Great Western Coffee Shop

I came across BBC Somerset news article from a few days ago titled "Railway station may return to Shelton Mallet".
Mendip District Council are including a Shepton Parkway option as a part of a £320,000 transport business case study.

Link below:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-47290855?SThisFB&fbclid=IwAR2LFZ4VkLJO4lp5kU_ay_S8twNDyJ7f5qBGhjkn0WweW5bXJRShxz799es

The question is where they think it should go as there's no NR lines for miles.

Interesting... at a guess, they have somewhere near Dobbies Garden Centre in mind. However the line back to Witham has the same problem as the Radstock line; it's a bit of a long way round to Bath, and even further to Bristol, if that's where they think people will want to go...

I despair at how out of touch or should I say 'THICK' some civic leaders are. Look at a map showing Shepton Mallet and one will find that a station exists just down the road from Shepton, through Cannards Grave and Evercreech what less than a 10 minute drive away at Castle Cary.   ::)

I wonder what the East Somerset Railway is thinking about this? They run the part of the branch nearest to Shepton Mallet and I presume that NR own the remaining line to Whitham.
This could complicate matters if the East Somerset Railway doesn't want to come on board.

I wondered that ... but then I've just come back from Bradford-on-Avon where the station was built seven years before the railway line.  Makes sense really ... no issues of having to work on live tracks while works are going on.

Didn't someone point out in the thread about Radstock that there is potential to reopen the line north from Radstock and Midsomer Norton via Wellow to the in-use Bath-BoA line? And that the same line extends south from Midsomer N through Binegar to Shepton Mallet? All going in a potentially more useful direction for most expected traffic than either via Witham Friary* or Evercreech.

*Big recommendation for Seymour Arms in Witham Friary. A pub that's fallen through a wormhole from the 1950s.

That'd be the Somerset and Dorset... the most feasible route would probably involve linking the S&D line to the Limpley Stoke and Camerton near Midford, and you'd need a north-facing connection at Limpley Stoke. Still a bit of a long way round via Bathampton, though!

Here's an alternative modest proposal (or thought experiment!), requiring just a few billion pounds and a huge amount of political will:

Reopen the North Somerset from Bristol to Midsomer Norton. Link that to the S&D route, and follow that to Shepton, then extend down through Evercreech to meet the main line near Castle Cary. That would give you a new through route from Bristol to the south, as well as putting Norton Radstock and Shepton back on the map...

All things are possible given vast sums of money, and years and years of effort. I hate to say this but a Devizes  to Parkway style solution (bus to railhead) is the only realistic way forward. Even the press release doesn't major on a rail solution.

The BBC article really is very short on detail about any proposed station location. Could this be because it hasn't been thought through yet? Is it just a headline grabber? It would be very interesting to see if there are any current suggested sites.

Just rename Castle Cary to castle Cary for Shepton Mallet

Having a station is one thing, but having a station whose trains take you to places where you might want to go is another thing altogether.

Castle Cary is probably fine for people who want to go to London or Taunton, but what if you wanted to take a job or study in Bristol or Bath?

You could say that for a lot of places with stations

or - for simplicity - "Shepton Mallet Road" (or Somerton Road, or . . .  ???

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/somersettotem.jpg)

These might be said to be the same thing: if the political will is there, the money can be found (or borrowed, begged, stolen or harvested).

The forum members considered responses to the announcement suggest to me a different question:
If you were Mendip District Council with the disposition and possible resources to build/reopen a station on your turf, where should it be?

Probably "Wincanton and Shepton Mallet Parkway"!

On a more practical note, I expect that the problem in the "hole" between the main lines from Westbury to Taunton, Taunton to Bristol, Bristol to Bath, and the line back to Westbury is a combination of not enough residents to generate traffic, and the costs of reinstating any part of the closed railways in the area which probably never paid their way when open would be prohibitive having regard to the terrain - it's a shame, but once closed they were probably lost forever,

As a Mendip ratepayer it rather pains me to see they propose spending good money on this study. I had never known that Flying Pig farming was so endemic in the District.

Mendip DC have precisely one station within their patch and that is Frome. I have never seen the District Council take the slightest interest in rail travel before.

