yes!!

Just a quickie to let you all know that Midford is now ours! We now have all the paperwork including originals going back to 1895.

We'll shortly apply for planning permission (hopefully just a formality) to rebuild the station building, signalbox etc. We'll start workparties very soon to start cosmetic restoration of the site.

Fantastic news and the first step towards restoration of the whole line as a freight and passenger transport gateway for the 21st century. The future starts today ...

pre-bratislava update

Sorry I've been rather quiet over recent weeks - business has been busier than ever!

I'm off to Bratislava tomorrow for five days so thought I'd just round up things.

The transfer of ownership of Midford should be completed within a week or so.

Right Lines 2 will go out the week after next. Unfortunately I underestimated the amount of ink I'd need so it's only half printed! I now have the ink but not the time!

right lines 2

The second issue of the New S&D magazine, RIGHT LINES, is now finished and will hopefully be sent out over the next few days. Still only four pages I'm afraid - if any of you would like to take on the role of editor the job's available! Hopefully within a year or so this will become a good A4 glossy magazine packed with info, pictures and even adverts! A good magazine - and ideally I'd like us to produce the BEST magazine in the railway world - is a great way of gaining new members and converts. It can even turn in a profit. So if any of you would like to get in on this ground floor opportunity please email me at leysiner@aol.com or phone 0117 3738973.

getting the message out

Somerset and Dorset at Midford   Railways of Midford

The current Steam Railway Magazine has almost a whole page just on our plans for Midford. This has resulted in a noticeable rise in enquiries and membership applications, which I expect to go even higher once people realise that Midford really is coming back, and as part of a through route again.

We do expect to sign the handover of the station within a few days. You'll read it here first!

more facebook

Another new S&D (as opposed to New S&D) Facebook group is the one just started by new member George Howard for Bath Green Park station. To view and/or join click here.

stamping ground

Great news - the post office is issuing a set of stamps in August and one of the first class values is shown above. Evening Star on the Pines at Midsomer Norton! I assume that Midsomer Norton will be doing a huge tie in with the issue of these stamps as this is really a once in a lifetime opportunity to push the station! It's even better that it's a first class stamp as these see vastly more use than the higher values in the rest of the set. Buy as many of these as you can and use them on all your letters and parcels! Issue date is 19 August 2010. There will also be a much larger postcard sized stamp card available.

cradle to cradle

There's a bit of a buzz about Cradle to Cradle - a concept that suggests that everything we make - fron chairs to carpets to rolling stock - can be built using reuseable components giving products essentially an infinite life. This would quickly solve environmental constraints, though not of course energy ones! I hope that it's possible to use this style of design in creating the New S&D.

getting odder ...

The latest S&D Facebook group has an interesting remit - to dig out Corfe Mullen Halt!

facebook groups springing up ...

It's great to see so many new S&D Facebook groups springing up ... mostly being set up by new member George Howard. These nicely complement the Facebook groups for individual stations which now number three, with many more to come.

Latest is a group for the 7Fs.

S&D v GWR - let the battle commence!

Typical Great Western main line station.

This has just appeared on a Facebook group - proof, even if tongue in cheek, that even today there are a few idiots out there that couldn't be cool if they lived in an igloo ...

the pines was a silly named train over Somerset's Dismantled Joke Railway, it's a good job it got closed down and the "pines" got diverted along lines with actual centres of population on them, and lines that were properly engineered. Plus the Red Dragon was 92220's moment of glory because it proved that 9F's were better than many mixed traffic and passenger designs.also I'm sick of hearing people crying over the loss of the S&D, it was just another branchline that if open today would just be a drain on resources.

midford - discuss ....

(Click on picture to enlarge and read text).

