BATH RAILWAY SOCIETY

President: Pete Waterman OBE DL

Chairman: John Froud    

 Email: bathrailwaysociety@gmail.com

FEBRUARY  NEWSLETTER 2022

Dear Member,

Our Secretary Robert Howes gave us an excellent and very interesting zoom meeting on January 6 when he presented "Super Continental: North American Railways in 1970". This covered Robert’s experiences working on the Canadian National Railways’ transcontinental train, the Super Continental, from Vancouver to Winnipeg in the summer of 1970.  The presentation was illustrated with slides taken during the last years of passenger train operation by private railway companies in Canada and the US before the creation of Amtrak and Via Rail. 17 members joined the presentation and our thanks go to Robert for putting the show together.

Our next meeting on February 3, will again be a zoom meeting, when Robert will present the second half of his talk covering the USA. As before an email will be sent out prior to the date inviting you to join the zoom meeting.  Hopefully we might be able to return to normal meetings at the Bath Museum of Work in March, fingers crossed. The committee are monitoring the situation.

Those of you attending the zoom meeting heard the sad news of the passing of our longstanding member Frank Toon. He died in hospital on January 2 after a short illness aged 86. Frank came from Newhall in South Derbyshire and after leaving school he undertook National Service before joining the RAF. As part of his service he served at the British Atomic Weapons testing ground at Maralinga, South Australia. After demob from the RAF he joined Mangotsfield Urban Council before moving to Clevedon UDC. He then transferred to Wansdyke Council where he was the Senior Engineer (Capital Works) at Radstock. He was also a member of the old Bath Group of the Swanage Railway and supported their meetings and outings as well as our own. He had an interest in music, especially Gilbert & Sullivan, and was an ‘appreciation’ member of the Bath G & S Society. Condolences have been sent to his son Ian and family. Frank will certainly be missed. He had a knowledge of all things transport, which he used to pass on to our speakers, identifying types of cars and buses etc. during the shows! Frank’s funeral is on Friday February 4, at 2.30pm at Haycombe Crematorium.

In last month’s competition you had to find the name of the tool used by a fireman on the footplate. It was a Pricker Bar. Well done if you worked out the correct answer.

Upwey station, which is served by both GWR and SWR services, has had a deep clean and a repaint. It is quite a busy station served by GWR services on the Bristol to Weymouth route and SWR Waterloo to Weymouth services. The station is maintained by South Western Railway.

Although the Island Line (Isle of Wight) has resumed train services from Ryde to Shanklin, plans to increase frequency to half hourly for the full line from the December timetable change had to be put on hold. It has been found that the Class 484 units, which replaced the very aging Class 483 sets, do not accelerate well and they cannot reach the new passing point at Brading in sufficient time. Some services are now terminating/starting at Ryde St Johns, and not Pier Head, to help time keeping.

The Rhondda Tunnel in South Wales is to be reopened as a footpath and cycleway. There has been pressure on the Welsh Assembly Government to fund this scheme. The single line tunnel connects  Blaencwm s/b with Blaengwnfi and is 3443 yards long ( 'blaen' in welsh means valley end) and provided the Rhondda & Swansea Bay Rly with access to the Rhondda Fawr Valley and the world's best steam coal and connected it to Swansea Docks. This tunnel was always notoriously wet and a survey in 1967 revealed severe distortion around the middle of the tunnel and it was closed temporarily on safety grounds from February 26, 1968. After that the service was cut back to Cymmer Afan and this finished in 1970. The line was reopened to passengers as far as Maesteg on September 28, 1992. Reopening such a long and wet tunnel, and giving a safe environment for people, will present huge challenges on several fronts! The Rhondda Tunnel Society was formed in 2014, and further details can be found at: www.rhonddatunnelsociety.co.uk/

30 years ago this month on February 1, 1992, the Southern Electric Group (SEG) ran a rail tour from London to Meldon Quarry in North Devon. The tour actually started at Clapham Junction with tour participants using service trains from Waterloo to Clapham. The nine coach train was worked throughout by Class 50 50033 ‘Glorious’ with an interesting outward routing. It travelled via Guildford, Haslemere, Havant, Eastleigh, Romsey and Salisbury to Bristol passing Bath Spa at 1246. It had a two minute stop at Temple Meads before continuing to Exeter St Davids where 50033 ran round its train. It then headed to Meldon where there was another run round before running back to Okehampton for a 40 minute stop. Departing at 1622 the tour went via Exeter Central and Honiton to Salisbury, and then via Southampton, Winchester and Basingstoke to London Waterloo where it arrived at 2050, 21 minutes ahead of its booked time. 50033 is today preserved.

