Today, 50 Years Ago (S&DJR)

[Ian J.]

On this day, 50 years ago, the S&DJR was finally 'murdered'. Even though I wasn't even born at the time, when I look at the railways of the East Dorset area, and the S&DJR in particular, I feel frustrated and annoyed at the failure of the governments then to think properly about the future.

 

However, what's done is done, and today I shall be remembering what was lost, and imagining scenarios of what might have been had decisions and history been a little more forward thinking...

[APOLLO]

I was lucky enough to travel on the S&D twice with my elder brother, both times just from Bath Green park to Evercreech Jcn & Return, both times whilst on holiday in the Cotswolds.

 

First trip was on the 13/7/1964 (I was 12 years old)

 

Cheltenham to Bristol D55

Bristol to Bath Spa D1028

Bath GP to Evercreech Jcn 73052

 

Had a cup of tea in a transport cafe near the station.

 

Evercreech Jcn to Bath GP 76027

Bath GP to Bristol 82038

Bristol to Cheltenham Unidentified peak.

 

Dad was waiting for us at Cheltenham with his Mk7 Jag, and we saw a mucky "Evening Star" pass through on a goods train.

 

Second journey was exactly a year later (again Wigan holiday week)

 

13/7/1965

 

Kemble to Swindon D1000 Western Enterprise in dessert sand livery

Swindon to Bath Spa D1028

Bath GP to Evercreech Jcn 80096

 

Evercreech Jcn to Bath GP 76057

Bath Spa to Swindon  D1063

Swindon to Kemble D7001

 

Wonderful journeys, Western Hydraulics & the S&D.  Such a long time ago, fading memories, thank goodness I recorder the basics of our journeys !!

 

Thank goodness also for Ivo Peters and the many, many others who photographed & recorded this wonderful line

 

RIP S&D

 

Brit15

[Captain Kernow]

Thanks Apollo, lovely memories.

 

I do recall some working steam on the S&D, living in Bath, but was only a lad when it closed. I remember seeing the tops of locos from Windebanks Timber Yard down below the southern platform at BGP, but always frustrating because looking at the station itself wasn't a priority for the rest of the family. I also remember seeing a long goods train consisting of bogie bolsters trudging along in a shallow cutting to the south of Midford station. This was from the car, with my dad driving us back from visiting family friends in Hinton Charterhouse. You could only see the loco and the brake van bringing up the rear, moving along in seemingly splendid isolation from the loco!

 

I also remember seeing steam drift up out of Lyncombe Vale, this from the vantage point of the City of Bath Boys School on Beechen Cliff, where my father taught.

 

Almost exactly one year after the line closed I finally realised what I had been missing, when my late mother took me to Midford station, so that she could pick primroses and for me to look at what was then a disused railway. Virtually everything was intact, albeit a bit weed-grown, although the windows were broken in the signal box. I tried moving a lever, but I didn't understand about interlocking in those days.

[Captain Kernow]

What 'gets' me sometimes is when I think back to the early 1970s, when I was at school and going on cross country runs through Lyncombe Vale. Of course we didn't stick to the proper course but went down to the old railway instead. In those days, say in 1973, the line had only been closed for 7 years, but all the track had gone and most of the buildings as well. The ballast was weed-grown but the sleeper bays still fairly well defined. That seemed the norm for a 'disused railway', because we didn't really know anything different. That 7 years since the line had been operational seemed like an eternity, yet 7 years ago from now was only 2009!

 

Perhaps I should have been spending more time travelling the still-open BR network, looking at all the lovely old-fashioned infrastructure that was still out there, but it didn't attract me as much as perhaps it ought to have done. I had developed an interest in the S&D by then, although the modelling interest was still some years off. At least I got to visit the preservation site at Radstock a couple of times, and even had a brake van ride from Radstock to Writhlington and back, the first and only time I've ever travelled over the S&D (until I was kindly offered a cab ride in the diesel shunter at Shillingstone, many years later!).

 

In the autumn of 1973, I think it was, Ivo Peter's photo album 'An English Cross Country Railway' came out, and pretty much blew our socks off with the wonderful images, as I'd virtually only had the Robin Atthill book as a photographic reference until then.

 

Such a few years made a big difference in the number and quality of my memories of the Somerset & Dorset.

[RailWest]

>>>I tried moving a lever, but I didn't understand about interlocking in those days.....

 

I hope you know better now :-)

>>>At least I got to visit the preservation site at Radstock a couple of times, and even had a brake van ride from Radstock to Writhlington and back....

 

I did that also, on one of their Open Days. Prior to that, I had been given a lift once in the 08 shunter during the final BR days.

[Welly]

At least, Green Park train shed and station buildings are still intact. I remember having a look at that when I was doing OU Summer School at Bath University in 2002.

[Ian J.]

