midford 1972

Original here.

New S&D webmaster David Bailey has tracked down this excellent shot of Midford in 1972, taken a few years after tracklifting.

This looks very much like the station does now, though soon the buildings will return.

Lovely touch of 1970s style pessimism (already proved wrong thanks to the Tuckingmill Tramway) in the blurb which accompanies this picture. It does seem odd that just 40 years ago people really believed that this line would not be rebuilt!

Hard to imagine that we used to get off the train here and all the countless thousands of people that passed this spot on express trains from the frozen North to balmy Bournemouth ... all passed into history! Nothing passes this way anymore and nothing will ever again only the leery personal chariots making for the pub on the road down below ...

spetisbury - website content welcomed!

This is from David Bailey, our webmaster.

Given that this project is taking off, I'd like to increase the amount of information we have about Spetisbury station on the New S&D website. Would someone like to volunteer to rewrite/expand the current text and submit a few more photos?

corporate identity

It's amazing what you can find buried in your own groups's website, which shows how much work David Bailey's done behind the scenes!

This is the New S&D corporate logo which I think captures what we're about very well. Nice simple lines, a nod to the past with the Southern region green, but very modern as well.

I'll be rolling this out on all my letterheads etc. I suspect this will still be our logo in 100 years - or even 200 years - time.

For full info on this part of our corporate identity please visit here.

two tunnels walk

Webmaster David Bailey went on the Two Tunnels Walk on Saturday and has uploaded an excellent album of photos (including plenty of Midford) to Picasa. The album can be accessed here.

as the decade turns ...

As 2010 turns into 2011 and the new decade begins I would like to thank everyone who has been so supportive this year, particularly Anna-Jayne Metcalfe, Tom and Stuart Seale, David Bailey, Mick Knox and many, many others. This next decade is going to be a huge one for the S&D, both at the established S&D sites (Shillingstone, Gartell, Washford, Midsomer Norton and Midford) and new locations which will spring up as the decade progresses.

And a particularly big thank you to all those doubters who have embraced the S&D revival over the last year or two, who often become the biggest supporters and advocates of what we are doing! I'm sure there will be many, many more who will come over to us in the next ten years!

A very happy and prosperous New Year to all of you.

perpetual motion?

Not quite - but a neat way of using railway infrastructure to generate the power needed to run the trains!

(Thanks to David Bailey for the story)


As of Sunday, the world’s largest stand alone integrated photovoltaic project was pumping out power into the grid. The building integrated PV system is located on the roof of the recently completed Hongqiao Rail Station in Shanghai. With 20,000 panels, the 61,000 sq m roof system is expected to produce 6.3 million kilowatt-hours (kwh) of electricity per year, which could power 12,000 Shanghai households.

Hongqiao Station is the newest high speed rail station on the Beijing-Shanghai rail line. The station was completed and operational on July 1st and a mere two weeks later, its large solar system went online as well. Installed on the awnings of both sides of the station, the 6.68 MW photovoltaic system has already produced 300,000 kWh during testing for these last two weeks.

This new solar project is meant as a pilot project to help spur on the advancement of solar power in China as well as to encourage the construction of eco-friendly rail stations that are planned for China’s high speed rail network. At a cost of 160 million yuan ($23.6 million), the new solar system will also help reduce carbon emissions by 6,600 tons and cut coal consumption by 2,254 tons

radstock future?

These shots, courtesy of David Bailey, show the way that the new link line at Sheringham fits so snugly into the pre-existing environment. You would hardly know the railway was there, and note that it is unfenced! This is far more in keeping with continental European or tramway practice. In tandem with the tramway section through Porthmadog on the Welsh Highland Railway, it does show that the UK is beginning to catch up. This may well be a model for parts of the New S&D, I'm thinking of Radstock in particular. It may mean in a few places the trains are reduced to 5mph or so, but only over very short stretches. There again in Switzerland on some street running sections trains run at 20mph or so and can have as many as ten carriages!

in the money

The Severn Valley Railway has achieved a record £6.25m turnover.

The figures relate to last year, when it carried 248,798 passengers, the second highest figure in its history.

The steam railway, which has a 16-mile (25km) line in Worcestershire and Shropshire, celebrates its 40th birthday this year.

It has secured a deal of about £100,000 to build a locomotive boiler from scratch for the first time, for Dolgoch on the Talyllyn Railway in mid-Wales.

Severn Valley opened a boiler shop in Bridgnorth in 1990 mainly to repair locomotives on its line, but it has since carried out work for other railways.

'Strong case'

The railway said any profits made on its turnover had been ploughed back into maintenance, repairs and improvements.

Marketing manager John Leach said: "It's true that many mainstream visitor attractions like coastal resorts and those on the UK's main tourism trail achieved results far better than expected last year.