This is a plan for Midford put forward by George M Howard, who has recently created the Pines Express and Evening Star Facebook groups. This was merely a 'thought experiment', dreamed up before there were any plans to restore Midford. I do wonder if once we start work at Midford, which is now imminent, a trackless station will soon be too little, and thoughts will switch to laying track? 

pining for the pines

Hot on the heels of the launch of the Pines Express Facebook group, John Penny at Gartell sent this pic from Monday to remind us all that a version of the Pines Express is already running over the route of part of the S&D. Remember, the S&D is far from dead and is now returning to life in FOUR separate locations - Midsomer Norton, Gartell Railway, Shillingstone and (in a few days' time) Midford.

new facebook

Another S&D relevant facebook group has just started up, this one concerning the locomotive 'Evening Star' which was not only the last steam locomotive built for British Railways (up to now of course!) but was also a regular on the S&D. To join click here..

transport of the future!

From Mick Knox -

Will Algae oil be used as Fuel? Not at this price! $300 a gallon....

Last week when on duty at Dalston Western Junction one of the signalling technicians involved with the rebuilding of the line, closed in 1986, commented on the source of algae based fuels to replace fossil fuel based oil. This came about as we were discussing the rebuilding of railway lines and my assertion that for this country to have a hope in remaining competitive it will have to safeguard old routes and eventually rebuild them. Indeed the line from Dalston Western Junction prior to June 1986 ran into Broad Street Station, alongside Liverpool Street Station, and a quick Google search will reveal Broad Street was once a very busy station. Back in 86 a certain Mrs Thatcher didn’t like the railways and the old Broad Street Station closed and disappeared under the Broadgate development. As a long term cost saving exercise I argue this was indeed a folly, because under 25 years later the former trackbed is now incorporated in the East London Line extension, except of course there’s no Broad Street. Indeed a modern day Broad Street station, with the former frontage incorporated in the new office block developments, owned by the railway and providing revenue for sustainable transport, would have been a far better way to have spent the North Sea Oil bonanza.

Anyway, I’m back to oil, and the algae based oils as a possible replacement for fossil oil. Now I’m coming at this with open eyes, as well as being a railwayman I’m also a devotee of the internal combustion engine, especially V8’s...so I would like to hope that I can still drive my cars, bikes, etc in the future, but at what cost? An internet search produces an item advising that algae fuel currently goes for $300 a gallon! There’s going to have to be some development to bring that price down, isn’t there? Are weapons of mass destruction going to be found in Zimbabwe? Because if so, we could invade and secure the former wheat fields for bio-fuel production, or am I being too cynical? If so, the question arises, do we feed people or our cars?

Knoxy at Camden Box, on a nice sunny day...

Incidentally Broad Street once had fast services from Watford Junction and services off the East Coast Main Line, and was four tracks from Camden. How much better than trips round the Circle of Northern line today?

 There are real dangers that these quests for a future fuel are taken too seriously. At best they are a scientific thought experiment, at worst they can damage serious attempts to find future fuel sources. The problem of course is one of economics and engineering. These wonder fuels generally do not scale up ie they could never be used to provide anything more than a tiny percentage of what we obtain so easily and cheaply from fossil fuels today. We've heard this week that a scientist has managed to produce a self-replicating form of 'life' and one of the wonders that we can expect from this 'huge step forwards' is that they will be able to 'create' new hydrocarbons from pollution! Great! So we're so desperate that we'll need to create pollution to convert to oil? How sad is that? And, on a more serious level, how practical and economic and undamaging would such a process be? And for what? To further damage the planet and us by keeping the dying culture of private persoanl transport spluttering on for a few more years?

The simple fact is that we had a perfectly serviceable form of fast transport BEFORE oil was even used. As the default option for the future rail doesn't need to be tested, we know it works. If ALL else fails, and some commentators think that it will, then we can still travel at reasonable speeds and carry huge amounts of freight by burning wood efficiently and running at least some of our future transport by using sustainable fuel to power electric trains and trams.

power ...