I've been out walking, using a section of Castleman's Corkscrew as proxy for the S&DJR as I can't get over there myself. I came to imagining an alternative history, as realistic as I could. I imagined that Labour hadn't succeeded in closing the S&D, and that the MoD depot at West Moors remained open beyond 1974 (?). I imagined how the lines around the S&D would have found renewal in the late 80s/early 90s and into privatisation, including that the 'Old Road' would have been rebuilt after its closure in 1964; that the other S&DJR (Salisbury and Dorset Junction) found life as a preservation line; that today 158s would be on the S&D; 159s on the 'Old Road'; and 7Fs trundling between Salisbury and West Moors...

 

(I don't smoke, btw, but it was the closest smiley to a 'pipe dreamer')

[woodenhead]

May I ask a question about the S&D - if you take away the photogenic nature of the route and it's imprint on people's psyche about it's trains was the decision to close a sound business one?

 

I hold a candle for the Woodhead route but I can see why it's passenger service went because it was the slow route; the premier route was the electrified WCML and I can see why eventually the freight went, we can look back now and say things differently but hindsight is a wonderful tool.

 

With the S&D all I know is summer Saturdays and holiday trains, it must have been more than that but was it and how would it have lasted, clearly Bath was going to be a big station for a local only service once the holiday traffic went.

[APOLLO]

Anyone know the connection between Concorde and the S&D ?

 

Brit15

[Ian J.]

It's original purpose as a line for carrying farm produce had pretty much disappeared to roads in the 1950s, and from a passenger point of view by the time of closure the Pines Express and other cross country services were going via Basingstoke and Reading, meaning the locals were all that were left.

 

So the principle reason for keeping it open would have been keeping communities rail connected. However, the powers that be felt that road could happily take over the lighter loads of that local traffic, and freight wasn't significant enough to keep the line open.

 

There's a lot of 'noise' that the Western Region always disliked the line, so once given control of it did their utmost to make it seem unviable so that closure would be an inevitability, but that's still debated even now. There were issues with a couple of the viaducts, IIRC, that would have cost quite a bit to sort out so closure would have been seen at that time as reasonable, even though now it looks like one of the more ridiculous decisions of the Beeching Report when one bears in mind that no major road was ever constructed to replace the line as a corridor between Bournemouth and Bath / Bristol, consequently leaving a number of major towns without decent transport links.

[APOLLO]

I missed it's heyday, the Pines express, double headers, summer saturday holiday trains etc. I only learned of this lines former glory many years later.

 

Such a long time ago but I seem to remember the trains I traveled on were all stopping trains, only a few coaches and not very many passengers. I distinctly remember the guy at Binegar shouting the station name as we stopped on one of the runs - sounded very odd, a bit like "Vinegar" !! To me back then it was just a sleepy country line, back then I preffered the likes of Leeds and Manchester - lots of locos and train action to be seen !! But I was young and daft back then - and all I saw would last for ever till I grew a bit older and could visit again - wouldn't it ?

 

By the way - The Concorde link

 

http://www.forgottenrelics.co.uk/tunnels/gallery/windsorhill.html

 

http://www.gebejay.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/s&d-winsor.html

 

Brit15

[woodenhead]

By the way - The Concorde link

 

http://www.forgottenrelics.co.uk/tunnels/gallery/windsorhill.html

 

http://www.gebejay.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/s&d-winsor.html

 

Brit15

A likely story, recently closed line, just at the end of steam, sealed up tunnels and warnings about radiation - cover story for something much more interesting I think.  Strategic nudge nudge wink wink

 

Why an old tunnel, surely there were better places to test a jet engine than a really enclosed space within something over a hundred years old

[APOLLO]

It's actually a well documented true story. Rolls Royce wanted to test a Concorde Olympus engine to see how long it would run without oil. An abandoned tunnel was ideal as it would contain any explosion. The engine ran for two hours before stalling.

 

In the book entitled "The Somerset & Dorset Railway, Then and Now" by Mac Hawkins. An interesting comment is made regarding Winsor Hill Tunnel (Near Shepton Mallet), which was used, in 1968, after the line was closed and lines lifted, by Rolls Royce for destructive tests on the Olympus engine destined for Concorde. 

To quote the book, "Up to the late 1980's the tunnel's portals were obscured by massive steel doors, built a little in front of the stonework and supported by a frame. These where constructed as an anti-blast measure by Rolls Royce in 1968, who used the tunnel for destructive tests on the Olympus engine for Concorde. They ran an engine without oil, expecting it to blow up within 20 minutes or so, but in the event it laster for well over two hours !. The tunnel's use for this purpose was only over a few days, planning permission having been sought from Shepton Mallet RDC as a matter of course, in case an explosion caused a change in the local topography"

 

Brit15

[woodenhead]

So basically they were expecting a big explosion and it was fine to demolish the tunnel as the line was never expected to be a case for reopening.

