BATH RAILWAY SOCIETY

President: Pete Waterman OBE DL

Chairman: John Froud    

 Email: bathrailwaysociety@gmail.com

MARCH  2025  NEWSLETTER

Dear Member, 

SOCIETY MATTERS

We saw locomotives of several gauges, and from many builders, at our February meeting when Brian May took us to Cuba to see the sugar beet season trains operating during his three visits there in the 1990’s. It is sad to think that these railway operations have now disappeared, but we thank Brian for showing us what it was like then with the mostly oil burning locomotives producing large amounts of clag as they hauled their heavy loads to the numerous mills for processing. Thank you, Brian, for a most informative evening for which we had an excellent turnout.

Our March meeting will be on Thursday 6, when we will be celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the birth of railways. Our guest speaker will be Dr. Michael Bailey, and his subject will be ‘Locomotion No.1 – A Re-appraisal of the Locomotive and The Stockton & Darlington Railway.  As normal, doors open at the Bath Museum of Work at 7pm for a 7.30pm start.

We welcome David Knight and Phil Oakley who both joined the Society at our February meeting.

You may be interested to know that we now have 52 signed up members. However, if you do know anyone who might be interested in joining us, please do bring them along and also spread the word about the Society. 

We are pleased to announce that David Bethell and Frederick Parkinson have agreed to join the BRS Committee, and we look forward to their help and input.

Last year we had a talk by the Western Locomotive Association regarding their Class 52 Western Diesels based on the Severn Valley Railway at Kidderminster and had an offer to visit them at their workshops and see around the locomotives. Some of you have already submitted your names forward for a visit, which we are now starting to progress this, travelling to Kidderminster by train. Further details will be announced in the next newsletter, but note, the visit  will be on a Wednesday.

In last month’s competition you have to find the name of the Bluebell Railway’s youngest driver in its history. The answer was Ben Gray, who at the age of 21, became a driver of steam locomotives.

NEWS ITEMS

The Gwili Railway is holding a gala on March 15 &16. This will feature Collett 6430 making one of its final appearances before its boiler certificate expires in May. Also taking part and only operating on the railway that weekend will be visiting ‘small prairie’ L.150 (5521) and 7812 Erlestoke Manor. It is possible that 0-6-0ST 3879 ‘Haulwen’ might be available following overhaul. The event is being billed as the railways ‘largest event in many years’

At the next GW railway Auctions on March 15 & 16, a Thingley Junction to Bradford Junction single line token is for sale. Also, a nameplate from Castle Class 5083 ‘Bath Abbey’ is one of the lots of plates on offer. (This locomotive was rebuilt from Star Class 4063).

New at the Avon Valley Railway each Sunday in March you can enjoy a steam-hauled ride along the line in brake vans. For just £4 more, upgrade your standard ticket to an exclusive seat in our brake van, and enjoy a trip of the line.  Footplate rides are also on offer on certain dates. For full details of both offers, see the Avon Valley Railway website.

The General Steam Navigation Locomotive Society 35011 has announced that they will be leaving the Swindon and Cricklade Railway, with the locomotive moving to a location in Devon. This is due to the railway telling the society that a Merchant Navy locomotive does not align with their future vision and business plan.

On Saturday March 1, the Sodbury Vale Model Railway Club hold their 2025 Exhibition at Yate Community Hall, Yate Parish Hall and Yate YMCA Hall, Station Road, Yate. There will be 20 layouts and six trade stalls in attendance. Open 10am - 4.00pm and admission is £7. Yate railway station is approximately ¼ mile away from the venues. On March 29 & 30 the Nailsea & District Model Railway Club are holding the Nailsea Model Railway Exhibition 2025 at Nailsea School, Mizzymead Road, Nailsea. At least 17 layouts will be on display along with six + trade stalls. Open 10am to 5pm (4pm Sunday), admission £8. Nailsea and Backwell station is just under a mile from the venue.

At a recent auction of railway station totem signs, a WR example from Bath Spa fetched £6,000.

The North Dorset Railway at Shillingstone are currently carrying out water proofing works to Lamb House bridge, which their running line will eventually be re-laid across. Construction work on a car park nearby is also on-going.

The Swanage Railway is staging a Spring Steam Gala from March 28 to 30 inclusive. Locomotives participating will include LSWR T3 563, Maunsell U Class 31806, Battle of Britain Classes 34070 “Manston” and hopefully 34072 “257 Squadron”. Visiting from the Isle of Wight Steam Railway will be Ivatt Class 2 41313. Full details and advanced tickets available via the Swanage Railway’s website.