Heidelberger Strassenbahnen: Eine Dokumentation uber die Heidelberger Strassen- und Bergbahn AG = Tramways of Heidelberg (Germany) (Archiv) (German Edition)
Tramway and Light Railway Atlas 1996: Germany - Tramway, U-Bahn, S-Bahn, Trolleybus
Schwandl's Tram Atlas Deutschland: Detailed Maps of All German Tram, Light Rail and Underground Networks (English and German Edition)

 

The Parry People Mover uses a flywheel to store energy with no overhead wires or conductor rail needed.


Modern trams use lightweight catenary.


Classic Southern Region conductor rail - cheap but dangerous!


Heavier style main line catenary - here used on a roadside line in Switzerland.

Anna-Jayne has just found this article which could provide the ideal power system for the New S&D - buried electric supply meaning that the system is totally safe (unlike conductor rails), cheap (no expensive masts) and aestetically pleasing (no external presence). This gets easier as each week passes!

Bombardier to test wireless trams in Augsburg

26 May 2010
GERMANY: The Primove induction-based catenary-free electrification system developed by Bombardier Transportation is to be piloted on the tram network in Augsburg, the manufacturer announced on May 26.

Formally unveiled at Bombardier's Bautzen factory in January 2009, Primove uses cable buried beneath the track to produce a magnetic fields which induces electric current for traction power in pick-up coils mounted underneath the vehicle.

It will be installed on a 0·8 km branch from Augsburg Line 3 which serves the city's exhibition centre. This will enable Bombardier to demonstrate the technical capabilities and electromagnetic compatibility of Primove, which is a potential competitor for Alstom's APS ground-level power supply in locations where overhead electrification is considered undesirable.

'Our expectation for the Primove pilot project is to gain further insights into new developments in energy management and energy savings in tramway operations', said Stadtwerke Augsburg Verkehrs Managing Director Norbert Walter. 'We will also co-operate with the Augsburg University of Applied Sciences'.

Bombardier is currently supplying Augsburg with 27 Flexity Outlook trams. The first arrived last year and deliveries will run to the end of this year.

Source

pines express facebook

Just spotted on Facebook is a new group that's celebrating the Pines Express. Please join!

Hopefully the 'historic' side of the New S&D will operate a new Pines Express over the route in the future. It will surely be the most popular steam train in the UK!

update

THE SOMERSET & DORSET RAILWAYSomerset & Dorset Railway [VHS]Somerset and Dorset Railway (British Railway Pictorial)

I thought I'd just do a quick update on where the New S&D now is, and what we hope to do in the next year.

Firstly we will be taking Midford on within a week or so, once the paperwork's been signed. Paul Beard is still negotiating with the council over Spetisbury. Right Lines 2 will be out in a week or so. The landholding, line building and train operating company, Wessex Links Ltd, is now set up. The charity will be set up over the next few days, which will take up the membership, fundraising, social activities etc, as well as retailing and promotion/lobbying for the route.

You may have been a member for a while, or perhaps not even joined yet (!), but if you haven't taken an active role up till now there will be lots of positions arising over the next year. Right Lines Editor, Membership Secretary, Press Officer, Fundraiser are some of the positions up for grabs. We'd also love business-minded people to join us on the board of Wessex Links Ltd, where the workload is far more commercially orientated. If interested in any of these positions please email me at leysiner@aol.com

Hopefully by next year we will have published 'The Case for the S&D', contacted all councillors, MPs, businesses, media and other interested parties along the route, started rebuilding Midford and hopefully Spetisbury and be producing a quality A4 magazine, as well as operating sales/information stands at shows along the route.

S&D weather!

For those of us that never knew the old S&D I suspect we all think of it as running through a never ending summer, thanks to Ivo's pictures! That's not to say he didn't photograph it under other conditions, there are classic shots of the line in the winter of '63 for example, but the ones that stick in my mind are the ones showing summer expresses.

I can't wait until we are running trains again through that beautiful countryside in beautiful weather like we've had this weekend. The above shots are near but not on the S&D, all three taken in S&D weather! One of the reasons I've been quiet for a few days - making the most of it!

Main news is that we will be taking Midford on in a matter of weeks if not days. Imagine working up there in weather like this!