BATH RAILWAY SOCIETY

President: Pete Waterman OBE DL

Chairman: John Froud    

 Email: bathrailwaysociety@gmail.com

DECEMBER NEWSLETTER 2021

Dear Member,

We had another good attendance at our meeting on Thursday November 4 when Brian Arman gave us a feast of Great Western and BR(W) in his talk “From Hawksworth to the End of Steam: Swindon Works, 1945-65". A most entertaining and informative meeting, and Brian has more on the subject, so hopefully he will be visiting us again in the future.

Our next meeting will be on December 2 at the Bath Museum of Work at 7.30pm when we welcome Chris James as our guest speaker. His subject- "Broad and Metre Gauge Railways in Spain, Portugal & Argentina". We hope to see you then and I’m told mince pies will be served during the break. Our thanks as always to Davina and helpers for doing the teas and coffees.

For last month’s competition you had to find the name of the town that has a full set of number plate, nameplate and West Country Class scrolls in its museum. The town is Holsworthy in North Devon. 34097 Holsworthy was rebuilt in 1961 and withdrawn from service on April 10 1966 at Eastleigh. It was subsequently broken up at Cashmores of Newport in September that year.

7820 ‘Dinmore Manor’ is booked to visit the South Devon Railway over the Christmas period and then work a photo charter for TimeLine Events on January 4, 2022 at the head of a short rake of MK1 Coaches in early the 1950's Red and Cream Livery. A very prototypical train for a Devon Branchline! 7820 is normally based at the Gloucester & Warwickshire Railway.

Also looking ahead to January, the Blue ‘Midland Pullman’ HST set is due to run a tour to the Settle and Carlisle line from Plymouth and return on Saturday 29. The tour will pick up/set stations to/from Plymouth to Bristol Parkway, including Yatton and Bristol T.M. Fares start at £330 for full dinning and £175 for non- dinning. Details: https://midlandpullman.com/journey/settle-and-carlisle-pullman-29-01-22

On the Somerset & Dorset Railway at Midsomer Norton, trains will be operating to meet ‘Santa’ on weekends December 4 – 19. Steam locomotives "Joyce" or "Austin 1", assisted by a diesel locomotive, will be operating the services. The railway has just completed restoration of  PalVan B779696 which was donated to them by the Swanage Railway last year. It will be used for Permanent Way Department storage, plus have the occasional outings on demonstration goods trains.

The Swanage Railway 4TC Group has purchased 4-BIG Buffet Car S69332 from the former Dartmoor Railway. It was in storage at Meldon Quarry, along with other rolling stock, and it will be able to be used in the Group’s 4TC set when restored and required.

Mentioning the Dartmoor Railway, the line from Okehampton to Exeter re-opened for public services on Saturday November 20. Large crowds were at Okehampton station to see off and travel on the first GWR departure at 0730 to Exeter. Initially trains will operate two hourly, but will go to one hourly next year. The work to restore and re-open the line was completed under budget and ahead of schedule. Trains will also call at Crediton, but currently they cannot stop at Sampford Courtenay as the platform does not conform to today’s safety requirements. A new Park & Ride station is being considered at Okehampton East on land on an industrial estate. The signalman at Crediton is now much busier, having to exchange tokens for services on the Barnstaple and Okehampton lines!

Bath's MP Wera Hobhouse has joined the campaign to keep the South Western Railway direct train services to London Waterloo These serve many of the local stations from Bristol and through Wiltshire. This is following the government's decision to cancel it. If you’ve not signed the petition that is running, can I urge you to do so? It can be found at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/598397 or you can write to Grant Shapps at shappsg@parliament.uk  SWR are stating that GWR can provide the services. This would mean changing trains with poor connections at Salisbury, and higher fares if having to travel via Bath.  GWR services on this route are already often overcrowded!

 The line between Yeovil Penn Mill and Weymouth remains closed until Friday December 3 inclusive, due to track renewals and drainage works taking place by Network Rail.

Over the Christmas period, Network Rail will be working in the Bristol Parkway area to renew sections of track on the main line to South Wales, and track work will similarly be taking place affecting some lines in the Bristol area between Filton Abbey Wood and Lawrence Hill. Also a bridge over a canal near Gloucester is being restored by Network Rail, affecting trains to Cam & Dursley and Yate. No trains will call at Bristol Parkway, Yate or Cam & Dursley from Saturday December 25 to Friday 31. Do check before travelling on any routes over the Christmas to the New Year period as services may be altered or replaced by buses.