"But we're not in a mainstream tourist area - we straddle two counties 'somewhere to the west of Birmingham'.

"The SVR has to make a strong case for itself in order to win a respectable share of the tourism market."

The line, between Kidderminster and Bridgnorth, fully re-opened in Easter 2008 after recovering from flood damage in 2007, when the track was washed away in 45 places.

The Talyllyn Railway runs from Tywyn to Abergynolwyn and Nant Gwernol.

Thanks to David Bailey for the information. Source.

And remember, the SVR doesn't even run passenger and freight trains for the people living along the route! So the potential income is a lot larger. I suspect the potential annual income for a new S&D including passenger, freight and heritage trains as well as associated retail premises could reach £50,000,000 quite easily. This underlines the scope and size of the project we're undertaking.

Interesting that the SVR offer a service that Shillingstone hope to do in the future, providing loco parts to other lines. Railways shouldn't be just about running trains, but also about identifying other potential and linked income streams.

By building infrastructure that can be used for both the host railway and other lines railways can make even more money and, more importantly, provide employment for local people.

tornado cassandra!

I recently rather mischievously suggested that the Channel Tunnel trains that were broken down inside the tunnel should have been hauled out by diesel or steam locomotives.

In an amazing example of life imitating art this is what happened on Monday -


Passengers were rescued by a steam locomotive after modern rail services were brought to a halt by the snowy conditions in south-east England.

Trains between Ashford and Dover were suspended on Monday when cold weather disabled the electric rail.

Some commuters at London Victoria faced lengthy delays until Tornado - Britain's first mainline steam engine in 50 years - offered them a lift.

They were taken home "in style", said the Darlington-built engine's owners.

Train services in Kent were hit hard by the freezing conditions at the start of the week.
　
The weather-related disruption included three days of cancellations for Eurostar services through the Channel Tunnel.

Tornado, a £3m Peppercorn class A1 Pacific based at the National Railway Museum in York, was in the South East for one day, offering "Christmas meal" trips from London to Dover.

Its "Cathedrals Express" service, the last mainline journey in its first year of operations, was about to depart when staff heard about the stranded passengers.

About 100 people were offered free seats, according to Mark Allatt, chairman of The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust - the charity which built Tornado.

He said: "It was a nice way to finish for Christmas, though I think some of the rescued passengers didn't realise they'd even been travelling on a steam train until they got off."

Mr Allatt, who was on the service at the time, said he only saw a handful of other trains between London and Dover throughout Monday.
He added: "If any of the train operators want to modernise their services by using steam trains, I would be happy to give them a quote."
A spokesman for Southeastern Trains congratulated Mr Allatt on his "moment of glory".

He said: "I'm sure those passengers were saved from a lengthy wait, all credit to him."

Source.

Thanks to David Bailey for the link!

another resource

Midford Spring 1963 © Peter Leigh

David Bailey's just discovered this excellent resource which includes a Somerset and Dorset Photostream which can be accessed here.

If you have S&D photos why not add them, perhaps adding this blog address in the comments box?

live at last!!!

I finally persuaded our perfectionist webmaster to let the website go live just minutes ago!

There's still a lot of work to do, there are a few text sections to go in (blame the tennis for the delay!) and many photos, but we both agreed that it was time to put our toes in the water.

David has also agreed to join the committee, so we are now up to six. If you've been waiting until now to join the New S&D you will find Paypal buttons plus a pdf membership form on the new site that will allow you to do this easily. So what are you waiting for?

when even he gets it ....

David Bailey, our webmaster, has just sent me this gem on the death of GM in the USA.

Whilst Michael Moore is still using that old scapegoat Climate Change as the reason for this it is still 99% sound. Buses? Never! I never thought I'd agree with someone from the opposite end of the political spectrum to me, but perhaps this shows just how deep-seated this all is!


Goodbye, GM ...by Michael Moore

I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.

As I sit here in GM's birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be your state of mind?

It is with sad irony that the company which invented "planned obsolescence" -- the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one -- has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh -- and that wouldn't start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored the "inferior" Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.

So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company's body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with -- dare I say it -- joy. It is not the joy of revenge against a corporation that ruined my hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with. Nor do I, obviously, claim any joy in knowing that 21,000 more GM workers will be told that they, too, are without a job.

But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company! I know, I know -- who on earth wants to run a car company? Who among us wants $50 billion of our tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of still trying to save GM? Let's be clear about this: The only way to save GM is to kill GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though, is another matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting down and tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still had them when we realize that those factories could have built the alternative energy systems we now desperately need. And when we realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we've allowed our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?

