inspiration

 

There have been a few lines that have inspired the S&D, and I suspect one of the most surprising ones is the Lynton and Barnstaple. In fact there's a pretty strong case that the closure of the L&B inspired the WHOLE heritage railway movement. The picture above is of Woody Bay in 1980, a station perched on top of Exmoor and converted to an attractive house. There was at the time a small preservation group, but they hadn't made a lot of progress and the 'it'll never happen' lot were having a field day mocking them.

 

But persistence paid off and they now have fully restored a section of the line at Woody Bay. But more to the point, through their Exmoor Associates company, they own good stretches of the route distant from Woody Bay, including Chelfham viaduct and station. They are in for the long haul and have been persistent and patient from the start. They want nothing less than a full restoration of this most important route, and have even planned an extension at Lynton to meet the funicular down to Lynmouth.

 

I'll be visiting the line next month and I'm really looking forward to it! Oh yes, the shot below is of the line as it is now!

a plea for sanity!

This post was inspired by two things - an odd comment on a Facebook group and an even stranger one in a book that was otherwise sound.

The first involved a superb new build of a Lynton and Barnstaple engine and I commented that it was a classic, neat and very modern design but would be better if it was designed as a wood burner or at least a multi fuel engine. The comment was 'why? Surely good steam coal is better?' Well in the past the best steam coal was Welsh, but every Welsh pit has now closed. The point being steam coal now has  to be imported. The second, and much more important point, is that Peak Coal is only a few years away, and we are already seeing huge increases in the amount of coal being used. This can only mean rapidly rising prices and eventual shortages and rationing. And much faster depletion on the other side of the bell curve. Will heritage or even steam worked community lines really get a good share of good coal?

The second odd comment was in a book on the current economic crisis. Until the very end it was an excellent analysis of worldwide economic decline, but the last chapter seemed to have been overtaken by a couple of cornucopians, the weirdest statement being that 'future energy supplies will be more abundant and cheaper'!! This is an amazing thing to see in print, as it derives exclusively from a strange blend of wishful thinking, junk science and conspiracy theory. Of course future energy supplies will be neither - otherwise they would have been exploited decades ago! They will be scarcer and far more expensive, and will get scarcer and costlier.

Perhaps this is just angst. Many people are very scared of what the future holds. I'm not one of them, obviously. But I am a realist.

A realistic approach to energy means that we now need to concentrate EXCLUSIVELY on sustainable energy. Anything that relies on fossil fuels is doomed. So ALL planning for the future has to take this into account, or it is pointless. If ignored there will be further misallocation of resources, and we no longer live in a world where we can indulge ourselves in that way.

Which brings me back to wood. Wood is renewable. Its energy content (by weight, but not by bulk!) is not far off that of good steam coal, and it is higher than the bitumous muck and brown coal that is just about all that is left in the ground. Best of all the UK is an excellent place to grow wood, even taking into account inevitable future climate changes. You can grow a lot of bulk in a small area, because it grows upwards. It can be harvested and cut using just human energy. And it can be grown alongside our railway land, making it very energy-efficient to harvest and store. It is also carbon neutral providing constant replanting is done. Wood will clearly trump coal in the near future, and there will be a rush to convert coal burning steam to wood burning - as well as replacing hopeless diesel locos with wood burners (or electrics of course). But burning wood directly is much more energy efficient than burning wood to generate electricity. It is also far more resilient. We need this sort of future thinking if we are to successfully build a new transport system in the UK. And we should be planting that wood now ...

inspiration ...

The main inspiration for the New S&D was the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway's associated land purchasing group, Exmoor Associates. They now own 17.9% of L&B trackbed, making them the largest landowner on the line. The New S&D is slightly different as we have membership and sadly were not set up or absorbed by the existing S&D groups at Midsomer Norton and Shillingstone, but the principal aim of acquiring trackbed and infrastructure is identical. This is done though our non-profit making landowning arm, Wessex Links Ltd.

Snapper Halt Is Ours!

We are pleased to be able to announce that we have completed the purchase of Snapper Halt and the adjoining trackbed.