It is 45 years ago this month on Saturday February 26, 1977 that the last Class 52 ‘Westerns’ in BR service hauled a farewell special before the final class members were withdrawn from service. D1013 ‘Western Ranger’ and D1023 ‘Western Fusilier’ worked the ‘Western Tribute’ tour departing from London Paddington at 0910 heading to Swansea. There was an hour layover at Swansea before the train ran via Bristol TM to Plymouth where it arrived at 1744. At 1941 the two Class 52’s made their final run back to Paddington arriving at 2341. The tour was shadowed that day by D1010 ‘Western Campaigner’ and D1048 ‘Western Lady’ in case of any failures, but they were not required. All four of these locomotives were preserved plus, D1015 ‘Western Champion’, D1041 ‘Western Prince’ and D1062 ‘Western Courier’. D1015 is Mainline Certified but at present it is undergoing repairs. The only two locomotives currently operational are D1010 at the West Somerset Railway and D1062 at the Severn Valley Railway.

The appeal to help restore three carriages of the 1930s Q Stock, by the London Transport Museum, has so far raised 25% of the £200,000 target. Q stock trains ran on the District line from the Second World War through to the 1960’s before being retired from service. Restoration work on the three cars is taking place at the Museum’s depot at Acton. It is hoped that the Acton Depot can hold Open Days in May and September this year, but details still to be announced.

Weekend engineering works will be effecting some GWR services this month. All weekends this month, trains between London Paddington and Paignton, Plymouth or Penzance will terminate at Exeter St Davids. Most trains between Cardiff Central and Penzance will terminate at Taunton. Trains will continue to run between: Plymouth - Penzance, Newton Abbot – Paignton. Replacement buses will be in operation. In the Bristol area from February 19, to Sunday 27, buses replace trains between Bristol Temple Meads and Severn Beach, and they also replace local stopping services between Bristol Temple Meads and Parkway. During the same period as the Bristol works, the lines from Crediton to Barnstaple and Okehampton will also be closed, services will continue to run from Exeter to Crediton. There are also planned engineering works in the Salisbury and Portsmouth areas on February 5 & 6, and the Southampton area on February 19 & 20. These will effect both GWR and SWR services with some bus replacements and diversions taking place. Do check if you intend travelling.

Until the spring of 2022, Network Rail will be installing tactile paving at Bristol Temple Meads on platforms 1-12. This is to make the station more accessible and safer for the visually impaired.

Three station totem’ nameplates associated with each end of the old S & D, plus the middle, are coming up for sale by auction this month. A WR Brown sign from Bath Green Park together with green totems from Templecombe and Bournemouth West are being put up for sale at the next Crewe Railwayana Auction which will be held online on February 18-20. These signs are expected to generate a lot of interest. Further details are available at www.ukrailwayana.com

The Victorian gothic main entrance to Temple Meads has long been attributed to famous London architect Matthew Digby Wyatt, who worked with Brunel on Paddington station. However, research conducted by modern-day Bristol architect, David Martyn, has proved that this section of Temple Meads’ architecture was actually by a Henry Lloyd. It is now hoped by David Martyn that Historic England will correct the station’s listing description to acknowledge that Henry Lloyd was the architect and that he might also be commemorated somehow when the restored station building is unveiled.

We are pleased to report that the Society is mentioned in the Railway Club Directory website, which is now up and running. It can be found at www.railwayclubdirectory.com in section 4 (Local Railway Clubs) of the main 'Club Directory'.

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Following on from the article by Alan Price in last month’s Newsletter – ‘My First Visit to Camden Shed’, Micky Godwin has kindly sent in this article as a follow on:-

Mention of Neasden shed in last month’s interesting memoir reminded me of my spotting days in the late 1950s and early 1960s. My favourite location was In Northwick Park where the West Coast Main Line ran under the Metropolitan and Great Central. The South Yorkshireman and the Master Cutler were still running into Marylebone, though it was clear that with the transfer of the line to the Midland Region the writing was already on the wall for the GCR.