LOOKING BACK

Sixty years ago on March 29, 1965, at around 7.30pm, a Southend-bound train was travelling at around 70mph when it was derailed due to “wanton obstruction of the tracks by some metal objects”, resulting in the train colliding with overhead structures and signal posts near Elm Park, Dagenham, Essex. The derailed train was a London Fenchurch St. to Shoeburyness passenger train. It is believed a fishplate, or other metal object, was placed on the line by youths which derailed the leading wheels of the train and subsequently hitting the central metal girder of a bridge, travelling for nearly half a mile before finally coming to a stop. The driver, 52-year-old Ernest Wilbrew, received serious injuries from which he died before medical assistance could be given. One passenger was thrown out of the train and found dead beneath it and eighteen other passengers were injured, 15 of them seriously. Prior to this derailment, other drivers had reported hitting obstacles, and a young teenage boy was also seen to run across the track, with others nearby. The train derailed was the 19.10pm from Fenchurch Street formed of an eight-coach electric multiple unit. None of the coaches turned over onto their sides, but the leading driving coach was very heavily damaged, and the remaining coaches suffered damage in varying degrees. Over 300 mourners attended the funeral of driver Wilbrew, but despite extensive investigation by the police and rewards being offered, no one was ever charged with causing the accident. 

It was 1980 and 45 years ago this month when Merchant Navy Class locomotive 35018 ‘British India Line’ left Woodham’s scrapyard at Barry Docks, South Wales, for preservation on March 3. The locomotive had been withdrawn from service from Nine Elms shed in London on August 9, 1964, having recorded a mileage of 956,544 miles run. It was the fifth member of its class to be withdrawn from service and it was towed to Barry arriving at the scrapyard in December the same year. Purchase had been completed on November 23, 1979, but there were difficulties extracting it from the lines of locomotives in the scrapyard, hence it did not leave until the following March. Initially 35018 went to the Mid – Hants Railway, but in May 2003 it was moved to the South Coast Steam site on Portland in Dorset, still unrestored. It languished there until 2012 and was then moved to the Carnforth Motive Power Depot in Lancashire where restoration to main line standards commenced. On May 17, 2017, following running in at Carnforth, 35018 ran on the main line for the first time since being withdrawn in August 1964, undertaking light test runs. It hauled its first mainline train on September 30, 2017, but it did not go well. The train was West Coast Railways' "The Lune Rivers Trust" special from Carnforth to York. It had been planned that the locomotive should work on its own from Carnforth to York and then to double head with Jubilee Class 45699 Galatea on the return journey. However, 35018 was failed in York with mechanical problems and the tour was worked back to Carnforth by 45699 on its own. After more work on 35018, and further test runs, it returned to full mainline service on March 21, 2018, working the "Salopian Express 1" from Barrow to Shrewsbury with 35018 working the train from Carnforth to Shrewsbury. 35018 is the third member of its class to operate on the main line in preservation, after 35005 Canadian Pacific and 35028 Clan Line, and it still does so today.

MEMBERS CONTRIBUTION  

S and D Musings by Mike Dodd

In early 1967 I moved with my parents to West Avenue in Bath from elsewhere in Oldfield Park. Our new home was an unusual one-off detached house squeezed in amongst rows of terraced houses in that street. The S and D ran at the bottom of our garden on an embankment descending from Claude Avenue overbridge towards Bath Junction. The house was taller than the surrounding terraces, from the top floor bedroom a view was to be had to roughly where Mays' Siding used to be. Unfortunately, by this date the only train to be seen was the daily demolition train heading out from Bath just before I left for school! This normally comprised a class 22 propelling 5 plank open wagons, bogie flats and a brake van. The return working I missed as it was before the end of the school day, however I did manage to see both workings on a Saturday if at home.

During this time my route to school took me via Melcombe Road passing the CO-OP  milk depot, coal yard and bakery. The CO-OP had a varied range of vehicles in those days - the bakery had electric and petrol vans, the dairy electric milk floats and a number of elderly Albion Chieften flatbed trucks in green livery with yellow lettering these were used to collect milk churns from farms and always had a whiff of stale milk and cows muck about them! The coal yard was the most interesting part of the business for me as it contained the CO -OP siding.

The siding opened in 1911 to serve both the coal yard and bakery initially with raw materials in and products out. By 1967 only coal was railed in and the siding had survived the closure of the S and D for this purpose- albeit for a short period of time. The coal was unloaded by a digger and emptied into a hopper thence into sacks for loading onto one of the company’s lorries. This manual handling at the last stage was done by permanently grimy, beefy looking coalmen attired in leather jerkins with cigarette butts firmly clamped in mouths!

Every time I passed the numbers of battered grey, and rust liveried 16-ton coal wagons seemed to change position, but how and when did this shunt take place? Was it in the middle of the night by a ghostly locomotive? I have never seen any photographs of this shunt which seems to have been ignored by photographers back in the day, perhaps to mundane an occurrence!