Castle Cary (in South Somerset District) is certainly well within striking distance of Shepton Mallet and Bruton is an alternative for some more rural areas. SW Coaches provide a reasonable bus service from Shepton to Castle Cary, although I guess the frequency could be enhanced. If there is to be any sensible outcome from this then the bus service should be enhanced to promote Castle Cary as a "Regional" or "Parkway" style station with good access to Shepton, Wells and possibly Glastonbury.

These towns have a surprisingly good bus service (First Group!) to Bath and Bristol (enhanced in recent times) with a good frequency and service pattern (both evening and weekends). The general road conditions do not make for a speedy journey but still likely to be better, or as good as, any indirect rail options proposed. 

According to travelwest.info, you can get from Shepton Mallet to Bristol in just under two hours by bus. To my mind that means that these places are effectively cut off from the region's economic powerhouse. Obviously I am invoking the spirit of porcine aviation, but assuming a 70 mile/hr railway to Norton with maybe a 50mile/hr route onwards to Bristol via the B&NS, you ought to be able to get to there in well under an hour - a pain, but doable.

Now it may well be the case that economic development is considered undesirable in East Somerset, and quite possibly the citizens of Shepton and Norton Radstock are happy that their children presumably all  leave the area to get education and work - if so, then yes, this idea is nonsense.

The above was my initial post on this thread but as I usually post with my brain out of gear I have more thoughts on the subject.

To sanction £320.000 to be spent on a study into/enhancement to Public Transport in the Mendip DC area to me, as does another forum member who is actually a MDC council taxpayer, will be a complete waste of money.

When the commissioned report is published and it goes into detail that Yes, a rail link to Shepton Mallet should be provided much to the joy of the Council Leader. I can see his eyes glowing with the thoughts that the gold leaf letraset will finally surface from the councils safe to christen the currently blank Roll of Honour board in the council chamber of council leaders who actually did something to promote public transport in the district.

However I feel the glow in his eyes will all too soon dissipate into sadness when Network Rail comes along holding their paws out for the local areas billions of £'s contribution towards the project cost.

That sadness will turn to tears when the Council Leader sees that gold leaf letraset being consigned to the councils safe whilst the black letraset is removed from the stationery cupboard to engrave their name on the other Council Leaders Roll of Honour of useless gits who done BA for the areas residents.

Experience tells me of councils absolute waste of money.

About 7 years ago as part of the Greater Bristol Bus Network (GBBN) many of the bus shelters in the area, Yate / Chipping Sodbury, were upgraded to what we were told would be modern shelters with lighting for passengers security and real time displays. The new shelters arrived as flat packs. They are of stainless steel frames, were assembled in the contractors yard and delivered to site and installed. They have a seated area, an oval shaped bar extending the length of the shelter on which waiting passengers might like to rest their asses on while waiting for that late running service. The bus shelters also have electrical boxes to connect to a mains power supply and feed the shelters lighting. included in the flat pack, and power the shelters real time display. 3 out of the 4 nearest bus shelters to my home, as do many of the remaining shelters in the area, still await connection to the mains power supply and installation of the real time displays.

By comparison the shelters provided over the border. in Bristol. have proper chair seats with armrests, the shelters lighting and real time displays are connected up and working and is, supposedly, all part of the same project funded through a Central Government Public Transport Capital Grant Scheme.  Grrr.

Another thought, put the £320,000 into a pot to support a Park (in Shepton Mallet) and Ride (to Castle Cary (Parkway) service, oh no, says the council leader, I've got my chauffeur driven limo and I'm not giving up that to provide a bus service for the areas residents and visitors.

It was funny, one morning recently I was in Bristol's City Hall at a transport meeting and after it concluded a South Gloucestershire councillor who had previously held the post of chair of the authorities Planning, Highways and Transport Committee asked me what number bus route went to Kingswood from the City Centre for the afternoons meeting at Kingswood Civic Centre and where was the stop. Out of touch, I'd say so..

Taking a look at Shepton Mallet and Castle Cary (current station) ... main destination wanted from Shepton Mallet (at least initially until new flows built) would be directly NORTH of there (Bristol), but the station is to the SOUTH and the rail line runs EAST / WEST. 

It's about 40 km from Shepton Mallet into Bristol ... and on the railway there's not another station for 40km to the west.  100km rail journey Castle Cary to Bristol via Taunton, 75km rail journey Castle Cary to Bristol via Westbury.   Mind you ... extend the line from Mendip Vale into Shepton Mallet, or reopen Frome via Radstock to Shepton Mallet and you're still looking at the best part of 80km by rail to Bristol when it's 40km as the bus drives.

