Radstock to Frome Railway Project

The Somer-Rail Trust was formed on the 9th May 2014 with the primary aim of reopening the eight mile redundant railway line between Radstock and Frome, the trust was registered as a charity on the 2nd October 2014. We are busy working towards securing a site for the railway on the former GWR land in Radstock, near Bath. We need to prove to the Radstock railway land owners the support exists for the project to be financially successful, in order to demonstrate this we are currently building our membership base, 104 members have joined us so far.

The photographs show various locations along the line as it is today.

For more details please go to: http://www.somer-rail.co.uk or see our Facebook group page https://www.facebook.com/groups/599580693419023/?fref=ts

You can email us at somerrail@gmail.com

(The Facebook link has been amended and now works!)

 

facebook link not working

 

Interesting to see if it works this time as there was problems last time over planning permission etc at the Radstock end for a supermarket which has not looked to happened yet.

 

The annual membership fee is £10, payment can be made by PayPal, cheque, or money order.

If you require any further details, please contact me at: somerrail@gmail.com

Thank you

 

Isn't about half of that line at the Frome end still open to serve Whatley quarry?

 

Hello,
A polish of the web site might help,the Video in places me feel slightly sick with the out of focus/ camera movements.
The forum has questions posed and not answered...not very Professional.

Would the track need to have all the sleepers replaced and new ballast?
What is the relationship with those at Midsomer Norton?
Or East Somerset Railway?


The big obstacle I see is that odd'charity' Sustrans.

Good luck

Nick

 

Thank you Nick for your kind wishes.

The Somer-Rail Trust is less than a year old, formed on the 9th May of 2014. Negotiations are still ongoing in order to secure a suitable site at Radstock for the railway to begin, news will be released as soon as we have anything to report.

The website is run by a fellow member and still under development, improvements are in the pipeline, so please watch this space...

There will be a number of sleepers between Radstock and Great Elm that are wooden and will need replacing, what can be salvaged of the ballast we cannot yet tell until we have reached agreement with Railway Paths to begin work on the railway outside of Radstock.

We have an excellent relationship with the Somerset and Dorset Railway Heritage Trust and will work together for the mutual advantage of both organisations. The Somer-Rail Trust has not been so far approached by the East Somerset Railway, but would not rule out a beneficial arrangement if one was to be made.

Terry

 

There have been discussions taken place by other parts of the project which look quite positive, but which I cannot comment in detail at the moment.

 

I'm slightly worried by the Somer Rail project, as you're signing up substantial numbers of people (and thus taking their money) when it seems clear that this project is, at present, unlikely to happen. Having spoken to the people who own the land at Radstock, they have no intention of allowing it to be used for a steam railway and the existing planning permissions on the site would make this extremely complex. Railway Paths (sister charity to Sustrans) are also known for not being exactly supportive of railway preservation projects.

Don't get me wrong, as a local resident I'd love to see it happen, I just feel uncomfortable watching people give the trust their money without any signs of progress

 

Progress is taking place behind the scenes on all fronts, things are looking quite positive, at this time we are unfortunately cannot comment any further. This is a very complex situation and we knew it was not going to be easy, we are as eager as you to see something happening soon and are busy working away behind the scenes to help make this happen.

 

Would it not be better to help out the S&D as it is very close and quite well established? I'm not sure the Radatock area could support two preserved railways.

 

I believe the aim is to link the two.

 

That will be rather difficult. The S&D is unlikely to make it back into Radstock in the foreseeable future and even if it did, I doubt the town authorities would appreciate the reopening of the level crossings in the town. And then comes the issue that the Radstock Frome line is, apart from the area around the old level crossings,on a different level that the S&D.

 

Yes there would be the problem of the level crossing, but there would be no problem in height between the S&D and the Radstock to Bristol as the two lines were connected after the S&D closed in 1966 to get the coal from Writhlington pit out.

 

The S&D connection at Radstock by 70023venus2009, on Flickr. Not my photo, I must add.

See above, there definitely would be a problem with the relative heights of the S&D/GWR lines! The S&D is the line furthest from the camera, the photographer standing adjacent to the GWR line.

Given the new development currently taking place just to the South-East of the GWR station is built directly on the old trackbed, I'd say it is extremely unlikely that the S&D will ever reconnect to the Radstock-Frome line. That's before you get into trying to convince the local authorities to replace a level crossing at an already congested road junction, or the problems the S&D group would have crossing Silver Street in Midsomer Norton. Even with the relatively lower levels of car ownership in the 1950s, the level crossings in Radstock caused traffic havoc back then, it would simply be unworkable now.

Radstock Development Plan - http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/WAM/doc/Drawing-709019.pdf?extension=.pdf&id=709019&location=VOLUME3&contentType=application/pdf&pageCount=1&appid=1001
The ex-GWR line comes in from the bottom right of the drawing.

 

Thank you for posting that, it proves my point. I do remember seeing coal trains on that connection in the 60s and 70s.

In a world where money wasn't a problem and no one worried about level crossings in the centre of town a Bristol North Somerset metro could have used the line from Bristol down to Frome and then joined the S&D back to Bath to the combined station that was planned for the S&D and GWR and then back through Mangotsfield and back to Bristol.

If it had been built it would be of great benefit now to ease the commuter traffic of the area, but it's a pipe dream as is the proposal discussed above.

 

Just to have a level crossing to run trains to give Jo Public a ride will never happen and the only time will be if a proper commuter train etc was planned it most likely be a different thing.

 

Connecting the Radstock and Midsomer Norton projects is beyond unlikely, it would require buildings being brought down, multiple level crossings...it's just not going to happen. The Midsomer group getting to Radstock could happen, but it could never be connected to the Somer Rail group.

Terry, I'm surprised you're making positive progress as it was made quite clear to me by the owners of the land at Radstock that they simply were not considering any steam use of the site, but had received a viable alternative proposal from another organization...any ideas what that is?

 

I am aware of a couple of proposals to reopen the line, but would be interested to know how far each of them has got with the owners of the former GWR Goods Yard/Marcroft Wagon Works site in Radstock. While I cannot speak for the site owners, I also understood that they would not support re-opening the line as a heritage railway and that they were more in favour of a light railway to serve the local community, operated by a small railbus or DMU. This view is supported by the site owner's recent donation of a significant amount of servicable track to both the East Somerset Railway at Cranmore and the Somerset and Dorset Railway Heritage Trust at Midsomer Norton.

http://democracy.bathnes.gov.uk/documents/s23774/E2471 Radstock Frome Rail Feasibility Study.pdf

A feasibility study on reopening the Radstock to Frome line was completed in June 2012, which the B&NES Council discussed, as can be seen in the above PDF. This makes even the idea of a light railway serving the community appear to be beyond reach without signifcant financial backing.

Edit:
SpudUK, possibly the North Somerset Railway is the other organisation you mention? Although their website does mention that they also wish to run steam trains on the line.

 

C'mon, let's be fair, Somerset is really crying out for heritage railways, there's hardly any in the county ...