broadstone meeting

(All copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing 28.4.1977)

This via Geoff Newman -

I thought you might like to let people know that there is to be a meeting of the Somerset and Dorset Family History Society next Monday, 19 March when there will be talk on the Broadstone Railway Accident of 1890. It’s to be held at the Allendale Centre in Wimborne, tickets £3.00 by ringing 01202 888368. Unfortunately I can’t go but I thought some of the local members might be interested.

 

and a bit more ....

I had another enquiry about the New S&D which meant that I needed to explain concisely what we were doing - and came up with this -

At present we own Midford near Bath which has been cleared ready for rebuilding later this year. We own about 400 metres of trackbed as well here.

We are also about to take on Spetisbury in Dorset (on a lease) and clearance work will commence there very shortly. This site will also include about 400 metres of trackbed.

Both stations will be restored to 1950s condition and will then serve as information offices for the whole route and will also each have a shop.

The next step after that is to secure a site where we can set up a Sustainable Transport Facility, which will have both standard and narrow gauge running lines.

Spetisbury may well have track laid with the next step being extension to Charlton Marshall. There’s plenty of opportunities for hands on work at Midford and soon at Spetisbury.

Beyond that the plan is to restore the Bath to Bournemouth route together with the line to Wimborne and beyond, also connect Wells and Glastonbury, probably along the original branch from Evercreech Junction. It’s important to stress that this is a long term project and assumes that road traffic will fall substantially or completely over the next 20-50 years as Peak Oil hits hard and alternatives fail to be economic or scalable. Freight will be as important as passenger traffic. It is assumed that small viable sections will be restored, not the whole route in one go! The only heritage aspect of this plan (which is enshrined in our constitution) will be that infrastructure will be restored to heyday condition to encourage steam specials off the Network, and also of course encouragement of the existing heritage groups on the line, which we work with closely. We would operate steam trains (modern new builds) only if this was economic compared to electric traction. We do not even consider diesel as the fuel will simply no longer be economically available within a decade or so, and we don’t want to lumber ourselves with unuseable and unsaleable ‘assets’!

We are also charged with obtaining trackbed and other infrastructure as and when it becomes available and a separate fund exists for this.

bit of a treat?

Midsomer Norton greenhouse

Midford 1960s.

Gartell Railway.

Gartell double heading.

Charlton Marshall.

Midsomer Norton 1960s.

Midford.

Shillingstone - before track.

Midsomer Norton.

Evercreech Junction.

Blandford.

Spetisbury.

Midford.

Midford - very first bit of clearance - September 2010.

Narrow gauge at Midford - 1980s/90s.

Shillingstone.

Henstridge - the 'inbetweener' years.

Well I hope it is! Apologies for no pics of Washford - couldn't find any from the album from which the above were drawn. Also apologies if I haven't attributed them, but they have been attributed earlier! This is just to try to get a taste of all we've done up and down the line for the S&D together with a few looking back on the original route.

Someone asked me on Facebook to explain the different groups restoring/preserving the S&D - this is what I came up with.

The Midsomer Norton group has been going about 20 years, formed when the site was about to be built on! They are now running trains over a short stretch of line and have rebuilt the whole site at Midsomer Norton including restoring the station buildings and goods shed which survived and rebuilding the signalbox and greenhouse which were completely demolished. This group is the Somerset and Dorset Railway Heritage Group. They were formed with the intention of 'supporting a 21st century rebuilding of the line for modern trains' which is what inspired the New S&D. They intend to rebuild back to Radstock where they will connect with the ex-GWR line to Frome, which is in situ throughout and heavily used by stone trains from Great Elm. They also plan to extend over the Mendips to Shepton Mallet and have planned a diversionary route around Shepton to possibly connect with the East Somerset Railway.

Shillingstone has been going around 10 years and have been particularly active over the last year or so. They have also rebuilt a completely demolished signalbox, the station building had been well preserved. They have a short length of running line but no public trains as yet. They have long term plans to extend northwards to Sturminster Newton. This is owned by the North Dorset Railway Trust.

The Gartell Railway is a privately owned narrow gauge line just south of Templecombe which uses about a half mile of S&D trackbed and is now extending northwards closer to Templecombe. It is strongly S&D flavoured. This runs around 7 or 8 times a year.

The Somerset and Dorset Railway Trust is based at Washford on the West Somerset Railway, but was originally based on the S&D at Radstock where it ran special trains to Writhlington, but was forced off site in around 1975. Their lease at Washford finishes in 2020 and they are expected to return to the S&D, either at an existing site or at a new one. They own a 7F loco which runs on the WSR, currently posing as fictional prussian blue liveried no 88.