On the other side of the Country, The Melton Constable Trust in Norfolk has finally purchased more trackbed at High Kelling for the proposed Norfolk Orbital Railway. They now own the trackbed from Old Cromer Road (opposite the North Norfolk Railway station) to a point near the Holt bypass which now covers the old trackbed. A new formation will have to be built to take the line into Holt town. The aim of the Norfolk Orbital Railway is to bridge the 20 mile link between two of Norfolk’s heritage railways – The North Norfolk Railway station at Holt and the Mid-Norfolk Railway station at County School, North of Dereham using protected former railway routes.

50 years ago this month on December 10, an unusual special train was operated by BR from Plymouth to Portsmouth for the benefit of Royal Navy personnel only. It was formed of a 3 car DMU set, and it originated at ‘Drakes Platform’ in the Plymouth Navy dockyard running out onto the main line at Keyham. Its route was then via Exeter (reverse) and the former SR main line to Salisbury and onto Portsmouth and return. Presumably it was run to view RN ships/installations at Portsmouth. I wonder how many barrels of rum were put on-board the DMU?

Just 20 years ago, Pathfinder Tours ran a special to the West Somerset Railway on December 7. This was for ‘Dunster in Candlelight’, but the 13 coach train ran through to Minehead. It originated at Crewe at 0826 and was hauled throughout to Minehead by Class 56 – 56 119, arriving at the seaside town at 1508. Departure back from Minehead was at 1904 with WSR’s Class 33 – 33048 at the head of the train, with 56 119 tucked inside and not powered up until reaching Washford. The train had called at Dunster to pick up passengers. 33048 was removed at Bishops Lydeard with 56 119 working back to Crewe and arriving at 0119, this being 11 minutes ahead  of its booked time.

A replica home signal has been erected at Sturminster Newton at the entrance to the ‘North Dorset Trailway’, the formation of the former Somerset & Dorset line towards Shillingstone. It was put in place on Thursday November 4 as a centre piece of a railway themed joint project between the local town council and the North Dorset Railway based at Shillingstone station.

The Avon Valley Railway will be running services on Boxing Day & New Year’s Day with a mince pie served on-board as you travel. Trains depart from Bitton station at 11:30, 13:00 and 14:30 and tickets should be booked in advance at £9.00 adults, £8.00 for concessions and £6.00 for children. Under 5s travel free.  The Railway’s Santa Specials were completely sold out by the beginning of November.

The Department for Transport have made more awards under the ‘Restoring your Railways’ scheme. This will see a further £7m go towards progressing the plan to restore passenger service on the branch to Fawley in Hampshire, and £5m towards re-opening stations at Wellington (Somerset) and Cullumpton (Devon). These two stations are between Taunton and Exeter. Further funding has also been made available to progress plans to look into the re-opening of stations at Corsham (Wilts) and Stonehouse (Gloucestershire). The latter being the former London Road station on the Bristol to Gloucester line. The plans by Devon County Council to re – open the former ‘Southern’ line up to Tavistock, with a service to/from Plymouth, has also received further money. If this plan gets the go ahead, it would see the line being re-laid from Bere Alston to a new station site at Tavistock. Trains would likely have to alternate with Gunnislake branch services which currently run every two hours.

Our member and well known author, Colin Maggs, has had another two books published last month. ‘The Witham to Yatton Branch’ (ISBN 978 0 85361 760 0) It has 208 pages and is well illustrated and costs £20.95. The other book is ‘The Barnstaple & Ilfracombe Railway’ (ISBN 978 0 85361 761 7) third edition. This has 136 pages being well illustrated using second edition text, and with new photographs added, and costs £15.95. Both books are published by The Oakwood Press, if you want to put them on your Christmas present list! Our congratulations to Colin for adding these further publications to his very long list of titles.

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ROMANIAN NARROW GAUGE  VISEU DE SUS - OCTOBER 2016 by BRIAN MAY

During the last years of the 20th century I was lucky enough to be living  in Romania and working with the country’s remaining active steam locomotives as part of my role as a guide for visiting enthusiasts with the travel company RomSteam - Aldo. I was able to visit the remaining C.F.F. forestry railway systems on numerous occasions and unfortunately to witness their decline and closure. In 2000 I paid what I thought would be my final visits to the system at Viseu De Sus in north west Romania near the Ukrainian border. The system was shrinking in mileage and the upgrading of the road network meant more and more timber was being transported by lorries. When in 2008 the Viseu system suffered severe damage because of flooding it looked as though it was only a matter of time before forestry railways in Romania and possibly the rest of Europe became a thing of the past. However under the supervision of private timber company R.G.Holz, who had taken control of the timber rights from the state owned company, the line at Viseu was gradually rebuilt and as well as returning timber trains to the tracks the fledgling tourist trains began to become a major contributor to rekindling the fortunes of the Wassertalbahn and the Mocanita as the railway and train have been affectionately labelled.

