Wellow station

WELLOW

(All pics sourced via Google)

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Wellow station

Wellow station opened on 20 July 1874, closed for freight on 10 June 1963 and completely, with the rest of the S&D, on 7 March 1966.

The station had two platforms with a goods yard and sidings, all being controlled from an 18 lever signalbox.

The station still exists havin g been converted into a house by the artist Peter Blake (of Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club cover fame). The signalbox also survives having also been converted into a residence after closure. This section of the route was double track and had a very intensive service in the line's heyday. It's rural location made it a favourite photographic location along the route.

jazz for masbury

 

There will be a big jazz event at Midsomer Norton on 10 August 2013 (details on above poster).

 

 

Shades of the S&D in the sixties when a DMU worked a special service to an open air jazz event at (I think) Wellow!

 

looking ahead - midford

Having done an intense 3 day photo and measuring study of every facet of Midford, I firmly believe this is room for a single track railway and cyclepath from north of Tucking Mill viaduct to Wellow Trekking Centre, excepting a diversion for cyclists before Midford goods yard, over Long Arch bridge and along Midford platform. Hope and Anchor patrons can park on the site of Midford B goods yard.

The formation between Long Arch bridge south portal cutting slope and Midford platform is 25 feet wide minimum, 15 feet for railway and 10 for slewed to edge of drop-off cycle path, with appropriate fencing and masonry.

Pway materials (30 feet flat bottom, sleepers and ballast) could be delivered to “A” goods yard and the crane / loading gauge, weighbridge and huts put back with 2 box vans.

Thanks to Nick Howes for this.

wellow way ...

Some views looking south towards Wellow from the end of the cycleway. There's plenty of space here for rail facilities and track relaying and is another option for phase 3 - the down goods yard in this area has plenty of room and as far as we can ascertain no other takers! In fact I've heard that at least one of the landowners hereabouts is extremely keen for the line to return!

shoscombe

(Photo courtesy Jim Type, copyright C L Caddy Collection)

Shoscombe and Single Hill Halt lay between Wellow and Radstock and was, surprisingly, one of the busiest stations on the S&D. The reason for this was that roads to the village of Shoscombe were difficult to negotiate, a problem to this day.

This was one of the hardest stations to find any photos of, this is aparticularly nice example!

This section of line was double track and always busy (at least up to 1958!) There is already some support for the line to return in Shoscombe but we haven't had any real look at the area yet. Of course with Radstock to Bath being a stage one reinstatement (along with Blandford-Poole) the people of Shoscombe shouldn't have too much longer to wait for their trains to return, a day I suspect will be long remembered in the village as they are reconnected to the outside world by a form of transpport that DOES have a future!

a very sad story

When the original S&D closed 'replacement' bus services were implemented as a sop to those who rightly lamented the end of modern transport along the route. These services didn't last long as they obviously couldn't begin to offer the speed and comfort that the trains had - even in pre-modernisation days.

Wellow, which once had a superb rail service (along with Shoscombe and Single Hill to the south) was thrown back into the transport dark ages with villagers having to either move back to civilization (ie to somewhere with a train service!) or, horror of horrors, having to buy a car to keep themselves mobile. Because of the lie of the land and roads the replacement bus services couldn't begin to compensate for what the villagers had lost. This is what passed for progress in the horrible sixties.

When the replacement bus services inevitably stopped the villagers came up with an idea - to buy their own bus and keep some semblance of belonging to a wider world. This was four years ago. Today that bus (or more correctly minibus) hit the road.

This was featured on the local TV news. It was one of the most achingly poignant pieces of reporting I'd seen for years.

Poor Wellow, once a stop on the world famous S&D, with regular local trains connecting with expresses to the south coast, Midlands and north, site of numerous heavy freight workings, was reduced to relying on a tiny, uneconomic toy bus to keep their foothold in the 21st century.

But of course it won't be that many years before Wellow gets its trains back. With regular PPMs and electric units once again connecting at Bath, the villagers of Wellow (and Shoscombe and Single Hill) will once again be able to get where they want to quickly, cheaply and cleanly. This brief few decades where they were abandoned by the rest of the world will soon be forgotten. Roll on the New S&D! Perhaps we'll even nab that minibus for our museum of transport!

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!!

web input

(Photo Mick Knox 6.3.2006)

We're now frantically churning out copy for the website. One feature is content for each S&D station with history, present status and future plans. This is the entry for Wellow.

