The floor in the station building has deformed considerably since 1966 - it will need to be totally relaid.
This was the original way in to the station, from the small lane that runs above it. The steps are now cleared, I suspect we'll need to add a handrail on the side when the station is open again.
After a morning with the strimmer, Tom and Stuart have recreated the classic look of S&D cuttings and embankments. If everything fell apart tomorrow this single recreation will have made the whole effort worthwhile! A year ago this was a small wood.
One of the classic S&D views that clearance of the bank now reveals. In the middle distance, slightly to the right, is an overbridge that served the Camerton-Limpley Stoke line. This shot really brings home what the S&D was all about - a main line running through England's finest scenery. We really have the bit between our teeth now, can it really be that many years before trains are running through the site again?
As a visitor forecefully said yesterday 'This is crazy. This should be the main tourist attraction in this part of the world'.
Given a few years' time we'll turn the clock both back and forwards, and make sure that is exactly what it does become, as well as a top notch service for freight and passengers all along the route.
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One of the local residents I talked with whilst he was out for a walk through the station noticed the steps had been cleared and remarked he remembered them from when the railway was operating, as he was a frequent passenger then. Apparently the wicket gate at bottom of steps had some kind of sign indicating private or staff only or similar so that passengers had to arrive or depart at platform end beside the signal box.
Its not helpful that photographs taken down that end back then typically concentrate on the "track" side of things. This means its not entirely clear how passengers got in or out there, with the pub car park having erased everything. Of course the steps may indeed have been used for public passenger access during a previous era of the station history.
The "long" gate at the top suggests to me that the small bit of flat(ish) land up there has at one time or another had a use which no trace of remains. I wondered if perhaps allotment gardens might have existed there? It does seem to catch useful amounts of sunshine when been cleared a bit.
A walk along the Camerton Branch nearby offers more lovely views, when looking towards the old Somersetshire Coal Canal in particular. Its a farm access road not a public right of way though and some beehives too, so just be discreet and so forth. Oh and wear your wellies for the cow poo. (Example photo of view sent to Steve).
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