The New S&D was formed on 6 March 2009 with the intention of restoring the whole route for modern trains in the post oil era. We own Midford station and a quarter mile of trackbed outright and are also about to take on Spetsibury (in Dorset) on a lease. The intention is to fully restore these stations, also to probably lay track at Spetisbury and possibly extend to Charlton Marshall and to just south of Blandford. We will also acquire trackbed etc as it becomes available, based on the Exmoor Associates model at the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway. We will also lobby for restoraton of the route in its entirety as part of a 21st restoration of the whole rail network.

All the groups work closely together with regular meetings every 6 months, we also share members and sometimes skills and equipment.

off the s&d

If you're at a loose end or bored with S&D news (as if!) why not take a look on two of my other blogs, The Rail Thing which can cover just about anything rail-based and my new blog, Time Travelling which may, through its non-rail content, give you a bit more idea of what I'm about, as it delves randomly into my past covering everything from railways (of course), music, TV, popular culture, gangs of Sussex, travels around the world and absolutely NO Peak Oil!!

gartell extends north

(All pics via Gartell Blog)

Some excellent shots of the current extension works on the Gartell Railway as they head towards Templecombe. Full post here on their superb blog site.

a different perspective

6th March used to be a date when all S&D fans used to grind their teeth or, worse, shed a tear or two. But I think we can begin to put those shows of nostalgic negativity behind us.

True, the S&D was closed on that date back in 1966, but it's now clear that that was a temporary closure. It took a while for rebuilding to begin, but there are now 4 sites along the line, with another due to start shortly, that are being developed. New lengths of rail seem to be going down every weekend, sometimes at all three sites with rails!

There are now 7 or 8 locomotives based on the route together with plenty of passenger and goods stock. There are over 1000 people who are members of some or all of the groups.

These are the first footholds on the route. These sections are now safely preserved for rail, as is the quarter of a mile of trackbed at Midford.

6th March doesn't really matter any more. The dates that will matter are the reopening dates of each section as it becomes viable.

Once the S&D was described as 'Sabotaged and Defeated'. Sabotaged perhaps, but certainly not defeated. It's my firm belief that it was the disgusting and craven way the line was closed that will ensure that it has an amazing future.

It's not going to be easy or smooth bringing the whole route back - but it's return is certain.

something a little different!

This is Manchester's Mayfield station as it is today. This was a subsidiary station that lay alongside Manchester Piccadilly. The S&D link is that this was the Manchester station that the Pines Express used. Photos via the excellent Derelict Places website.

the beginning of the end?

This is an interesting intro to a radio programme as it actually brings up some fresh ideas on why car use is falling. It's not just cost, but also environmental awareness and a creeping feeling that cars are simply no longer cool. They are now seen as safe and fuddy-duddy, quite a contrast to the big American cars of the 50s or the classic British cars of the 60s (which I still love). I think you can extrapolate from this that the doomed electric, hybrid and other exotic fuel cars which may or not appear will be equally - or even more - uncool and safe.

Yet at the same time trams and trains are seen as increasingly cool, everybody wants them and everyone wants to use them. Even the old hobby of trainspotting's current manifestation as railway enthusiasm is cool. I wonder why?

Thanks to David Robins for the link!

The car was once the symbol of youthful cool. From James Dean through Steve McQueen to Ayrton Senna the car was a symbol of freedom, daring and sexual allure. Today the young of the western world have turned their back on the car. Half of American 17-year-olds have a driver's licence today compared with three-quarters in 1998 and in Europe car sales are down whilst public transport use is up.
Is it simply that insurance costs have rocketed for young drivers? Is it because the young remain in education for longer? Are our youth becoming more environmentally aware or is it because cars have become safe, reliable and downright dull?
In 'Costing the Earth' Tom Heap takes to the road from the Streets of San Francisco to the inner ring roads of the West Midlands to find out if the age of the car is coming to an end. He meets the marketing men, the manufacturers and the innovators struggling to retain a place in our affections for the motor car.
Producer: Martin Poyntz-Roberts.

Broadcasts

1. Tue 6 Mar 2012
   15:30
   BBC Radio 4
2. Wed 7 Mar 2012
   21:00
   BBC Radio 4

today (Sunday 4.3.2012) at midford

I

If you can try to get up to Midford today (4 March 2012) to help out. I think there will be a big burning session and there're rumours of sausages for lunch!

shillingstone at night

(Photo copyright Dave Clark)

This was Shillingstone tonight. With track now in place this could almost be a shot from the 1960s! There's great news coming out of Shillingstone almost daily and a good place to keep up with happenings is the Shillingstone Facebook group which is highly recommended!

great opportunity

Would you like to staff this iconic station?

With passenger services set to run every Sunday from April 7 to September 30 and 6 event weekends - there's a busy season coming! With the development of full scale passenger services, there are now opportunities for new volunteers to staff Midsomer Norton station and assist the public visiting the centre.