History

Wellow was opened on 20 July 1874 with the S&D’s Bath Extension. There were two platforms and a neat limestone station building. This was a particularly attractive station, fitting in very well with the adjacent village. It was once quite busy with goods traffic including watercress, corn and agricultural equipment. It closed for freight on 10 June 1963 and completely on 7 March 1966.

Current status

The station building survives as a private house, as does the signalbox.

Future plans

The station will once again see trains when this section of the line is restored. It is hoped that the building and signalbox can be purchased before the reopening.

new resource

An excellent photographic resource discovered by Nick Howes is the Bath in Time website which as well as having loads of classic rail images around Bath also covers other transportation including trams and canals.

the last time?

Tradition expects me to mark today - the 42nd anniversary of the closure of the S&D. Hopefully it'll be the last time I - or anybody else - has to! With regular trains expected to start running this year at Midsomer Norton future years should be marked by the celebrating of the reopening and we can eventually forget the line was ever closed. 2008 really is a turning point ...

museum

The museum should be open within a year, the first few tenders are now going in for the work. We received just short of £50,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund for this work.

Once it's built the museum will become a focal point for both local and railway historians. It will be state-of-the-art, not some musty old collection of relics. It will hopefully become the primary resource for all S&D historians.

Remember that the history of the S&D did not end in 1966! The above shot is of Wellow in 1980. The 'closed' period of the S&D will become a fascinating idiosyncracy for historians in 50 years time, when trains are again steaming from Bath to Bournemouth. Please consider donating pictures you have of the line, both before and after 1966, for use in the museum archive - the more unusual the better! The success of Jeffery Grayer's book 'Sabotaged and Defeated' proves that the 'closed' period has a fascination of its own, as does volume 3 of the TVP series on the S&D, which concentrates on the dismantling of the route. For every classic Ivo Peters' shot, there must be a thousand other shots of the line from a different perspective. Let's flush them all out!

Donations of photos/negatives/film etc can be made at the station on any Sunday or Monday. We will take the utmost care of them and ensure that they reach a wider public over the coming years.

1980

I've been gradually working through all my old photos and digitalising them - a very big job with 12,000+ to do!

Back in 1980 I travelled the route from Broadstone up to Midford, calling at most stations en route. So far I've only found a few and this is probably the best - a shot of Wellow station. Hopefully over the next few months more will show up - including Midsomer Norton and Shillingstone!

go north!

More stirrings on the S&D - it's a job keeping on top of them all! The Six Arches project aims to finally build the cycleway between Radstock and Midsomer Norton, which will involve reinstatement of the Somervale Road bridge. Obviously it wll be easiest for us to make this a rail bridge (with space for a cycleway) right from the start, so we're working closely with the group. It will mean a large financial input from the Trust to cover the marginal additional cost of a larger rail/cycle bridge over an exclusively cycle bridge.

There is also now talk of building a second bridge over the Bath road at Radstock to counter any possible objections to reinstatement of the notorious level crossing. This will leave us poised in Radstock to begin reconstructing the unobstructed (and transport-corridor protected) route back to Bath which is the real key to S&D success over the next 20 to 30 years, as well as giving us a possible link back to the Frome line. Radstock is going to be transformed over the coming decades into a real railway town again, possibly with the Bristol line reinstated as well.

The sustainable transport system of the future in a post-oil world will depend on two principle forms of transport - rail (including tramways, ultra-light rail, light rail) and cycling (with walking and horseriding complementing this). So all transport planning from now on will need to prioritise these modes, roads will fall into disuse (for energy requiring vehicles) in tandem with this shift. Inevitably more production will become localised as globalisation falters with the end of the oil age, requiring efficient transport systems serving local communities. The S&D and cycleways close to the route will provide this, giving us a head start over areas that still nostalgically cling to the road system. We'll be working very closely with cycling organisations to ensure this happens.

Reinstatement of the Radstock-Bath route will be the single biggest adventure the Trust undertakes in the 21st century, providing a classic commuter route into Bath as well as tapping into the tourist traffic in Bath and bringing them out into the hinterland. Bath Green Park will become the head office of the route as well as a showpiece Georgian style station, giving us an unbeatable presence in the city. The route will also allow visitors to see the classic S&D countryside through Midford and Wellow in the best way possible - through the windows of a train!

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?