long arch bridge

Some shots of Long Arch Bridge, which forms the northern boundary of our land at Midford. This would also presumably form the southern boundary of the Up Goods Yard land. Judging by the SAD-17 marker in the bridge it's still owned and maintained by Network Rail. If we do proceed with developing a sustainable engineering facility at the Up Goods Yard it may be that we could negotiate rights to running through the bridge without having to take on the liability of ownership.

When we are running regular trains we'll be more than happy to take these redundant bridges, viaducts and tunnels over from BR Residual and Sustrans but until then I suspect they would be too big a drag on our finances to maintain with no clear cash flow emanating from them.

working on the railway

Trackworks on the Chilcompton extension.


The bank behind the retaining wall looking clearer than ever.

Two excellent and VERY recent shots from Mick Knox of Midsomer Norton. The extension is looking fantastic and hopefully soon will be heading even further south over Mrs Wells' and the Duchy's land, right up to the infill. Then the real job of breaking through to Chilcompton itself, which then sets the line up for its eventual extension right to the outskirts of Shepton Mallet. Hopefully with all this frenzied activity looking south the Radstock extension and network connection isn't lagging too far behind!

Second shot is Mick's pride and joy - fifties style neat landscaping along the route. This was something that was very distinctive on the S&D and made it sit so well into the environment. The New S&D will have this as a priority, the new route sitting as comfortably and humanly into the environment as possible. Midsomer Norton is looking fantastic as always, whatever the weather!

On an unrelated, sort of, matter, I've just been watching the BBC local news, which featured a young female track worker on Network Rail. All very interesting, but why on earth did they keep describing rail work as 'old fashioned'? Surely even the dimmest reporter realises that rail is the most dynamic aspect of transport, and a job with the Network is a skilled job for life?

Ho hum ... there's still work to do!

See many of you tomorrow at Blandford.

not in my back yard!

(Thanks to Mick Knox for this and picture).

An example of when the state run railway wants to reopen a line. Miles of palisade fencing that the average trespasser would take seconds to get over so is a complete waste of time & money. This is in Bletchley on the route to Oxford. This is not what the people of Somerset or Dorset would want on their re-opened line!

It is essential that as the S&D gets rebuilt it is seen as PART of the landscape, not a blot on it. Network Rail lives in a dystopian past. The fencing probably exists because there's money in it for someone. Most continental and US railways don't use fencing at all. Why should they? Our roads aren't fenced and are infinitely more dangerous as it's impossible to forecast where a vehicle may go. A kid from Hartcliffe was killed a week or so ago when a car, driven by another kid, mounted the pavement and hit him. No fences there. Yet the roads have a constant procession of vehicles, driven by amateurs, with barely a break in between. Even the busiest railways rarely have more than one train every two minutes.

This is the future. The image of railways in their prime is an image of the railway of the future. We need to fight to ensure that our railways are human scale, that they serve local needs first, that stations are manned and a delight to wait in, that refreshments are available everywhere and the whole atmosphere is one where people want to be, not flee.

The New S&D is all about this, just as the old S&D was!

PS Thanks for all the pledges and cash that came in to the Midford Appeal after Jeff Harris's very odd message board post!

network travel - swiss style

We took the train up to London yesterday for a trip to the Body Worlds exhibition at the 02 Centre.

It hurts to be hauled by a loco called 'Isambard Kingdom Brunel' if you're an S&D fan as we still blame his bloody GWR for the unneccessary closure of the S&D! But all credit to First Great Western we left Bristol just 4 seconds late, arrived in London dead on time, left London dead on time and arrived back at Bristol 30 seconds early.

For all the popular press bleatings about the inefficiencies of our national network this is actually far more my experience of our privatized network with trains running on time, clean and cheap. Perhaps some of the people who never use our trains but have an awful lot of stereotyped 1970s-style things to say about them should actually USE our railways and see them as they are - a superb, quick, clean and sustainable form of transport that will survive Peak Oil.

It was all very Swiss, in fact better than our last Swiss trip in December, when we were assailed by avalanche problems and arrived an hour late in St Moritz after travelling across from Geneva.

network history

A few shots from the past (1987). When I was taking these they were just photos of the everyday, but they've already gained a historic element. Locos, liveries, signage, cars, infrastructure, fashions are all different.

Whilst we can recreate bits of the past we can never totally do it. So any attempt at 'preservation' will always be a sort of compromise.

Perhaps I should also encourage everyone to record the day to day railway scene of today. It may seem bland and boring, but it's amazing how quickly things change. Photographing the everyday is always far more important than photographing preservation and steam specials on the network!