Answer? Don't know. Just setting out the geography.   Saw mention of Radstock to Bath via Midford and Limpley Stoke - another pipe dream perhaps (but some pipe dreams have come about) and that extended to Shepton Mallet would cut down the mileage to Bristol (and Bath) and provide for new multiple access points to the rail network along the way.

Taking note of Grahame's post of a 40Km most direct route Shepton Mallet to Bristol, how about a solution such as a tramway laid along the A37, daft, I know, I'll admit it but then I'm not a civic dignitary drawing thousands of pounds in allowances funded from council taxpayers.

I think that's the key point - Castle Cary is of limited use for local commuters. The S&D route, however, connects two economic hotspots - Bristol/Bath and Bournemouth/Poole, and for much of it was a double track main line suitable for reasonably high speed running. The weak point is north of Norton Radstock, but by making a new link here to the B&NS route you could connect rather nicely (if at reduced speed) through to the junctions to the east of Temple Meads, and thence (for freight, maybe) to the north or Wales.

When I quipped that this just requires "a few billion pounds and a huge amount of political will", in reality it's just the political will that would be needed - as we all know, a few billion quid is easy to find if you want to.

This is why I started the thread. Very soon after reading the BBC article and a quick look at the OS map it became clear that what the District Council was saying was very ambiguous. It seemed there would be no logical location for a Shepton Mallet Parkway station without reopening or at least upgrading some line. If either was the case, doing that would be a much bigger story than just opening a station.
It all depends on the scope of this report, which we don't know but unless Mendip DC have become advocates of ambitious "big idea" rail solutions with their hands on the required funds, then I think the announcement may just have been a headline grabber.
Mind you, stranger things (may) have happened.......

This talk of economic powerhouses makes me think the railways are mostly (not just for East Somerset) pointing in the wrong directions. Or maybe it's that they turn up their noses at mere regional powerhouses and have their eye on the glittering streets of London. Another obvious example where regional-to-regional powerhouse connectivity is slowly and painfully being addressed (or rather, readdressed after sixty years or so) is Oxford to Cambridge. Then there's Manchester to Leeds, which perhaps benefits in this respect from being further away The Glittering Streets. And there must be others too.

Yes. I think that this is more of a problem from the closures than the original routes. Places like Shepton mallet were well served originally, but lost all their non metropolitan routes in the Beeching era. 

However, some routes never achieved their potential because of vested interests (e.g. Didcot Newbury and Southampton was only ever operated as a local line when it should have been a key route from the North East and Midlands to the South coast. It suited the GWR to route the trains via Reading (more miles more money) and it suited the LSWR not to have a direct route on their patch that did not give them much income).   

I am intrigued, decades after the railway deserted Shepton Mallet and years after direct bus services to Bristol ceased this tinpot councillor crawls out of the woodwork to make this ground breaking announcement. Oh yes, its local council election time in a few weeks and they must draw the electorates attention to a 'greatly needed facility' in the hope of persuading their constituents to vote for them in the forthcoming May council elections on this manifesto so they can crawl back into the woodwork for another 45 months and do NOTHING.

I am not sure that's right! It's more complicated than that, I think, and some cases goes back to the haphazard way the railways were promoted and built. It is a shame that there was never a proper equivalent to the North Downs route around the north of London. I appreciate that the Chilterns get in the way, but something running all the way along the foot of its northern escarpment would have been a useful cross-country route. Am I right in thinking that the Wallingford and Watlington branches were originally going to form part of such a route?

Then when they were built, there was often not enough money to give adequate capacity for use as a strategic route - the DN&S being an example, only single track until it was partly doubled for the Second World War. The position is compounded by some of the decisions made when rationalisation took place - why (for example) keep a connection between Barnstaple and Exeter, but not between King's Lynn and Norwich? There is also an element of wisdom after the event, too. In the 1950s and 1960s rail travel was in precipitous decline, and global warming had not been "invented". It is not difficult to see why, in the context of a perceived need to cut growing losses, the DN&S was closed to concentrate traffic on the main line to Reading, then via Basingstoke.