Snapper Halt served the adjacent hamlet of Snapper and the nearby village of Goodleigh. After the closure of the railway in 1935, two of the railway’s coaches were left isolated at Snapper having been purchased at the railway’s auction. The first was coach 6991, which was left in the platform and of which the remains were eventually burnt. The other was coach 6993, now better known as Ffestiniog Railway coach 14 – the buffet car in B-set, which was rescued by volunteers from the FR. Coach 6993 was left a little way out of the station, further along the trackbed we have secured in this package.

Snapper Halt itself is in remarkable condition considering that it is now 75 years since the railway closed. Whilst the surrounding area is somewhat overgrown, the waiting shelter is virtually intact (begging to be restored) and the platform edging is still in place in its entirety under the vegetation. Other features in the package being purchased include bridge 15, and the remains of one of the stone-constructed platelayers’ huts.

We had been in regular contact with the owner of the land at Snapper for a number of years and following her passing we have remained in discussions with her heirs for the securing of the land. It is not often that the opportunity comes up to buy a station on the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway, not least one with a significant stretch of trackbed, and so naturally we are delighted to have been successful yet again in this acquisition.

Between Exmoor Associates and the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway Trust, we have now collectively secured 17.9% of the trackbed required for the rebuilding of the whole railway between Lynton and Barnstaple. Exmoor Associates is now also the single largest owner of L&B trackbed.

We would of course like to thank everyone who has supported this latest push, it is great to have now secured this important piece of the jigsaw. If anyone is still interested in joining Exmoor Associates who hasn’t done so already, please still get in touch – we are expecting another significant length of trackbed to come up for sale soon so we will be needing your support!

where it all started

If you ever wondered where the idea of a rebuilt modern S&D came from you need look no further than the constitution of the SDRHT at Midsomer Norton - 'to assist with any 21st century reconstruction as part of the national network or as a heritage railway'.

Like many other New S&D members I am also a life member at Midsomer Norton. They have always been an incredibly forward-looking group and have inspired all of us working towards rebuilding the S&D as a real railway. They have worked wonders at Midsomer Norton in seemingly impossible circumstances, the site was once earmarked for sub-standard 20th century housing! Yet even 20 years ago, whilst being told by the dinosaurs 'Midsomer Norton will be demolished and vanish forever' they had the foresight to plant the idea of a fully restored line, an icon buried deep in their constitution yet, in its own way, every bit as powerful as the 'Perchance it is not Dead but Sleepeth' wreath placed on the buffers of the L&B line at Barnstaple Town station in 1935, or the Festiniog leaving Blanche at Blaenau years before the rails reached her.

Everyone involved in restoring the S&D; whether a ticket office person at Midsomer Norton, a narrow gauge signalman at Gartell, the shop staff at Shillingstone, the people restoring old carriages at Washford, the Seales clearing the platform at Midford, Dean Cockwell powering ahead the taking over of Spetisbury, the New S&D legal team studying CPOs, Environmental Assessments or trackbed arrangements and all the thousands of others supporting and rebuilding this line are all working towards the same thing - making the inevitable possible!

unsentimental sentimentality

A two parter today - I'm getting a huge build up of articles, ideas etc, which has to be a good thing!

Top photo is a superb atmosphere shot of Blandford in the last few weeks before temporary closure in 1966. Night photography back then was a real challenge and the photographer (Joe Robbins) is a real hero of the S&D. We've all seen the classic S&D shots, double headers hauling the Pines through Midford etc, but I love the atmosphere shots most of all.

I know, I'm a hard-headed business person, so this shouldn't appeal to me. But, to me, it taps into memories of waiting around on stations at night. There's no sense of threat here, not even one of foreboding which could be excused due to the circumstances! It's the solidity, the sense of quiet purpose, more importantly the sense of connectedness. You don't get this with roads - an empty road at night is a spooky place ... and even 'modern' railway stations lack a lot of this.

Think of Blandford today. Remarkably rail-less, even if just for a few more years, bland and characterless, with nothing like the above to make it stand out. Just waiting really, for the New S&D's time to come.

Sentimental? Not at all. To fill our trains in the future, and there will be an awful lot of them, we need to make the railway environment as comfortable, friendly, familiar and, yes, English, as the above shot. We don't want bus shelters, trains where the seats don't match the windows, services stopping at 9pm rather than 1am and starting again at 7am rather than 4am. There'll be almost as many trains at night as in the day, possibly more when you factor the freight trains in. We deserve a pleasant environment to do our stuff in. The harsh brutality of 60s architecture offers nothing to us 21st century types. The pathetic haste in which ESSENTIAL railways were closed under the most crooked circumstances should never be forgotten - or forgiven. This photo, to me, has the same redemptive - and predictive - power as the 'Perchance it is not dead' wreath at Barnstaple Town.


