midford musings

We had a visitor from Marlborough on Wednesday who simply couldn't understand why the S&D wasn't preserved as a prime tourist attraction in the south west. I suspect that will be a question that comes to the fore regularly over the next few years! What were they thinking? Not only would the S&D have been a tourist attraction in its own right, but would also LINK dozens of tourist facilities up and down the route, from the superb Georgian city of Bath, through the magnificent Lyncombe Vale and Midford Valley (surely the finest scenery in England?), the Mining Museum at Radstock, Shepton Mallet, Wincanton racecourse, the villages of the Stour Valley and the UK's finest seaside resort at Bournemouth, as well as dozens of other little gems en route.

And he was also amazed that this tiny thread of land through the station could easily carry 14 coach expresses and long freights, keeping traffic off the roads. In the fifties, on busy summer Saturdays, the stretch of single line through Midford up to Bath saw an endless succession of trains. The S&D was a superb piece of engineering - I think it's only problem was that it was a century ahead of its time!

Of course all this is now changing and within a few decades the S&D WILL become the leading tourist attraction in the south west as well as providing a superb freight and passenger service to the people and businesses and towns and villages along its route.

The S&D is clearly a line whose time has come!

remember 1972?

This is an interesting shot just acquired by the Rail Thing. It shows loco 210479 at Radstock back in 1972.

This is the first copyright picture I've acquired of any of the previous preservation attempts on our line. The Somerset and Dorset Circle had an excellent plan to restore the Radstock to Writhlington section of the S&D main line in the seveties, but it was killed off by a very shortsighted council. Imagine if the Mining Museum at Radstock could offer a steam trip up to Writhington with more mining exhibits there! Imagine the extra jobs and money it would bring to the community. Perhaps a revival of this scheme could be a next step for the New S&D? It would give us a working length of railway with a purpose and fill in one more gap on the strategic Radstock to Bath route. And bring all those jobs and money into Radstock ....

the three pillars of wisdom for s&d success

Midsomer Norton South 03/07/06

To make the most of the rebuilt S&D we need to concentrate on three main pillars of activity - tourism, heritage and transport.

Tourism means that train services need to be geared towards bringing people into the area to visit the railway and other attractions. Bath is Britain’s only World Heritage City, and Bournemouth is our premier resort, so we have a head start over other railways! But until we reach Bath and Bournemouth it is the area in between that we need to push and develop. A fledgling area tourist group is beginning to take shape, with the support of BANES, with the railway and the Mining Museum at Radstock the senior partners.

Tourists are a fickle bunch, and can easily be head hunted by non-railway tourist set ups, so we need to offer a great experience at a good price, be family-orientated and customer-driven, and to be very clever with our marketing. Everyone loves a steam train, and most people love the English countryside, so we have a head start! The fascinating industrial past of the Somerset Coalfield is also a natural draw. A steam railway has the unique function of being both a tourist attraction in itself and a way of travelling between tourist attractions.


Heritage is how the new S&D will link with the old. Already Midsomer Norton station is a showpiece, particularly now the signalbox is taking shape again. We are very aware of the place the old S&D had in the hearts of railway enthusiasts, local people and lovers of the English countryside. With its family atmosphere, heavy engineering works, huge variety of trains and locomotives, and its scenic route it is almost as if it was designed as a potential huge tourist attraction for the 21st century! The new S&D will be as close as possible to the original, with manned stations, double track and express engines. The museum at Midsomer Norton will be developed as the finest local and railway history archive in the country, reflecting the importance of the S&D to writers and researchers. Each station along the route will have an add-on visitor attraction with appeal to both tourists and railway enthusiasts, encouraging visitors to alight at intermediate stations and visit the towns and villages that they serve.


Finally the transport role of the S&D as it expands will become more and more important as oil runs out. A link between Radstock and Chilcompton will already serve a transport need, but as the line expands towards Bath and Bournemouth then commuter and freight flows will also fall to us.

The original S&D should never have been closed, it should have been developed as the premier tourist attraction in southern England as well as an essential transport link. What the short sighted governments and local authorities of the day failed to do over the last 40 years we will make happen over the next 40!

early bath

These are the bufferstops placed at the Bath end of Midsomer Norton station. Hopefully their stay will be a short one as the Radstock extension should begin to take shape in everybody's minds well before the line begins to actually appear on the ground! Plans may take a northwards swing once we reach the infill at Chilcompton, beyond the tunnels. The cost of removing the spoil may be greater than the cost of replacing the two bridges on the way to Radstock. Always follow the line of least resistance when restoring railways!

Why Radstock? The main reason is simply that a station at Radstock, designed for the 21st century S&D, would be a more practical base for the line than the cramped site at Midsomer Norton, which is on a steepish hill with minimal parking on site. Radstock is flat! A station on the opposite side of the road to the Mining Museum would be a huge draw to passing traffic, as well as providing a natural added attraction to the museum. We are already the two major tourist attractions in the area, and are working closely together with an eye on developments over the next few years!

A return to Radstock will also concentrate minds on the Radstock-Bath line, which in an oil-depleted world will become Radstock and Midsomer Norton's principal connection with the outside world. Personally I see the Radstock-Bath line as firstly a 'real' railway, running commuter and freight trains onto the network and, ideally, into a revitalised Green Park station. But also it must become a premier league tourist route, taking hundreds of thousands from Bath through the stunning scenery at Midford and Wellow down to the tourist centres of Radstock and Midsomer Norton, and on down to Shepton Mallet, and eventually beyond. There will inevitably be billions of government money available in the coming decades for rail reinstatement as the roads grind to a halt. We need to be ready for this. The new station at Radstock needs to be designed for through running from the very start, preferably at a level where the Bath road can be bridged rather than crossed on the level. This will be a very busy route in the future, and at least for a few years there may still be enough road transport to cause conflict! And who could resist a triumphant return to Bath?