S&D@WSR

There have been changes to the locomotive line-up for the West Somerset Railway’s Autumn Steam Gala which takes place on the 20 miles of line between Bishops Lydeard and Minehead over the 4 days October 4th to 7th.

Sadly the Midland Railway Centre has been unable to release the Caprotti British Railways 5MT 73129 but in its place the WSR has been able to hire Ivatt 4MT 2-6-0 43106. The "doodle bugs” came to the S&D before their original steaming problems were resolved but they were part of "Joint Line” history. In addition not merely is 43106 the only survivor of the 162 which were built but it will be the first time that any member of the class to work on the line to Minehead.

The superb recreation of Green Park in 4mm scale by the Taunton Model Railway Group will be open on Friday, Saturday and Sunday in their Club Room at Bishops Lydeard station.

92203 "Black Prince” will be heading a non-stop "Pines Express” in both directions on Saturday 6th and there is pre-bookable dining space on the trains for those who wish to join various visitors including Peter Smith and Aubrey Punter on a special day out. More details and bookings via 01643 704996 or online. Or if you prefer a different view of the line there are a limited number of places to travel in the brake vans of the goods trains.

So the full line up of engines due to be at the Gala is as follows:-

9F 2-10-0 92203 "Black Prince”:- "Black 5” 4-6-0 45379 (making its WSR debut):- Ivatt 4MT 2-6-0 43106;- Somerset and Dorset "7F” 88:- GWR 4936 "Kinlet Hall”;- GWR 3850:- GWR 4160:- GWR 6960 "Raveningham Hall:- GWR 7828 "Norton Manor”; GWR designed "Mogul” 9351.

The loco diagrams will be part of the Souvenir Guide which is now at the printers and will be on sale for £4 at West Somerset Railway Stations (or can be ordered in advance by ringing 01643 with card details or by sending a cheque to West Somerset Railway, The Railway Station, Minehead, TA24 5BG).

Alan Hammond will be book signing on all four days and some of the newly issued range of buildings based on Shillingstone are on sale in the Minehead station shop (01643 700387 direct line)
And of course the Washford Museum will be open, offering an essential place to visit for all lovers of the Somerset and Dorset.

midford at washford

 

We've just had a five day break at the White Horse Inn at Washford (recommended!) and travelled on the WSR. As we waited for the first train of the day a couple of the Washford S&D members were chatting to us (they'd heard of me!). I got the chance to pull a couple of the signals on site using the levers in the reconstructed Midford signalbox. I know I'm a dyed-in-the-wool modernist but I also have an interest in how things used to be done, as doubtless this will be how things will be done in an energy-constrained future. The signalbox is a credit to the members at Washford and it was a real pleasure meeting them. I also got some EXCELLENT second hand books in the sales area - way better than I've seen elsewhere.

 

Who knows, one day this fine exhibit may be winging its way back home to Midford ...

a real shock

We've booked a short break in Washford in August. Thanks to the lack of a rail connection at Taunton we're having to go all nostalgic and take the car, but the plan was to park it up for three days and use the WSR to get everywhere.

Of course, perhaps rather naïvely, I assumed it would be running a decent service, but the last train back from Minehead is at 17.25!!!!! I was rather hoping we could have a night out in Minehead. perhaps catching the last train around 11.30.

Mmmm. I don't get this. Surely there is loads of potential custom from both Minehead and all the towns en route to justify a proper community service, keeping cars and buses off the totally inadequate road system?

So the choice will be - go for a night out and come home at just before half past five (LOL!), stay in Washford or drive to Minehead with one of us as a designated driver.

And the bigger question is - how many millions have the WSR lost over the years by offering what seems to be jjust a train ride? And how sustainable is that?

south devon railway

Took a trip to the South Devon Railway last Saturday. I first visited this line in 1972 and nothing much seems to have changed! Buckfastleigh's nicely developed with plenty to do before making the return trip. At the Totnes end there's a fantastic hands-on Rare Breeds Farm.

Once a month the SDR uses diesel traction for one of its trains and we took this up, utilising the fantastic observation car, all for £1.50 extra first class.