Thus, as GM is "reorganized" by the federal government and the bankruptcy court, here is the plan I am asking President Obama to implement for the good of the workers, the GM communities, and the nation as a whole. Twenty years ago when I made "Roger & Me," I tried to warn people about what was ahead for General Motors. Had the power structure and the punditocracy listened, maybe much of this could have been avoided. Based on my track record, I request an honest and sincere consideration of the following suggestions:

1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.

We are now in a different kind of war -- a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call "cars" may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.

The other front in this war is being waged by the oil companies against you and me. They are committed to fleecing us whenever they can, and they have been reckless stewards of the finite amount of oil that is located under the surface of the earth. They know they are sucking it bone dry. And like the lumber tycoons of the early 20th century who didn't give a damn about future generations as they tore down every forest they could get their hands on, these oil barons are not telling the public what they know to be true -- that there are only a few more decades of useable oil on this planet. And as the end days of oil approach us, get ready for some very desperate people willing to kill and be killed just to get their hands on a gallon can of gasoline.

President Obama, now that he has taken control of GM, needs to convert the factories to new and needed uses immediately.

2. Don't put another $30 billion into the coffers of GM to build cars. Instead, use that money to keep the current workforce -- and most of those who have been laid off -- employed so that they can build the new modes of 21st century transportation. Let them start the conversion work now.

3. Announce that we will have bullet trains criss-crossing this country in the next five years. Japan is celebrating the 45th anniversary of its first bullet train this year. Now they have dozens of them. Average speed: 165 mph. Average time a train is late: under 30 seconds. They have had these high speed trains for nearly five decades -- and we don't even have one! The fact that the technology already exists for us to go from New York to L.A. in 17 hours by train, and that we haven't used it, is criminal. Let's hire the unemployed to build the new high speed lines all over the country. Chicago to Detroit in less than two hours. Miami to DC in under 7 hours. Denver to Dallas in five and a half. This can be done and done now.

4. Initiate a program to put light rail mass transit lines in all our large and medium-sized cities. Build those trains in the GM factories. And hire local people everywhere to install and run this system.

5. For people in rural areas not served by the train lines, have the GM plants produce energy efficient clean buses.

6. For the time being, have some factories build hybrid or all-electric cars (and batteries). It will take a few years for people to get used to the new ways to transport ourselves, so if we're going to have automobiles, let's have kinder, gentler ones. We can be building these next month (do not believe anyone who tells you it will take years to retool the factories -- that simply isn't true).

7. Transform some of the empty GM factories to facilities that build windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy. We need tens of millions of solar panels right now. And there is an eager and skilled workforce who can build them.

8. Provide tax incentives for those who travel by hybrid car or bus or train. Also, credits for those who convert their home to alternative energy.

9. To help pay for this, impose a two-dollar tax on every gallon of gasoline. This will get people to switch to more energy saving cars or to use the new rail lines and rail cars the former autoworkers have built for them.

Well, that's a start. Please, please, please don't save GM so that a smaller version of it will simply do nothing more than build Chevys or Cadillacs. This is not a long-term solution. Don't throw bad money into a company whose tailpipe is malfunctioning, causing a strange odor to fill the car.

100 years ago this year, the founders of General Motors convinced the world to give up their horses and saddles and buggy whips to try a new form of transportation. Now it is time for us to say goodbye to the internal combustion engine. It seemed to serve us well for so long. We enjoyed the car hops at the A&W. We made out in the front -- and the back -- seat. We watched movies on large outdoor screens, went to the races at NASCAR tracks across the country, and saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time through the window down Hwy. 1. And now it's over. It's a new day and a new century. The President -- and the UAW -- must seize this moment and create a big batch of lemonade from this very sour and sad lemon.

Yesterday, the last surviving person from the Titanic disaster passed away. She escaped certain death that night and went on to live another 97 years.

So can we survive our own Titanic in all the Flint Michigans of this country. 60% of GM is ours. I think we can do a better job.

a giant leap for mankind

Things are moving quickly. We met up with David Bailey today who has agreed to get the website up and running. This is a really big step for us and we should soon have a very professional and modern website. He's offering his skills and time free of charge to us which is a real coup.

It also appears to be time to call the first meeting of the New S&D, as there is a lot to discuss. I'm more than happy to hold it here at home in Bristol. We'll lay on a nice meal and you'll have access to our impressive wine selection! As we're still small could you all contact me with some idea of when you are free and, of course, if you're willing to make the trip up to Bristol. We really need to get a committee up and running.

I envisage that meetings will take place up and down the S&D so that we all do a share of the travelling over the next year or so.

Also to counterbalance the Midford station project we should also set something up in the south of the line when the right location becomes available. We mustn't forget the branches either!