And completely unsentimentally here's the lean-to oil store at Midford as it was in September 1961 (photo © John Eyers). Had this survived, or been rebuilt, I'd have been up there today in the rain - but sadly the oil store will not reappear for a little while yet! This is a particularly nice shot as it shows all our trackbed up to the Long Arch Bridge.

Both these photos appear in the superb S&D Telegraph number 36, available to members of the SDRHT at Midsomer Norton and usually available at their shop, as well as other back issues.

perchance we are all waking up!

Photo courtesy Welsh Highland Railway.

FACEBOOK - RAIL THING - NARROW GAUGE RAILS

Narrow Gauge page on the Rail Thing website.

Look carefully at the photo above. It says a lot about the way things are going.

The lead loco is the new build 'Lyd', an authentic copy of the elegant and charming Lynton and Barnstaple Railway loco.

The Lynton and Barnstaple closed in 1935. It was a digraceful closure, robbing southern England of its second most charismatic railway. It served a prime holiday area and had it survived a few more years would now be one of the biggest and most profitable tourist attractions in Britain. On the buffer stop at Barnstaple Town some incredibly far sighted admirer placed a wreath stating 'Perchance it is not dead but merely sleepeth'. I suspect it was partly this image of optimism that encouraged brave preservationists to suggest in the 70s that the L&B should be rebuilt. The best thing is that the small start up group has over the years developed into an ambitious affair which intends to eventually restore the whole line, and in fact even extend it in Lynton to make it a more appropriate public service for the 21st century. Of course the original closure of the L&B was idiotic, it was a visionary line that has an even bigger role to play in the 21st century than it ever did in the 19th and 20th. Its time has come, and now one of its engines has returned from the past.

The second fascinating aspect of this picture is the track. Note that it's laid tramway style. This is the start of the section of line in Porthmadog that runs as a tramway. Who would have thought back in the 60s and 70s that this could ever happen? Again trams are possibly the most iconic 21st century transport system imaginable, and whilst this is not a tram or tramway in any normal sense of the word the return of rails to streets in other parts of the UK has made their adoption in a small Welsh town possible. It may well be that parts of the S&D in the future use tram like tracks in places, to save huge demolition bills. The Welsh Highland Railway has now been fully rebuilt giving tourists a modern way to explore the heart of Snowdonia. This is not preservation as such, but the first wave of a huge railway revival in Britain.

sid at gartell

(Photos courtesy John Penny 27.8.2009)

Three shots of 'Sid', a Maffei 0-4-0 of 1925 being tested for the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway following extensive work at the GLR workshops by John Uphill. Still a way to go as you can see, the chimney is only temporary and the boiler cladding will be put on at the L&B apparently. Certainly a very 'basic industrial' but it goes very well and rides quite well for a loco of this wheel arrangement. Interestingly, it still has repairs visible following an attack by a Spitfire. It will NOT be in steam over the weekend but the GLR IS fully open for services on Sunday and Monday over the bank holiday.

Don't forget that there will be (7¼" gauge) steam over the viaduct at Shepton Mallet this weekend as well, so there's never been a better time to come and see what's happening on the S&D. Combine it with a stop at Shillingstone and Midsomer Norton and you'll get a real feel for the potential our fantastic route has to offer.

steam loco trials on the S&D

A superb shot from John Penny (30.10.2008).

This is the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway's new locomotive, Axe, on trials at the Gartell Railway. This of course is running on the existing 2 foot gauge section of the S&D just south of Templecombe.

'Perchance it is not dead but merely sleepeth', famously quoted on a wreath left at Barnstaple Town station on closure in 1935, was very prophetic and should also apply to the S&D. Bearing in mind that the wreath was placed 74 years ago, the designer obviously had an uncanny ability to see into the future!

It is great that the two routes are working together and hopefully inspiring each other. Certainly the land buying L&B group, Exmoor Associates, has very much inspired the setting up of the New S&D with a similar remit.

it's beginning to look a lot like Chilcompton

Top three Chilcompton station, bottom looking towards Chilcompton from tunnels. All Mick Knox.