Fast forward to October 2016 and I found myself deposited at Cluj airport in North West Romania courtesy of a Wizz Air Airbus A320 from Luton. A three and a half hour minibus journey via Dej, the Prislop Pass and Borsa and once again I stood in the narrow gauge railway yard at Viseu De Sus and what a difference I found. Just inside the entrance stood the neat station containing the offices. Nearby stood a newly built café and a museum dedicated to the once large Jewish population of the area which unfortunately was decimated during the Second World War. A large area of the yard had been cleared and converted for vehicle parking. Cosmetically restored narrow gauge locomotives were plinthed around the area but pride of place went to the hotel train ‘ Carpatia Express ’ which consisted of two standard gauge sleeping cars, each containing 20 beds in 10 twin compartments plus a standard gauge 40 seat restaurant car. At the head of the consist stood immaculate Resita 1957 built 2-10-0 150.216.

A short walk down the yard towards the locomotive shed and works revealed 3 locomotives in steam being prepared for the day’s work. 764.435, a 1954 Resita built 0-8-0T, was the first locomotive off shed.

The locomotive carries the name ‘Bavaria’ on its smoke box and its allocated job for the day was to haul the 09:00 scheduled tourist train for the return trip to Paltin, 21.6km from Viseu de Sus. This loco was quickly followed by 764.421 ‘Elvetia’, another Resita 1954 built 0-8-0T, which had been allocated an additional 09:25 tourist departure. Each train carried in excess of 100 fare paying passengers. Such is the popularity of the tourist trains that during my 8 day visit, today being a Saturday, that although trains were only scheduled for operation on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday they did in fact run on every day of my visit, today being the only day for the additional. Between mid-March and mid-June and mid-September to mid-November the timetable runs as above but between mid-June and mid-September the service is scheduled to be daily. Additional services run throughout the year to tie in with religious holidays and a Christmas / New Year three week service also operates. This includes an 18:30 departure from Viseu de Sus on New Year’s Eve for a night time ride through the forest. 

Back at the station the two locomotives had backed onto their respective trains. The tourist train rolling stock is now made up of modern carriages imported from tourist lines in Western Europe. Each carriage has been equipped with a wood burning stove with a hole crudely punched into the carriage roof to allow for the chimney, also in each consist was a van for the transportation of refreshments and souvenirs. The first vehicle behind the locomotive was a van stocked with additional wood for the locomotive and tools for the on board staff in case of breakdown or derailment. Traditional carriages from closed C.F.R. narrow gauge lines are still kept at Viseu de Sus for uses such as photographic charters and film productions and it is these vehicles which provide the true character of the Romanian narrow gauge. I particularly liked the statement printed in the timetable brochure referring to the older vehicles that read as follows: “Travel is provided using historic rolling stock, respecting the safety standards required by the industry. The privilege of traveling in cars or coaches of important historic value compensates for the possible lack of comfort”.

The two tourist trains got away at their respective times with much whistling from the locomotives. Communications between trains seemed to be a mixture of mobile phones and walkie-talkie radios. With the station area cleared, Resita 0-8-0T of 1956, 764.449 ‘Ioana’ was able to proceed down from the shed in order to make up its train for our group of visiting enthusiasts and photographers. In order to replicate a working train of timber empties from times past the nameplate and Romanian flag plates had been removed and stowed in the cab. The consist for the charter was to be a stores van complete with additional wood plus one of the older style coaches for participants. Bringing up the rear was a rake of empty timber bogies to recreate a train heading out into the forest in order to collect freshly cut timber. It was the task of one of the crew to ride on the timber bogies in order to apply the brakes as required. Once underway the train passed the locomotive shed, which contained a further three steam locos, 2 dead and 1 under repair, as well as the diesel locomotives which are used on the production timber trains. Leaving Viseu the line passed the back gardens of numerous houses before entering the valley of the Vaser River, a river that is never far away from the side of the line. During the course of the next eight days numerous trips were undertaken with different locomotives and stock traveling to various locations along the line as operational requirements would allow. Traveling in the service van behind the loco it was possible to look out on an ever changing vista of rural Romania. Here and there it was possible to see smart new houses which we were told were built as a result of money sent back from the west by economic migrants. These houses made a sharp contrast with the older wooden houses which seemed to be occupied by the older generation making a subsistence living by raising pigs, chickens, goats and a cow or two. Vegetable gardens added to the larder in the form of root crops and maize. Fruit trees and bushes supplied apples, plums and numerous berries. No doubt some of the plum crop went towards the home distillation of tuica, the fiery brandy much loved by Romanians. Whilst horses and carts were still to be seen on the roads there has been an increase of car ownership since my last visit. The Romanian Dacia version of the Renault 12 becoming superseded by more modern western makes such as B.M.W. and Volkswagen.  