[bike2steam]

Sorry Ian, the 'original' purpose of the S&DJR was the dream of John Josiah Guest, amongst others, to get quick transfer of his foundries products from Dowlais to it's customers on the continent. The Dowlais Foundry ( later GKN )at the time was one of the biggest in the world, and was keen to sell its products to waring nations in Europe, and beyond. John Josiah died before the idea came to fruition, but his son Ivor Bertie ( 1st Baron Wimborne)saw it through.

The closure of the S&DJR was a sound business decision, it had served it's purpose, the closure of the Mendip mining industry saw it's latter main use die off. The Southern Region had toyed with the idea of closure during the mid-fifties, but couldn't bring themselves to do it, but the boundary changes of 1958, to them, was a god-send. Passenger carrying had also died a death, proof is shown in the modern state of the main 'trunk-road' route into Poole today, the A350 is a hideous winding monstrosity, if there were proof of unecessary need for such, or else it would have been much improved.

[APOLLO]

Long time ago - not many NIMBYS or tree huggers around back then !!

 

Different age.

 

Brit 15

[Ian J.]

I stand corrected Paul, though I felt sure that agricultural traffic was a pretty important part of both the SC's and DC's reason for existence.

[bike2steam]

Sorry to be a pedant Ian, I just thought I'd get the 'original' use in, agricultural traffic was important - at one time until efficient, convenient road haulage came along, but most of that doesn't go to, or thro', Bath or Poole.

[caradoc]

There is no doubt that the Somerset & Dorset was a fascinating railway running through lovely English countryside, and was congested on Summer Saturdays, but I wonder how busy it was the rest of the time ? The fact that neither the L&SWR/MR, SR/LMSR, or BR doubled the single line sections, or ever provided more than two platforms at Bath Green Park, suggests that it wasn't that busy. Given that in the 1960s the future was seen as road transport, it is not really a surprise that it closed.  

[bike2steam]

, but I wonder how busy it was the rest of the time ?

Simple - it wasn't.

[Dazzler Fan]

Mothers rarely consult their train crazy sons.

In 1959 my Mother thought she would make an "Away Day"

of it to go shopping in Bath from Yeovil.

Much of her time was taken with waiting for the connections

at Evercreech Junction , and to top her disappointment to

be delivered to Green Park. Her plan was an easy walk up

Bath High Street.

She talked about it for 40 years.

[Downendian]

Although I've recounted this several times on here, I owe my love of railways to the S&D and it had a huge impact on mum's family. Both my maternal great grandfathers were S&D engine drivers, working from Bath, even having digs in Bournemouth and ending their careers at Highbridge. My grandfather did his apprenticeship there, only moving away to Derby then Barrow road, Bristol after the works shut in 1928. The Highbridge closure thus drove my mothers family out of Somerset, which from her family tree research has shown they'd not left the Somerset levels for 500 years!

I only have forlorn memories after closure, at Highbridge with hydraulics on the Bason bridge milks, and EE type 3s on the M5 fly ash trains in 1971 - I'm reliability informed though that I did see steam there in the 1960s I just need to prime the right grey cells as I have no recollection. On the last day of service at Highbridge, one of the photos has I'm sure is both my great aunts who lived less than 100 yards from the S&D station.

I have most examples of 4mm models that worked the S&D and lots of books of course, and have walked a few sections of track bed in my time. Gone but not forgotten.

 

Neil

[Ian J.]

There is no doubt that the Somerset & Dorset was a fascinating railway running through lovely English countryside, and was congested on Summer Saturdays, but I wonder how busy it was the rest of the time ? The fact that neither the L&SWR/MR, SR/LMSR, or BR doubled the single line sections, or ever provided more than two platforms at Bath Green Park, suggests that it wasn't that busy. Given that in the 1960s the future was seen as road transport, it is not really a surprise that it closed.  

 

As Paul said, it wasn't busy for the local traffic, at least not in the late 50s and 60s, which was why it was earmarked for closure. The irony is that it would probably be a fair bit busier today if it was still open.

[11D]

Please excuse the plug (as a member of the S&DRHT), but Midsomer Norton had 2 open weekends to commemorate the anniversary and also demonstrate the old line is certainty not dead.

 

The sister of the 2 Radstock sentinels recently passed its boiler tests and was on display running on the up line.

 

The down line had a visiting jinty with a MK1 & Queen May providing passenger trips - the timetable was increased from half hourly to every 20 minutes due to demand.

 

Also, the Signal box was formally opened for use having passed it's SV over winter.

 

The event was a considerable success and the volunteers have taken great encouragement from the outcome.

 

Social media has a fairly good representation of the event: https://www.facebook.com/somersetanddorsetrailway/

[bike2steam]

Well that video taken Sunday answered one question about getting the ballasting ( jacking, packing etc) finished before hand - well, up to the distant anyway, hope they don't have any problems with the springs on the locos.