Well, talk about letting events happen! I'm getting lots of support via this blog and emails for the proposal to look at restoring Chilcompton first as part of the New Somerset and Dorset Railway's remit. Although the New S&D will not be officially launched for nearly four weeks, it's nice to now that we will be hitting the ground running and firing off press releases right away with something solid to offer.

Personally I'd like to see us then acquire sections of trackbed, station sites etc between Chilcompton and Shepton Mallet, to make restoration of this section a lot easier when the time is right. Obviously any land acquired that is then needed by the Midsomer Norton group to extend train services will be released on a peppercorn rental basis, hopefully allowing them to reach Chilcompton proper a lot quicker than they would have otherwise done.

The Lynton and Barnstaple have cleverly used this idea to grab bits of trackbed as they became available, making the process of restoring their line far easier.

heritage railways in the new golden age of railways

The heritage railway (formerly preserverved railway) is really a child of the 1950s-1980s. It was created in a very different world, one where it was seriously considered that road traffic would continue to expand, where railways were some quaint historical artefact, where steam power (despite its use in nuclear power generation) was finished. It carried tourists on trips through pretty scenery, just for the experience of travelling behind a steam locomotive. It was great! It was nostalgia and volunteers, crisps and coke, tea towels and fridge magnets.

The world has changed. We face two huge challenges, Climate Change and Peak Oil.

Both will impact enormously on the heritage railway movement, and are already beginning to do so. The Severn Valley suffered two disastrous bouts of Climate Change related rain damage recently. The price of coal and oil rocketed until a few months ago, then plunged precipitously. This volatility has long been forecast by Peak Oil economists. Both threats have serious economic impacts - the current economic downturn may well be the first symptom of Peak Oil.

But there is an upside. Both threats will increase the use and relevance of rail. Rail is four times as energy efficient as roads in moving passengers and freight. Rail is far more flexible in its energy inputs - it can use conventional electricity, oil (for a few more years), renewable energy delivered via wires, conductor rails, conduits or flywheels, it can use steam generated by coal, biomass or wood.

The real problem is that a railway will, wherever it is, be considered in the future as a locale's principle asset. Will there really be room for amateur-operated railways in this new world? Will a line even be allowed to purchase coal to run passengers on journeys they don't need to make? And without coal that will be the end of them, because oil would have vanished years before.

In a way privatization was an acknowledgement that railways would become of prime importance in the future and perhaps an admission that huge national government may not survive, as we all look to living simpler and more locally-based lives.

The process will be gradual, but the sharper-minded lines are already planning for their own survival. Where genuine passenger flows can be identified then services are being gradually introduced that are geared towards passengers, rather than tourists. The Norden to Swanage service is a classic example, removing cars from the roads and narrow streets of Swanage. Soon you'll be able to hop off a train from the network at Wareham and take the train the whole way down. Moves to reconnect Minehead to Taunton are also signs of this process. Even the Lynton and Barnstaple are serious enough to see that to survive they need to connect back down to Barnstaple - they cannot rest on their laurels up in the heights of Exmoor with only the soon-to-be extinct car and bus to link them to the rest of the world. Closer to home the Trust at Midsomer Norton consider reconnection to the network at Radstock to be a big priority. ALL heritage railways will have to justify their existence in the future by offering real passenger and freight services to communities no longer having any real alternatives.

This is the new world of rail development, full of both opportunities and threats. The New S&D will be in the vanguard of these developments and will ensure that our stretches of Somerset and Dorset, at least, will still be connected to civilization in the future!

great dorset steam fair

Some images from the Great Dorset Steam Fair on Wednesday.

Debs and I were guests of ITV Local and were preparing a bloggers' report on the show, which involved going around with a camera and interviewing people. It was great fun but finished early for us after Debs had an accident! The film will appear on ITV Local soon and I'll give a link when available.

The Fair is fantastic and you really do need a few days there to see everything. We missed whole swathes of it.

Interestingly the fair exists because of the S&D! It grew out of a few film shows of the S&D shown near the Fair site back in the 60s. It's now been running for 40 years. More about the history of the Fair and the strong S&D connection here.