We travelled by train from Bristol - the interchange at Totnes is about a 400 metre walk, not bad at all. SDR trains did once run into Totnes BR station, but apparently the charges were too high and in the end they built their own station at Totnes (Littlehempston) using the building from Toller on the Bridport branch.

I do feel that only heritage railways that have a network connection can survive in the long term. people are already abandoning their cars, eventually none of us will have the option. Heritage lines will also have to adapt to carry genuine passenger and freight flows. The SDR does eventually intend to return to Ashburton, which will be an excellent traffic generator for the line, so I reckon it will survive.

My first choice for last Saturday's trip was the Seaton Tramway but there's no rail connection, second choice was the West Somerset, also written off though we ironically passed its connection with the network south of Taunton - this is surely one piece of line that needs to be opened sooner rather than later?

heritage railways in the new golden age of railways

The heritage railway (formerly preserverved railway) is really a child of the 1950s-1980s. It was created in a very different world, one where it was seriously considered that road traffic would continue to expand, where railways were some quaint historical artefact, where steam power (despite its use in nuclear power generation) was finished. It carried tourists on trips through pretty scenery, just for the experience of travelling behind a steam locomotive. It was great! It was nostalgia and volunteers, crisps and coke, tea towels and fridge magnets.

The world has changed. We face two huge challenges, Climate Change and Peak Oil.

Both will impact enormously on the heritage railway movement, and are already beginning to do so. The Severn Valley suffered two disastrous bouts of Climate Change related rain damage recently. The price of coal and oil rocketed until a few months ago, then plunged precipitously. This volatility has long been forecast by Peak Oil economists. Both threats have serious economic impacts - the current economic downturn may well be the first symptom of Peak Oil.

But there is an upside. Both threats will increase the use and relevance of rail. Rail is four times as energy efficient as roads in moving passengers and freight. Rail is far more flexible in its energy inputs - it can use conventional electricity, oil (for a few more years), renewable energy delivered via wires, conductor rails, conduits or flywheels, it can use steam generated by coal, biomass or wood.

The real problem is that a railway will, wherever it is, be considered in the future as a locale's principle asset. Will there really be room for amateur-operated railways in this new world? Will a line even be allowed to purchase coal to run passengers on journeys they don't need to make? And without coal that will be the end of them, because oil would have vanished years before.

In a way privatization was an acknowledgement that railways would become of prime importance in the future and perhaps an admission that huge national government may not survive, as we all look to living simpler and more locally-based lives.

The process will be gradual, but the sharper-minded lines are already planning for their own survival. Where genuine passenger flows can be identified then services are being gradually introduced that are geared towards passengers, rather than tourists. The Norden to Swanage service is a classic example, removing cars from the roads and narrow streets of Swanage. Soon you'll be able to hop off a train from the network at Wareham and take the train the whole way down. Moves to reconnect Minehead to Taunton are also signs of this process. Even the Lynton and Barnstaple are serious enough to see that to survive they need to connect back down to Barnstaple - they cannot rest on their laurels up in the heights of Exmoor with only the soon-to-be extinct car and bus to link them to the rest of the world. Closer to home the Trust at Midsomer Norton consider reconnection to the network at Radstock to be a big priority. ALL heritage railways will have to justify their existence in the future by offering real passenger and freight services to communities no longer having any real alternatives.

This is the new world of rail development, full of both opportunities and threats. The New S&D will be in the vanguard of these developments and will ensure that our stretches of Somerset and Dorset, at least, will still be connected to civilization in the future!

ever vigilant

(Photo - 1986)

We should never take what we've achieved at Midsomer Norton for granted. Britain is littered with failed preservation schemes, from the Westerham Valley Railway sacrificed for a motorway(!) to the above (Shoreham-Beeding), a line that should have been preserved as it would have tapped into a huge tourist trade. And of course schemes closer to home including Radstock to Writhlington and the Midford set-up.

The interesting thing is that many of these schemes seemed straightforward - track still down in many places, or short routes with little obvious obstructions.