The problem is that we have been left with two problems - the lack of some useful routes across the country, notably SW to NE south of the Trent Valley, and some areas (eg this area of Somerset, large parts of Norfolk, East Yorkshire and North Cornwall/West Devon) which are off the rail network. With the benefit of hindsight it would have been prudent to mothball the formations and infrastructure, but clearly no-one envisaged that the tide would turn. Add to this the apparently horrendous cots of reinstatement quoted recently on this forum and it becomes difficult to justify new or reinstated lines in less populated areas.

Perhaps the answer is a supported network of limited stop bus/coach services connecting to convenient stations on the retained network, which I think is the French approach, albeit that from what I have read here and elsewhere this is not always sustained either.

 I do though think we need to campaign for more/continued investment in routes like the XC network, North Downs and the Cardiff/Bristol to Southampton/Portsmouth/South Coast routes which tend to be cinderella services, and lost in a lot of the noise about "Northern Powerhouses".  The places connected - the South Wales cities, Bristol, the Thames Valley centres (Oxford, Reading) and the south coast conurbations from Poole to Brighton and intervening towns together form a substantial part of the UK's economy.

True - but that was the only time the DN&S was ever used as a through trunk route.  The GWR treated it as a branch line taking only local traffic. 


Yes but perhaps if the DN&S had been taken over by the GCR rather than the GWR it might have become a trunk route to Southampton and it might have survived. 

Correct: - the Wallingford and Watlington Railway. Unfortunately it ran out of financial breath before it could get past Wallingford on its way from the junction at Wallingford Road station.

Out of Curiosity what is DN & S...I'm from Scotland!

Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway

Ah, cheers...didn't think Dundee, Newtyle and Strathord was appropriate

Interesting to look at Beeching's analysis (http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/BRB_Beech001b.pdf) of the S&D route - he shows the route from Bath to Templecombe as having similar traffic levels to the Westbury - Salisbury route, though beyond Templecombe traffic was rather lighter. I wonder if these two routes were considered close enough to be duplicates? In a similar vein, the S&D route from Templecombe to Bournemouth may have been considered a duplicate of the Yeovil - Dorchester route... it would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall when these decisions were made! I have the feeling that the S&D may have suffered from being historically associated with two of the Western's rivals.

Old company rivalry knows no bounds.  Once their operations fall into your hands, you owe it to your corporate memory to see them dead, dead, dead!!

Cornish/Devon branches passed to the Western - Which ones were closed? The Great Central - Passed to the Midland. The S&D to the Western.

Didn't matter which might have been the best route - the rival must die - and now we have the power at last.  That'll learn 'em!

and the Midland and South West Junction

and the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton

And from c1964 the Southern routes west of Salisbury to the GWR, including the ‘witherered arm’ . It was Gerald Feinnes, in his ‘How to run a railway’, explained how the Salisbury - Exeter was saved.

I seem to recall Gerry Feinnes was instrumental not only in saving Salisbury-Exeter but also the Berks & Hants as a through route. Without him all would go through Bath. Imagine that in 2019! But I suppose had things been left entirely to Beeching everything west of Exeter would have closed too.

There are various interesting speculations we could make of how the network could be different though perhaps with a similar mileage to today.  But I suspect we could find it getting pretty heated.

and the Llanelly Railway and Dock's Swansea Extension

Very likely! But we are where we are.

This question of Shepton Mallet has set some interesting hares running in my mind, though...

The traffic density maps in Beeching's report (which I'll shamelessly link to again here (http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/BRB_Beech001b.pdf)) obviously reflect a different era, but they do give some indication of the relative loadings of various routes. The Oxford to Cambridge route shows similar traffic levels to the Somerset and Dorset and fulfilled a similar role, linking two provincial centres of economic activity. I'm aware of various heritage groups operating along the S&D route who would like to see it reopened, but I'm not aware of anyone having done a proper economic analysis into the benefits of a high-quality rail link between Bristol/Bath and Bournemouth/Poole.

I doubt whether the Shepton Mallet report will consider much beyond East Somerset, but maybe someone should!

I would be very interesting to be able to see just what Mendip DC propose to look at as far as railway/station opening goes in this forthcoming report. Just a rough idea as to the scope of this part of the report could be quite revealing.

Oxford and Cambridge could be expected to generate a significant number of journeys from one to the other (and from both to London, the three together supposedly making the golden triangle that will rescue the whole country) as they're centres of similar types of economy. Is the same true of Bristol/Bath and Bournemouth/Poole? Maybe, I don't know.