At Novat, 12.4km from Viseu we could see that the branch lines to Valea Boului, Greaban and Izvorul Cailor via Rapi had been abandoned possibly as a result of flooding but also as a result of illegal timber lorries destroying the track bed.  At Cozia, 18.5km from Viseu, the nursery beds for the saplings were being ploughed by horse with the operative walking behind the plough. Paltin, 21.6km from Viseu, is the destination for the tourist trains and here a large picnicking and barbecue area has been cleared by the side of the river. A bar / restaurant has been constructed along with toilets and other facilities for the visitors. Near to Botizu, 26.2km from Viseu the line passes through a series of three tunnels. At Gura Stevioarei, 37.5km from Viseu a 3.0km branch goes off to the left to Stevioara although I am not sure if this sees much traffic. The mainline now terminates at Coman, 43.5km from Viseu, near to the Ukrainian border. The remaining 2.8km to Izvorul Boului is now out of use. During our days out on the line we were often looped to let other traffic pass. This traffic was made up of the tourist trains, numerous drazines, the rail mounted trucks and lorries that ferry personnel and supplies around the system, and the production timber trains that were hauled by one of the line’s four class 87 B-B diesel hydraulics built by the 23rd of August Works in Bucharest during the 1970’s. These locomotives came from closed C.F.R. narrow gauge lines.

Timber is cut high up in the hills and mountains surrounding the line and is still very labour intensive. Men cut the trees using a variety of chainsaws, hand saws, operated by two people, and axes. Where vehicles cannot access the forest, horses are used to drag the felled trees to a convenient rail side loading point. These forests are home to a multitude of birds and animals including bears, wolves and lynx but one would have to be very fortunate, or unlucky, to come across one.

Steam locomotives seen at Viseu during October 2016 were as follows:

76cm gauge

Number       Wheels Maker                       Built             Status

763.193       0-6-0T Krauss                      1921            Plinthed

764.211       0-8-0T Orenstein &Koppel   1910            Active

764.313       0-8-0T Budapest                              1921            Plinthed

764.408R     0-8-0T Reghin                      1985            Active

764.421       0-8-0T Resita                                   1954            Active

764.435       0-8-0T Resita                                   1954            Active

764.436       0-8-0T Resita                                   1954            Dumped

764.449       0-8-0T Resita                                   1955            Active

764.452       0-8-0T Resita                                   1955            Dumped

764.457       0-8-0T Resita                                   1955            Dumped

764.469       0-8-0T Resita                                   1955            Active

764.484       0-8-0T Resita                                   1958            Plinthed

Standard gauge

150.216       2-10-0 Resita                                   1957            Preserved

As well as the four class 87s previously mentioned there are 2 0-6-0 diesel hydraulics from the 23rd of August Works for shunting purposes, numerous drazines and a 4w + 4w diesel railcar built by Demikhov in Russia in 1962.

I would recommend that anybody wishing to find out more about the system to visit the following website: www.mocanita.ro

Many thanks to Brian for a most interesting article. Don’t forget, if you have a story to share with our members, please do send it in as we’d certainly like to hear from you.

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<<<<<<<< COMPETITION >>>>>>>>

For this months competition you have to find the name of a location that has a ‘loose’ Christmas connection. Take the first letter of each answer (unless specified differently) and then un-scramble the letters to work out the three word answer. It’s all for fun and no prizes are given, with the answer being announced in the January Newsletter. 

  - - - - -  /  - - - -  /  - - - - - - - -

• Battle of Britain Class 34067

• This town is at the very end of the main line in Cornwall

• 45682 Trafalgar was a member of this class

• The station before Camelford when heading to Padstow on the old North Cornwall Line

• ?  Hythe & Dymchurch Railway in Kent

• A branch line from Kemble going northwards served the terminus ‘town’ station here

• The fourth steepest main line bank with a constant 1 in 42 for 2½ miles which begins at Plympton

• The station at the end of the line on the K & WVR when travelling from Keighley

• A4 Class 60009

• A busy London Underground interchange station between Holborn & Bond Street on the Central Line

• A Somerset & Dorset line village that had ‘new’ and ‘junction’ stations

• The name of the junction signal box that controls where the Cotswold and Gloucester lines meet near Worcester

• The code name that was used by the GWR in telegraphic messages for Brakevans

• The headquarters of the Dean Forest Railway situated between Lydney and Whitecroft

• ?  and Backwell, a station between Bristol T M and Yatton

• The surname of the designer of LMS diesel locomotive number 10000 currently being re-created

• The station between Leominster and Craven Arms on the Welsh Marches Line

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