Other lines that looked doomed from the start - Kent and East Sussex, Swanage, even Minehead - have really flourished. And did any of us really see the Welsh Highland reopening throughout?

It seems to me that the lesson to be learnt is - be ambitious! It's mainly the smaller schemes that have failed - they probably just did not ignite real enthusiasm, did not build up a head of steam and did not attract the real players.

The scheme at Midsomer Norton seemed to take ages to take off - the original plan to just restore the station and - perhaps - a small 'demonstration' length of track would never have worked. The S&D deserves a REAL preservation attempt - miles of track, big engines, plenty of stations, all the grandeur and iconography of the original line. This is what we're now working for - the Mendip Main Line. Midsomer Norton to Shepton at the very least, with the line to Bath happening at the same time or very soon after. And Shepton to Templecombe isn't really that far ...

Midsomer Norton is secure, but it's taken us fifteen years to get as far as we have. Over the next fifteen years progress will be a lot faster as we move into the post Peak Oil world, and as the new S&D becomes more widely known. Even now we still rather hide our light under a bushel, but this blog, the website, the superb Telegraph Magazine and an increased media presence shows our determination to change that!

the benefits of foresight

It seems odd that it’s taken forty years for the reversal of the idiotic closure of the S&D to start, and it’s worth looking at some of the possible reasons why.

There’s a story (surely apocryphal) that the whole S&D was offered to anyone interested in 1966 for £50,000! That’s line, stations, signalling, the lot. Even if true would a privately-owned S&D have been viable back in the sixties? The preservation movement was in its infancy, rail was (incredibly) seen as a dying technology, and marketing was unheard of. And at the same time steam was still reasonably common on British Railways, so steam on the S&D wouldn’t have been that much of a novelty. On top of the £50,000 locos and stock would have had to be found, and at that time about the longest preserved line was the Festiniog at 7 miles, the longest standard gauge was the Bluebell at 4 miles. A 100-mile preserved line would have been impossible to run economically - in 1966.

As the sixties became the seventies rail preservation was beginning to find its feet, the Dart Valley and Keighley and Worth Valley were added to the small list of standard gauge lines, and a small preservation set-up was emerging at Radstock, with the seemingly very reasonable and easily-achievable plan to restore the (in-situ) line to Writhlington.

Its failure in the anti-rail 70s surely left a bit of a cloud hanging over the S&D. Attempts (mainly pipe-dreams) to set up other schemes all fell through, without even laying track. The 80s were the real low-point for the S&D, not an inch of track remained and the clock was ticking.
So how could the finest line in the country be allowed to reach such a state? Surely with the huge love and support of rail enthusiasts and local residents at least part of the S&D could have been reinstated, even if only as a tourist attraction? Less worthy lines were being restored all over the country, the Great Central was restoring a double-track main line, the West Somerset turned a decaying branch line into a 20-mile plus tourist trap, even once empty trackbeds were being restored.

Was it the sheer magic of the S&D that frightened people off? Surely those coffin-chasers in the 60s actually quite liked the idea of being the ’last ever’ passengers on the line, there was perhaps a poignant grandeur in decaying stations fading in the mist, the ‘Withered Arm’ generation prefering the easy route of fondly remembering the recent past rather than facing up to the sheer hard work of restoring one of those dead routes? Perhaps they still see the next generation, those of us born too late to travel on and know the original S&D, as somehow inferior to them? Or perhaps there were simply too many other distractions - established steam railways, music, women, cheap sangria etc?

The world has changed so much in the last thirty years that perhaps it’s difficult for any of us to really get into that downbeat mindset any longer. Rail is in the ascendant, roads are coughing their last as the oil runs out, people want to live quieter, friendlier, more connected lives. Doors are opening for us all along the S&D.

Perhaps the S&D needed that period of temporary closure from 1966 to 2007 to gain an insurmountable mythic status where the iconography of Ivo Peters melds with the pathos of Jeffery Grayer, where Mike Arlett’s dulcet if somewhat pessimistic tones are replaced by the guitars of Arctic Monkeys to transform a whisper into a shout that ‘we are back, and this time it’s for good!’