Yes, they're not the same - the main similarity is that they were once connected by cross-country routes with moderate traffic levels. However:

• A Bristol - Bournemouth route would link WECA's a population of around 900,000 with BCP's 380,000. For comparison, Oxford has 240,000 and Cambridge 280,000.
• Bournemouth, like Bristol, has a strong financial service sector and (I will admit that I am surprised to read) a thriving youth culture. Unlike Bristol, it has poor transport links with its hinterland.

Who's for 'Western Powerhouse Rail'?

The models for the North and the Midlands are indeed being rolled out across the rest of England.  Problem (in my view) is that we're likely to end up with too many of them meeting in our patch; services that cross areas are likely to be more complex to arrange and generate less interest from the 'powerhouse' boards than those contained within a single 'powerhouse'.

South West Peninsular (includes Shepton Mallet where this thread starts - and St Austell)
Western Gateway (includes Bristol)
England's Economic Heartland (includes Swindon - and Cambridge)
Transport for the South East (includes Southampton - and Sheerness)

A couple of attachments - one showing a fifth area (including Bournemouth) and the other showing the Western Gateway comprising a main area and an isolated island which in transport terms seems very peculiar.

The first map, with BCP in an exclave of Western Gateway reminiscent of English Maelor, may indicate that it's not just me thinking that Bournemouth gravitates towards WECA...

Sadly leads to all sorts of quirks and jokes .. "Western Gateposts" with traffic from the south east sneaking in to the south west along the Ringwood corridor clse to the Bournemouth Redoubt.   I recall "Part of Flint" on old county maps, hearing about Port Roberts (https://www.pointswithacrew.com/point-roberts-washington-its-harder-to-get-to-than-you-think/) and that Doncaster is part of Scotalnd (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11104004/Why-an-historical-anomaly-means-Bonny-Donny-could-leave-the-UK-too.html) - I really hope we don't end up trying to build our future on fragmented oddities.

Which is all interesting, but the question remains, how many people want to travel from Bristol to Bournemouth or vice versa? There must be figures for ticket sales on rail and bus, perhaps harder to estimate car traffic. Of course there are all the inbetween places to factor in as well; Shepton Mallet might be a destination in itself, for outlets (and maybe the Babycham!)

I'm sure there are figures - but it's a s***ing awful journey by rail from 'here' (Melksham) - more or less half way along the corridor - to the extent that even those of us who are pro-public-transport tend to drive.

Melksham to Southampton - off peak day return £24.20, by road 53 miles, 85 minutes
Melksham to Bournemouth - off peak return (no day returns) £44.20, by road 60 miles, 100 minutes

There is a good reference book that debates the closures and looks at whether routes could be opened. The S & D is on p52.

‘Disconnected’ - broken links in Britain’s rail policy by Chris Austin and Richard Faulkner OPC 2015

Absolutely - it makes no sense (for example) to put Berks and Oxon into two different areas. There is too much compartmentalisation creeping into transport policy - the CaMKOx corridor is another example. Someone needs to ensure that the national network works and connects. There is no point in splitting the Thames Valley apart, nor (for example) South Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. Networks not slogans!

From Bristol I'm seeing £43.10 off-peak return, £48.90 anytime, which seems less variation than on many routes. Although for the 0600 arriving 0915 they want £254.  :o Two and a half to three hours, quite a bit of which is spent waiting at Southampton. Does anyone want to estimate a journey time on a resurrected S&D or similar?

To the south of Bristol and Bath is the hilly Mendip country - never as developed as the valley of the Avon which passes through Bristol and Bath, but never the less of sufficient importance for three railway lines to have penetrated the terrain - south from Yatton via Winscombe, south from Bristol viaPensford, and south from Bath via Midford.  Alas, all three were "middle of the road" lines - sufficient to be built, but insufficient to survive the ravages of the "Beeching Axe" era.  Today, if you want to head south from Bristol you head west then south via Weston-super-mare to Taunton, and if you want to head south from Bath you head east before turning south east via Trowbridge to Westbury.  And the great wedge of land in between has no rail transport.  But that great wedge of land is home to a number of communities - some substantial in size - which look towards Bristol and Bath as their regional centres, and the questions are asked "could we be (re)connected to the rail network" and "could we have passenger trains".