There was a stall featuring the Lynton and Barnstaple but, sadly, nothing from the S&D this year.

Eventually no doubt the showground will be served by a branch line off the new S&D, turning the wheel full circle!

new facebook group

Midsomer Norton South.


Avon Valley Railway.


Swanage Railway.


Lynton and Barnstaple.

A great idea from Robin Whitlock - a Facebook group specifically for potential railway volunteers. Take a look and join today!

inspiration and no regrets

Scenes from the superb Lynton and Barnstaple Railway at the weekend. Very much a personal inspiration, this line was closed for 31 years longer than the S&D, but now it's coming back. It will be a huge tourist and transport resource when completed.

Other lines that should never, ever, have closed include the Wantage and Wisbech and Upwell Tramways, the Hayling Island branch, the Cuckoo line in East Sussex, Meldon to Bere Alston, the Padstow branch, the Waverley route, Dumfries to Stranraer and many others. Most of these now have restoration schemes in place, surely the others will soon?

And this doesn't even include the essential transport links that we already need, not in twenty years time when oil's run out.

We're going to have a lot on our plates in the future!

A Look Ahead - article Spring 2006

The Trust has been quite cautious in the past in its presentation of its aims, as we were only too aware of the outcome of all previous attempts to preserve or rebuild even a small section of the line. However the Trust has been developing in leaps and bounds over the last few years with the return of steam last year and the start of train services for the public later this year or in early 2007. Midsomer Norton these days has an incredible buzz about it and we have an increasing number of visitors (and members). The continuing love and respect for the S&D is extraordinary and we owe a huge debt to people like Ivo Peters who recorded the line so brilliantly back in the 50s and 60s.

The S&D was a main line of considerable length, and the feeling is that any restoration has to take this into account, and that a small line of perhaps 3 or 4 miles simply wouldn’t do the route justice. To allow us to economically run the sort of trains for which the line was so famous we will need a considerable run, and the ideal start for this is Radstock to Shepton. Of course there are certain obstacles but we like to think of these as challenges, and certainly far more difficult barriers have been overcome by other railways. There are no insurmountable blockages between Radstock and Shepton, although in places minor diversions may be required. We tend to now describe the 1966 closure of the S&D as ‘temporary’!

We are also very aware that the world is changing rapidly, with climate change and particularly Peak Oil leading to an inevitable revitalisation of railways, it’s my belief that within 20 to 30 years rail will probably be the only economically viable form of transport able to handle large amounts of passenger and freight traffic. This does lead to a possible future problem for us - that the government of the day may well rebuild the S&D as they’ll have no alternative. If we are just running mainly tourist trains over a few miles we’ll be brushed aside - but if we’re running a proper railway with real traffic then we may well be trusted to run the whole route. Increasing petrol costs will also mean that reconnection with the network is a priority, either at Radstock, Shepton, Bath or Templecombe. As a long-term project we have to look well into the future and be aware of any dangers or opportunities for us.

The immediate plan of course is to run a regualr train service between Midsomer Norton and a temporary station just to the north of Chilcompton tunnels. We are in the process of signing the leases for the next two sections of trackbed, which will give us nearly a mile of running line. We’d consolidate this over a few years, but would of course be planning a southern extension to a new station at Chilcompton as resources become available. We are also very keen to get back to Radstock - this involves the replacement of two bridges which is why the current priority is southwards! South of Chilcompton we hope to acquire parcels of land etc as they become available - this is why the Track Fund has been set up. The Lynton and Barnstaple have been running a similar set up for some years. This is also in accordance with the Constitution of our Trust which charges us with looking at ways to preserve/utilise the whole route.
Although we look forwards we are all also enthusiasts for the S&D and value enormously the historical aspects of the route. No matter how busy and big the S&D becomes in the future we intend to always be the friendly, efficient and frankly rather eccentric line that made us so famous and popular in the first place! Many ex-S&D employees are members of the Trust of course.

The station is currently open every Sunday and Monday, 10 - 4. Sunday is the busiest day, with the locomotive normally operating works trains. There is a shop, secondhand shop and buffet on site. We are also normally open similar hours on a Saturday, but do not advertise this as we do not always have a full staff available. We are also looking to open on Wednesdays very soon. You’d be made very welcome if and when you visit!