The Somerset And Dorset Thread

I have just had rather a nice afternoon at Midsomer Norton today followed by a film show.

So, for anything related to the S&D, including but not only Midsomer Norton, Washford, Shillingstone, 53808 & 53809 here is a thread...................

 

A timely start to such a thread - it all came to an end fifty one years ago this weekend.

Peter James

 

I'm from Bristol & my late mother lived there from about the age of 8 (1932 ish)

As a child the family used to go to Bournemouth by train but via the GWR to Salisbury then on to Southampton

Having looked at Wikipedia which suggests a 4hour journey from Bath by slow train this may go some way towards explaining the lines demise.

 

Railways as a form of nostalgia and railways as a necessary means of transport 'in the here and now' are two radically different things. I recently did a similar exercise looking at a 1930s timetable to work out how long it would have taken me to get from my house to my nearest town of any size by train, something I can do in 20 minutes by car. The result (walk, train, change, train, change, train, walk) was a little over half a day.

 

I used to wonder why diesel locos weren't tried on the S&DJtR in an effort to reduce costs.
DMUs on stopping services would have been quite cost-effective, I would have thought, certainly compared with a tank loco on 3/4 coaches.
No doubt it was one of those pre-determined decisions once WR had taken it over.
Great shame as it might have come in very handy for Wytch Farm oil trains which had to run from Furzebrook via Basingstoke and Didcot to Llandarcy. Talk about a Great Way Round!

 

they could have gone via Salisbury and Westbury presumably.
Anyway don't be blaming the WR, the rot was well set in before they got involved, same as everywhere, not enough passengers to justify the stoppers, and freight gone out of the window.

 

TBH I don't think the line ever made serious money and most of the freight like the Somerset coal field could have been accessed in other ways. Once the motor coach arrived it was game over. Maybe the Radstock to Bath part could have revived as part of a Bristol Bath metro had it been mothballed but that's about it.

 

This is the crux of the problem, and the major issue with the New S&D scheme. The S&D may have had some viability as a long distance freight route, and there certainly is some value in commuting round Bristol/Bath, but other then that it's pretty redundant. The Radstock - Bath route would be hugely popular now, and I'd argue that Shepton and Wells would be very different places now if they were still connected to Bath and Bristol by rail, but outside of that it is essentially pointless, as much as I dearly love it!

 

You forget the capital costs of these diesels - they had to be paid for somehow. And BR in the 1960s did very little to challenge the manning costs for trains, meaning that the gains were less than they might have been.

I strongly recommend reading Edward Gibbins' articles in the May & June 2016 issues of Backtrack on the closure case for the S&D. It is sobering reading.

 

I wish that there was a good economic history of the S&D - or of the Railways as a whole

The literature I have seen suggests that all was not well with it from the 1920's if not before

 

The history of the S&DJR suggests all was never well with it.


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You are undoubtedly right on that one.

What if Poole- Blandford had hung on into the early 80's?

 

It sounds like just one of the many examples of closed railway about which I have a belief that makes me about as popular as Old Nick himself on forums like this - not a case of "it should never have closed", but rather "it should never really have been built in the first place."

 

But by goodness, I wish I'd had the chance to travel over it. Like the M&GN, S&MJR, most of the Cambrian, and quite a few other routes.

 

Yes, it would be interesting to see what a "rational" railway network would have looked like. One that was planned as some of the European networks were rather than left to market forces.

 

I think it has been done, but the book costs about £100 from memory...............

 

Do you mean Terry Gourvish? If so, two excellent volumes but restricted to post 1948.


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No, there is another book not by Gourvish - I got a copy from the Library

 

No disagreement from me - I'd like a time machine just as much as the next nostalgist!

I actually find that prospect quite appealing! As long as it was pre-blue era...