remember, remember .... when the catering coach was cold and empty!

The catering coach is taking on a distinctly spooky aura as we approach Hallowe'en/Samhain, the most British of celebrations. There are cobwebs at the windows, bats hanging from the window frames and spiders everywhere!

The celebrations will climax in a November 5th event in the catering coach - no fireworks or bonfire as it's an afternoon thing, but hot dogs and soup and jacket potatoes available all afternoon from the coach.

No need to book for this one, but please turn up with your friends. Next catering coach events will be two Yuletide meals - one in the day and one in the evening, dates to be announced!

Another new addition in the coach is the model railway, which is likley to grow enormously over the next few months if everybody keeps their promises to bring in tracks, engines etc!

in the woods something stirs ...

The extension is now well and truly underway with the raggle taggle Monday gang now gently massaging the undergrowth of the last 40 years! This is just over the previous boundary (note red barrier disassembled at last!) and the work is mainly clearing the smaller trees. Larger trees will need to be passed for removal. Within a few months tracklaying will begin.

midstormer norton

Some shots taken on Tuesday when we had a violent rainstorm at the station! Midsomer Norton is evocative whatever the weather ...

railway view place

Railway View Place is an unassuming street in Midsomer Norton, and it's currently a misnomer.

But what you can see from Railway View Place is the huge embankment that will carry the line back to Radstock.

This is a pretty good symbol of what the S&D was and will be again - a line engineered on a magnificent scale. Of course on the old S&D this was almost totally a negative, pushing up costs. But on the new S&D it is the scale of the earthworks, bridges and viaducts, as well as double-heading of the longer trains that will bring great benefits (as well as costs!) as hundreds of thousands flock to the line every year! Just imagine the view across Radstock and Midsomer Norton when perched fifty feet above the ground! And just imagine the sheer joy for the residents of Railway View Place when the trains are back and they can look out over their breakfasts on a frosty morning as an early train heads south against the grade. Imagine what it will do for their property prices as every enthusiast in the land competes with each other for the view! Just one more intangible benefit that the restoration of the S&D will bring to residents all along its route.

bridges and cameras

(Demolishing a bridge on the Bridgwater branch, 1957)

Apologies for not posting for a few days - thanks to glandular fever and a short holiday.

Back to the station today - buzzing as usual! Julian Peters and Wally Moon were being filmed for a Channel 4 programme, which ended up being done in the shop as the weather was vile. Julian brought in a couple of Ivo's old photo albums, from 1950 and 1965, these were the famous ones which used to travel up and down the line being passed from employee to employee.

Apparently bridge renewal over Silver Street may not be quite as difficult as we originally thought, though still very expensive. The road may only need a small amount of trimming although the services will need to be relocated - but the bridge itself will only need small ramps at the station and Radstock end so the need for a lifting bridge or other esoteric devices will not be needed!

The time isn't that far off when we'll need to make the decision Radstock first or Chilcompton infill first! My vote's with Radstock, as a station at Radstock will be a superb advert for us, right by the main roads. With the thousands of extra visitors this'll bring in we should quickly raise the necessary funds for removing the infill, and have an excellent transhipment point from rail to road or even rail throughout via the Frome line.

remember this?

I just found this whilst looking for some photos for Wulfric's homework.

It's summer 2005 with the Jinty pulling a single coach south to Chilcompton. I had a real piece of luck in that the platforms are empty, and to me this really captures the atmosphere of the original S&D. Hopefully in a few years this will become a regular feature, rather than a special event, though the platforms will probably never be so empty again!

ooops!

You sometimes wonder how it ever got to this - that a railway that will HAVE to be rebuilt can have houses built on or near its trackbed! This is the scene at Cole, 40 years to the day after closure.

It's clear from the picture that a diversionary route could easily be built here, but even with that in place these houses would be very close to the track. Obviously at some point trains WILL pass through Cole again, so a solution will need to be found.

The solution is not only simple but also elegant. With the housing market still quite bouyant most of these houses will be for sale at some point. So all we need to do is buy them as they become available, rent them out, then put the line back in place when needed. Rental agreements would clearly state that the line will be rebuilt and that the tenant would have to agree to this as a condition of taking on the lease.

Given 15 to 20 years before reinstatement as the ideal set up, the property would actually cost us nothing once the rental income is taken into account. Even where a house would need to be demolished there would be various cash inflows from salvageable materials.

Harsher folk may say 'Forget such subtle schemes, as a public railway we'll be free to use compulsory purchase'. True enough, but what legacy would that leave us in relation to the local communities we'll be serving? We need to work with them, not against them, and what is worse than turning somebody out of their house?

No, we'll do it in a gentler way, an S&D way as always ...

