubs and hotels are obvious choices, key pubs we're already close to are the Hope and Anchor at Midford and the Railway Hotel at Blandford. If visiting the line please try to use these facilities and let them know why you're there!

The line may not be here yet but we hope that the sense of a shared business interest and a shared destiny in an energy-poor future is already beginning to develop.

If you own a business within a few miles of the New S&D, whatever it is, please email leysiner@aol.com to arrange reciprocal links.

right lines 2

The second issue of our magazine RIGHT LINES is due at the end of February. I want to at least double the size of the previous one, so please send in your articles, letters, photos, comments etc etc. Particularly welcome are progress reports on Midsomer Norton, Gartell, Shillingstone, Washford, Blandford Arches etc etc. Also more than welcome are articles of either a historical or personal nature on all aspects of the S&D.

I want the magazine to become the best by any railway group in the UK within a year or so. I can't see we'll ever exhaust the potential content, and there is always a new angle, not to mention that the S&D is now up and running again in places and new history is being created. For example the above four photos all feature the Midsomer Norton diesel in it's previous unlamented Prussian blue livery!

Please send all articles and photos either electronically to leysiner@aol.com or by post to New S&D, Right Lines, 10 Bellamy Avenue, Hartcliffe, BRISTOL, BS13 0HW.

welcome aboard!

A big welcome to three new members of the New S&D team. Anna-Jayne Metcalfe and Simon Ellison have both joined the committee and will bring considerable skills to the team. Andy Thompson is now ploughing through our IT infrastructure, and a few other things, hopefully with the end result of making our New S&D presence as high profile and rewarding as his Steamtube and related sites!

We are still less than a year old and have made enormous progress in that time, but as I made clear at Saturday's meeting this is only the very very beginning of a long term and amazing project that will set the railway heritage, professional railway, tourism and sustainable industry 'communities' alight.

imminent launch

All New S&D members will soon be receiving their first ever newsletter/magazine. The first issue will be a computer generated mag, probably 4 to 6 pages, but we do have big plans for our magazine, inspired by the superb S&D Telegraph that is produced by Midsomer Norton.

I would LOVE to have correspondents from each of the active sections of the S&D - ie Midsomer Norton, Shillingstone, Sturminster Newton, Blandford and Gartell as well as from Washford. This will be a magazine for the WHOLE line. The New S&D exists in part to unify the disparate sections and groups currently operating along the route and at Washford. Almost all of our membership are members of these other groups and we get messages of support from individual members of these groups almost every day.

In addition to this we are developing our website as the primary historical resource for the S&D, searchable by everybody. This will be a particularly useful resource for writers and researchers, teachers and others along the route.

So what I'm asking for is correspondents who can send news and/or photos from Midsomer Norton, Gartell, Shillingstone, Washford, Blandford Arches and Sturminster Rail Group. Also photos of the line and stations from any point in its history including the temporary closure period, as well as stories from the line (again post closure is fine), oral histories, small artefacts etc etc.

This is all in addition to our primary role of purchasing sections of the route, lobbying government at all levels and supporting active groups along the route, financially and with manpower.

To get involved please email leysiner@aol.com or write to New S&D, 10 Bellamy Avenue, Hartcliffe, BRISTOL, BS13 0HW.

blandford arches

These are the remaining arches of the bridge that carried the S&D across Langton Meadow, south of the town.

There are plans to start a group to preserve this part of the S&D. Apparently the arches are already something of a tourist attraction, so are seen as having potential and value as they are.

Latest info I have is from the Western Gazette from 2 January 2009, but I've also requested an update to get the latest news.

The Western Gazette article is reproduced below.

A STEERING committee has been set up to progress the formation of a charitable trust dedicated to the preservation of the old railway arches on Langton Meadow in Blandford.

More than two dozen people attended a meeting last Wednesday to further the project, when town councillor and Blandford Museum education officer Sylvia Hixson Andrews gave a presentation on the way forward.

She said the arches already brought visitors to the town, as was evidenced by people calling at the museum to find out about the Somerset & Dorset railway.

Museum railway club founder members David Cash and Bob Downes, together with museum archivist Pam le Bas, a representative of the Shillingstone Railway Station project, and David Mason agreed to meet again on Thursday 15 January to draw up objectives and officer nominations which could be put to a further meeting of prospective trust members on Thursday 5 February.

Mrs Hixson Andrews said it would be important to find a treasurer, since if the project went ahead to restore the arches and develop a rail trailway or any other visitor attractions, the trust would be handling substantial funds.

FOR information, or to get involved in the project, call David Cash on 01963 364162 or e-mail dcash9@btinternet.com