However, in the sidings' last months of operation in mid-1967 I was at home one Saturday morning, at about 12 o clock the demolition train eased slowly past our back garden headed by a smart blue class 22 towards Bath Junction. I watched it disappear behind the houses thinking that's it until Monday morning. About 40 minutes later I happened to be on the top floor when I heard the throb of an Idling diesel, to my surprise a green liveried Hymek trundled casually down grade with a single 16-ton empty coal wagon heading for Midland Yard quite clearly collected from the CO-OP siding! The shunter who was riding in the rear cab saw me and waved cheerily which made my day! The Hymek must have made it's way stealthily up to the siding after the demolition train had cleared Bath Junction having paused it's shunting duties with Bath Gas Works and Midland Yard traffic, this move I had missed.

The CO-OP siding closed later that year on 30/11/67, sadly that was to be my only sight of a working to the siding. Any of Bath Railway Society members ever record one of these workings? Let me know I would be interested. 

Our thanks to Mike for another very interesting article. If any of you did record one of these workings, please do get in touch with Mike via our email address. We then might even be able to use your story under this heading! 

If you have a story to tell, anything railway related, please do send it in.

MORE NEWS ITEMS

Go-Op, the group behind the proposed new services from Taunton to Swindon & Weston Super Mare, have until March 7 at 5pm to raise funds on their Crowd Funding page. For details see https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/go-op-som-wilts-rail#  To date, when the newsletter was compiled, they had raised  £86,665.  Shares are also available for purchase separately from the Crowd Funding.

 A "railway model of Midford will be set up in the Hope and Anchor Public House, in the village, on Friday afternoon, March 21 and be on display that evening and all day Saturday. It will be dismantled on Sunday morning. They’ll be open for breakfast on Saturday morning as well as the usual meal times. It’s an amazing model and there is a lot of interest in it.

As you may have heard already, plans to re-open the Portishead branch have finally been given the go ahead and work will start this summer. The Government is putting in the missing £30M and it is planned for re-opening in late 2027 with a new Aston Gate station included. The line was closed to passenger traffic from September 7, 1964. Freight services continued on the line until the early 1980s. 

At the Great Western Society Depot at Didcot, the link line across the site is being currently re-laid using plastic sleepers. The re-roofing of the office, stores and toilets along the side of the engine shed is nearly finished and the scaffolding will be removed shortly. At the Heyford station site on the main running line, the stone mason has completed all the plinth stones and the inner block wall up to the same height. He has also started on the first couple of layers of coursing stones and a few of the corner quoins, but due to the winter weather conditions, stone work has been suspended until about Easter time.

COMPETITION  

Our President: Pete Waterman OBE DL is of course a big railway enthusiast, owning his own locomotives and having a large model railway. But what other famous people share this passion. In this competition you have to find the name of another well-known celebrity who enjoys model trains. Just answer the questions, taking the first letter of each answer, then unscramble the letters to reveal the name. It’s all for fun and no prizes are given. The answer will be announced in the April newsletter. 

• The Longmoor Military Railway had its southern terminus here beside the man line station.

• First station west of Bath Spa

• A branch line ran from this Somerset Junction station to Highbridge

• An untimetabled station with no public access at the eastern end of the West Somerset Railway

• Name of Battle of Britain Class 34067

• Name of a heritage railway carried by Class 66 diesel 66706

• 45682 ’Trafalgar’ was a member of this class of locomotives

• Name first given to Castle Class 5080 now preserved and named ‘Defiant’.

• This town was served by a branch line that came off the main line east of Swindon station

MORE NEWS ITEMS

Restoration of the Brighton Bell Pullman train is now entering an advanced stage with a four-car formation now being tested on the main line. Initial trials are taking place on the Chester - Hooton section of the Merseyrail 750V system, as it can easily be towed between Crewe and Chester. (It is currently being worked on at Loco Services Ltd at Crewe). It is then likely to be sent to Eastleigh for more extensive third rail testing as well as crew training. The current 4 car unit can also be locomotive hauled, where necessary, and ideally this would be by Class 33 diesels or Class 73 electro-diesels as they can supply Electric Train Supply at the SR's 750v DC. It now has retention toilets and TPWS, GSMR and OTMR in compliance with current main line standards.

At our meeting venue, The Museum of Bath at Work, there will be ‘An Evening of Historic Images, Sound and Music’ by Adrian Betts on March 25 at 7.30 p.m. Following a successful evening of film and music last Autumn, local photographer Adrian Betts has agreed to present the show again. Adrian has created a series of slideshows, set to music, some composed especially, from historic images in the Museum’s collections and some from his own. This will be an atmospheric and unusual evening of sound and vision. Tickets are priced at £8.

LOOKING FORWARD

Our next meeting will be on Thursday April 3 when we welcome guest speaker Neil Taylor. His subject will be ‘Building a New Steam Locomotive in the 21st Century’ Neil will be telling us all about the building of the 46th example of the BR Standard 82xxx Class 60 years on from when the first batches were built, with sadly all the Class members being scrapped.

More stories required for our MEMBERS CONTRIBUTION section. Please do send them in.

Bob Bunyar

Newsletter Editor

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