S&D eBay shop opens

We've just opened an eBay shop. At the moment there's not a lot of items on, but we should be putting our whole range of shop stock on line over the next few months!

mexican success

The Mexican Food Day in the catering coach at Midsomer Norton was a resounding success and speciality food days will now become a regular feature at the coach. Switzerland, Finland and Austria have already been suggested as our next ports of call - not bad for a static coach! We're also planning Yuletide meals in December, one in the day and one in the evening. Booking as always is recommended!

second helping

The final three shots of Midsomer Norton taken in late 1966 by a supporter in Canada. The real difference is the absence of trees in the photos. The station itself looks pretty similar to the scene now!

Today's AGM was a success, we easily reached the quorum required. Only one member fell asleep during the meeting!

40 years ago

These are some excellent shots sent to us by an S&D fan in Vancouver, Canada. They were taken shortly after the closure of the line, before the demolition contractors had moved in, but after the first attentions of the vandals.

Remember that the museum/archive should be opening within a year or so, and that there will be no better home for historic photos of the S&D in the future!

pics for myspace

A bit of fun today at the station as I was charged with taking some photos for our myspace site with the requirement that they were 'a bit different'. I was more than happy to oblige and the session today proved yet again that the S&D even in its current tiny form is still endlessly photogenic.

Look for more of these on myspace over the next few days. Be warned that myspace is primarily aimed at younger members of the community, so you may see a VERY different S&D on the new site! And even the occasional rude word ...

mmmm ... roads again!

This was the magnificent scene just outside of Midsomer Norton yesterday, as a tractor overtakes a disabled buggy on the main road.

Forty years on from the temporary closure of the S&D this was supposed to be its replacement! After three miles of travelling at 20mph we suddenly dropped down to 5mph before passing this thing. And all this in the 21st century.

The sooner the trains are back the better, so we once again have the option of a fast and environmentally-friendly form of transport over this lunacy.

The problem with roads is that everything is expected to use them - cars, lorries, tractors, bikes, motorbikes, caravans, horses, pedestrians ... the list is almost endless. Whereas the railways always simplify things by separating different forms of traffic - expresses, locals, freight, mail etc. And all operated by professionals rather than half-bred lunatics whose minds are on mobile phones, Kit-Kats and children, anything rather than the road ahead.

Are we really going to have to wait years before we get our trains back? I for one am getting very impatient!

what it's all about

Sometimes when things get on top of us (which happens even here at Midsomer Norton) it's worth stepping back a bit and remembering what this is all about! It's not about restoring a dozen miles of single track, running industrial locos, turning old stations into retail centres or running trains full of mixed-liveried vehicles full of people on a short trip from nowhere to nowhere.

It's about the above. Bringing back the S&D as a working steam railway through the best scenery in England. It's about restoring the iconic scenes we all remember either directly or through the work of those lucky photographers in the 50s and 60s, it's about running long double-headed steam trains over Midford Viaduct, it's about waiting for the train in front of a roaring fire at Midsomer Norton on a snowy evening, it's about the rebuilding of Evercreech Junction and Prestleigh viaduct, it's about running a two-coach branch train in the shadow of Glastonbury Tor; post-Peak Oil it's about allowing people to still move about, about bringing thousands of people daily to Bournemouth to the seaside or to Bath for the city sights. And it's about all the places in between, still suffering from the unneccesary removal of their railway.

It's going to be a long drag and it'll be hard at times, but we'll prevail. And that's why we're doing this! To restore England's finest railway so that we and our children and their children can enjoy what our parents and grandparents did. It's as simple as that. We're Bringing Back Our Trains.

annual general meeting this saturday

This year's SDRHT AGM takes place this coming Saturday (07.10.06). All members are invited to attend. It is at Midsomer Norton Town Hall at 11 am.

It's important that as many members as possible attend as we need 44 to be quorate. We'll keep it as short as possible! And, best of all, after the meeting you're all invited to the station to see the progress we've made since last year's AGM ...

See you there.

spreading our web

(Pic Radstock North Station)

As we establish ourselves at Midsomer Norton it's important that we remember that our remit covers the whole route and that eventually the rails will reach parts that are currently in deep sleep - north of Radstock, south of Shepton, the branches. To this end it would be nice if several branch groups spring up along the route, formed locally but all part of the Trust. These groups could hold local meetings, send working parties to Midsomer Norton, build their own archives and, most importantly, establish physical presences at other locations - with retored buildings, rolling stock, retail outlets and even locomotives. As the groups build and more and more trackbed comes into the hands of the Trust we can look at establishing longer sections of restored route. But most importantly an expanding Trust will let people currently isolated from the activity at Midsomer Norton feel they can also play a very important role in the rebuilding of England's finest line, for both tourist and 'real' trains. We must remember that the S&D spread from Bath to Bournemouth, and over to Wimborne, Wells, Bridgwater and Burnham and that our job isn't over until the rails reach all those points!