I missed the Robinson Atlantics and the Gresley Pacifics on that line, but V2s, K3s, B1s and even the odd B16 were still in evidence. A high point was when I saw named V2 60847 St Peter’s School, York, on a football special at Wembley Hill. There was a children’s programme Tuesday Rendezvous which had a spotting competition and it was on the list for that week - I wrote in and won a half-guinea book token which I immediately spent on Ian Allan books! (half a guinea or ten shillings and sixpence was the equivalent of 52.5 new pence!)

Those football specials were always serviced at Neasden and I would often go to the shed to cop locos from far-flung places like 55A (Leeds Holbeck).

But the bread and butter of spotting was definitely the WCML: The Red Rose, the Caledonian, the Mid-Day Scot all hauled by Stanier Pacifics in those days, (though occasionally 10000 and 10001 would be in charge). The English Electric Type 4 diesels were just coming in, and each month the list of scrapped steam locos grew longer and longer.

I never got into Camden shed - too difficult! - but Willesden and Old Oak were easy and I remember seeing Stanier Pacifics at Willesden after Camden had closed.

Thank you Micky for sending in another interesting article. If anyone else has a story they would like to tell, please do send it in. We always need more stories, so please do consider submitting something.

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MORE NEWS

Network Rail has awarded £7.8m towards the development of a new station between Newton Abbot and Torre on the Paignton branch in South Devon. It will be named Torquay Gateway and will serve Torquay Hospital and new housing planned for the area. It is estimated that the total cost for the two platform station will be £13.1m with the difference being made up from the ‘Torquay Towns Fund’ which has been funded by the Governments ‘levelling up’ programme. In North Devon, a committee formed to look into the reinstatement of the line from Barnstaple to Bideford has been given the name ‘ACE Rail’. The group are preparing a Strategic Outline Business case, which includes a feasibility study, a commercial study and a wider economic study, which will be submitted to the Government's ‘Restoring Your Railway’ programme when completed. There is support from the local councils, including Barnstaple, due to the level of traffic congestion from private car usage.

Network Rail engineers have been carrying out preliminary work at Bere Alston on signalling for the intended reinstatement of the line to Tavistock, which is soon expected to be given the go-ahead. Currently trains to/from Plymouth and Gunnislake on the Tamar Valley Line, reverse here with the train crew operating the points. The route is almost intact, and an assessment has shown that the track bed, bridges and tunnels between Bere Alston and Tavistock are in sound condition. A new station will have to be provided at Tavistock, as the original is now a hotel, and part of the track bed before it has had sheltered accommodation built on it. Plans to re-open the line were first put forward in 2008.

Track laying is proceeding well on the Swindon & Cricklade Railway with Cricklade church spire now in view from the present rail head. The Railway estimates that a further £8000 is required to complete the necessary drainage, fencing and security gating.  This will then allow them to operate public trains over the newly laid extension later this year.

On February 5, Pathfinder Tours are running a special to South Wales called ‘The Cwmbargoed Collier’. This will work over the steep freight line up to Cwmbargoed, which serves the Ffos-y-Fran open cast coal mine. This mine is due to close in October this year, with the branch expected to close in 2023. The tour, which is expected to be top ‘n’ tailed by a Class 66 and 60 will also visit rare track at Barry Docks Low Level (to the Network Rail boundary), and also take in the Leckwith Loop and the Penarth South Junction – Ninian Park curve . The nearest joining points for this tour are Cheltenham and Newport, and further details can be found on the Pathfinder Tours website.

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

We have a number of interesting Funicular Railways in the United Kingdom including the Lynton & Lynmouth Cliff Railway in North Devon, and the Bridgnorth Cliff Railway near the Severn Valley Railway station. All you have to do for this month’s competition is to work out the location of another cliff railway. As always, take the first letter of each answer (unless specified differently) and then un-scramble the letters to work out the answer. It’s all for fun and no prizes are given, with the answer being announced in the March Newsletter.

• Name of a viaduct south of Winchester Chesil on the former Didcot Newbury and Southampton line that is now a walk and cycle way.

• Location of Dai Woodham’s famous scrapyard

• Jubilee Class name of 45603

• This former station in Oxfordshire had three platforms and was the junction station to Witney

• City where the new Marsh Barton station is being built

• Station between Cole and Templecombe on the Somerset & Dorset line

• This town once had three stations but now has two, Junction and Pen Mill

• An electric device on the railway lines used to show signallers the location or absence of trains

• Station between Risca & Pontymister and Cardiff/Newport served by Ebbw Vale services

• GWR No. 1340 0-4-0ST was built by this Company

• Name carried by Class 50 – 50 003

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