A friendly outlook is all you'll need to get started, training is available for your development to specific roles. To get involved in this sociable and rewarding project, please call by any Sunday or email general@sdjr.co.uk

timing

(Evercreech New, 1960s)

Perfect timing is essential to the great New S&D project. We would have looked stupid if we'd stated that we aimed to rebuild the whole line within 5 years. That's never going to happen. We have to carefully judge what is needed and what will be successful at each point in our temporal journey towards restoring the whole line. At the moment the two small revival projects at Shillingstone and Midsomer Norton, together with the narrow gauge line at Gartell and restoration of Midford are just right for 2012. They are enough to declare that the S&D is returning but not a step too far, for now.

Over the next ten years we can expect all three locations with track to expand somewhat, and be operating regular heritage trains. Who knows, by then one or some of them may even be operating genuine services for passengers or freight? We can expect a few more locations where the New S&D is restoring infrastructure and quite possibly running genuine trains.

The big thrust will probably come within ten to twenty years, when the S&D lines start to unify and when 99% of the population can not afford to run cars any more. The roads themselves will crumble through underuse and lack of investment. Governments will be rushing to put in railways and tramways everywhere to keep the economy going and to put a lid on social unrest. The hope is that by then we are considered a serious player in rail restoration and we can rebuild the S&D that we want to see, not some bland network route - because that is the only alternative.

So perhaps the picture at the top of this piece was perfect for its time? With the world awash with cheap oil, economic growth still a reality and with most people owning, or aspiring to own, a car, perhaps our railways did need a bit of a rest, if only for a few decades. It was closed, decaying railways that got me interested in railways in the first place - we'll never see their like again!

avoiding project drift

It should sometimes be restated - the New S&D is committed to restoring the WHOLE S&D, not just Bournemouth to Bath but also the branches, plus the Bristol-Pensford-Radstock and Bailey Gate-Wimborne-Ringwood lines, plus the Ringwood to Brockenhurst line if not already restored by the Network when we reach Ringwood.

This doesn't mean that a few hundred mainly railway enthusiasts are going to raise the 1-2 billion pounds needed to restore these routes, rebuild the infrastructure and provide the locos and rolling stock. It doesn't mean that some time in the next five to ten years we will be running trains to all these destinations.

What it does mean is that constitutionally we exist to promote the S&D in its entirety, will encourage and support other groups restoring sections of the route (as at Shillingstone, Midsomer Norton and Gartell), will purchase sections of trackbed etc as they become available to protect them for railway use in perpetuity, and operate sections of the route as they become economocally viable. Full reinstatement may well be by the network, by a consortium of businesses or by emergency government decree. Or we may be so sharp that we manage to do this by ourselves by raising the money on the stock exchange and/or through local and regional share issues.

Whilst discussion about restoring tiny sections for narrow gauge etc are welcome we need to avoid project drift. We need to always state what we are about, and always keep our eyes on the bigger picture.

Whilst I doubt anyone would question the need for and viability of the Midsomer Norton/Shepton to Bath and Blandford-Poole sections we need to remember that the S&D is a network, not two branches, and that we'll have far greater flexibility (and profitability) as a through route with additional connections to the Network wherever we pass by it ie at Templecombe, Bruton etc.

Whilst local passenger and freight traffic will be the lifeblood of the route we also expect that much traffic will originate and/or terminate away from our metals. This is pretty much the same situation as the old S&D but of course the New S&D will, eventually, be far busier than the Old S&D was, even on summer Saturdays in the 1950s.

midford after logging ...

All pics copyright Tom Seale

A nice set of pictures showing Midford after this month's cutting session with the platform area cleared. This gives more vistas and shows Midford in an even better light. Rebuilding of the station itself is now getting closer every day!

more wood

Mick Knox has got his eyes on these saplings and small trees lining the cutting at Midford towards Long Arch Bridge - a job for when the bird nesting season's passed. You can just make out the platform in the far distance giving a good idea of just how much land we own at this site. This will look great when the track returns.

it doesn't have to cost millions

Whenever we are asked at the New S&D how much it'll cost to reinstate the route we normally suggest around a couple of billion, chickenfeed in this age of trillion dollar bailouts, HS2 and instant creation of 'money'. This figure covers everything from land acquisition, tracklaying, infrastructure building, signalling, rolling stock, locos, setting up management systems, marketing, training etc. Against money built on roads in the last couple of decades (totally wasted money) it's nothing. But will it really cost that much or is our unique blend of community project, sustainable transport and business? Because others are doing it FAR more cheaply!

Via Keith, one of our regulars ...

Here is an example of what is possible with standard gauge. This whole scheme is a wonderful community project that is actually costing them peanuts. However, they dont have far to go to link their community, but it looks great.

February update -

http://www.mountsorrelrailway.blogspot.com/