last easy day ...

Tomorrow is the very important second meeting of the New S&D, down in Blandford. I've a feeling that Blandford is going to become a very active centre for us, with a lot of pent-up demand for the railway already existing. A town of almost 10,000 people being without trains in the 21st century is an absolute scandal. I suspect that tomorrow we'll be making some bold plans for the rest of 2009 and into 2010, particularly setting up our retail business, getting the sales and info stand up and running and starting work on 'The Case for the S&D'. We'll also be looking at land ownership along this stretch (and north to Templecombe) with the aim of buying up strategic stretches ready for the return of our trains. It's going to be very busy from now on, after the initial 6 months of getting set up, getting a committee formed and beginning to harden up our ideas and focus.

Please try to come along if you can - meeting details are on the sidebar.

prepare the stocks

(Evercreech Junction 1968 Jeffery Grayer)

I was leafing through a copy of Colin Maggs' 'The Last Years of the Somerset and Dorset' and found the chapter on the run down of the line really interesting. The S&D was closed despite an assurance from the (surprise surprise!) Labour government of the day that no major railway closures would be implemented without a review of the Beeching Report. Evil witch (surely an oxymoron?) Barbara Castle went ahead and closed the line anyway, making it the longest line closed under Beeching. The bits about the poor people of Wellow and Shoscombe (in particular) having to cope without their trains was heartbreaking. At one point a minibus was put on to replace the trains! Nobody on this side of a lunatic asylum could ever claim that was progress. From having fast modern transport using a dedicated right of way they were suddenly thrown back a hundred years and forced to crowd into a six seater bus that was expected to crawl along little single track roads and then fight its way through the Bath traffic. (This is starting to sound like the Cambridge Guided Busway LOL!)

This madness needs to be dissected in the 21st century to find out what really inspired the closure of the original S&D. Perhaps a few of the perpetrators are still alive and can be called to account. The deliberate switching of freight to less direct routes, the deliberate running down of stations and rolling stock, the dreadful timetable that made almost every journey unbearable if not impossible, the refusal to consider track rationalising or using DMUs - the whole thing was a national disgrace.

It merely confirms to me that the S&D should never have closed, which basically means that there is now no reason for it not to be rebuilt.

Next year the new limited company charged with rebuilding and operating the line will be born. Hopefully the board will, as well as including prominent local businesspeople, have the Chairs of Midsomer Norton, Shillingstone, the New S&D and Washford as members.

At the same time I'll be working on 'The Case for the S&D' taking an incisive look at the hard-to-believe mischief used to deprive hundreds of thousands of people of their trains. And the now unarguable case for bringing them back.

I'm glad I'm on THIS side of the fence and not theirs!!

evercreech junction 67/68

Three more superb Jeffery Grayer shots from 1967 and 1968. This time it's Evercreech Junction, one of the most emotive and iconic points on the old S&D. Even after closure the scale of the track layout and infrastructure at this rural spot is easy to see. Track was left in place partly for operational reasons, but also to allow the accountants to attribute unreasonable costs to the S&D to strengthen the very weak case for closure. Other scams included measuring traffic levels in school holidays and diverting freight traffic off the route, even when it was the most direct link. All of this stupidity will be investigated in the New S&D's work 'The Case for the S&D'. I've a finance background so I'm really looking forward to working on this part! I suspect that the morons engaged in this despicable activity think that time has covered up their crimes, but they're in for quite a shock ...

Jeffery's photos are from his superb if rather anachronistically titled book 'Sabotaged and Defeated' which should soon be available from the New S&D's online shop.