So where are the population / (rail) travel potential hot spots in the wedge?
Shepton Mallet * Radstock / Midsomer Norton * Wells * Glastonbury * Street * Cheddar * Bristol Airport * Whitchurch / Pensford * Blagdon

If you consider services through the wedge, there's other hotspots on the southern fringe (at or beyond the east - west line from Westbury to Taunton) who have significant desires for excellent and more direct travel opportunities to Bristol and Bath:
Frome * Wincanton * Yeovil * Blandford Forum * Ringwood * Somerton / Langport

Looking right down towards the South Coat, you have two further east-west lines - the Salisbury to Exeter line, and then the main line along the coast from Southampton in the east to Weymouth in the west - but again little in between so that rail journeys to the north are doglegs at the best from:
Poole * Bournemouth * Christchurch * Swanage * Lymington
All rail connected for sure but, as I wrote to someone yesterday, "Bournemouth - I would drive"

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/bs_wedge1.jpg)

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/bs_wedge2.jpg)

* None of the three lines I mentioned earlier could be trivially re-opened along its previous route.

* Other old lines in the area might be re-opened to passenger trains slighly more easily, but might not go the right places.

* Heavy / complex engineering may be easier but very pricey these days; gradients are not the big problem to trains they once were

* The potential travel hotspots to Bath / Bristol that I mentioned do not fall into a neat line

* Other traffics even beyond the area mentioned might be useful - for example Southampton port traffic

* Providing stations / link lines to the Westbury - Taunton line for towns close to it wouldn't give a quick direct journey to the desired locations of Bath / Bristol

* There isn't a single commuter service from Westbury / Frome / Bruton / Castle Cary into Taunton which may be indicative of the lack of traffic in that direction (but, yes, I don't know what the latent demand is)

* Bringing a new line into Bath could lead to capacity issues on the remaining Bristol to Bath line as many people would be headed for Bristol

* As we move to(wards) Sub-regional transport bodies like "Transport for the North", the area that we're talking about straddles borders

* There are few if any marginal constituencies between the two major parties in the area that would benefit from better connectivity

* An extra line heading south from the Bristol / Bath area would be unlikely to have through London services so not effect Westminster.

Posting this initially as an informing piece below the "Station for Shepton Mallet" thread ... happy to split the thread should that turn out to be wise.   Thank you to Richard Fairhust for his permsission to use his excellent Adlestrop Maps to illustrate this piece..  I have scaled the maps slighly for consistency with our formats - if you load the images in your browser though they'll be full size for you.

Throwing a stone in the pond I have described ...  Exisiting track Bristol Temple Meads, Bedminster, Parson Street, Long Ashton, Flax Bourton, New cut / tunnel Lulsgate, Blagdon, Cheddar Reopened Wookey, Wells, Shepton Mallet New curve to other line to reopen Cole Junction, Wincanton, Templecombe, Blandford, Broadstone, Poole. ... Stands back and expects alternative suggestions via the Radstock area, and around the north of Bournemouth.

Expanding on the idea of a though route based on the North Somerset from Bristol to Radstock, linked to the Somerset and Dorset to Bournemouth:

The first 25km from Bristol - Radstock would probably be largely single track with at best a line speed of 80km/h. There would be potential for an onward link to Frome here for local services (I'll leave it to others to speculate whether a Bristol - Frome service should terminate there or go further); such a local service would probably justify adding stops at Brislington, Whitchurch and Clutton. This section could potentially be opened as a first phase of the through route.

A 'fast' service on this section would presumably take around 20 mins; a stopper maybe 30 mins.

Norton - Bournemouth is 90km or thereabouts, and I'm guessing you'd probably want to stop all trains at Shepton Mallet, Cole/Castle Cary (some rerouting needed here), Templecombe, Sturminster Newton, Blandford and Poole. In BR days, the line speed was 70mph (about 110km/h); would it be pollyannaish to think that a rebuilt line could sustain 140kh/m? if so, 90 minutes from Norton to Bournemouth ought to be achievable.

So let's say Bristol - Bournemouth could be achieved in around 1 hr 50 mins... that would be almost an hour quicker than the current rail journey, and 20 mins quicker than driving.

This looks to me like the ultimate crayonista's dream.

Grahame's 'solution' of a line from Flax Bourton to Cheddar requires extensive tunnelling, a funicular or taking over the Cheddar Gorge.  Last Wednesday I ascended the S face of the Mendips there and it is STEEP.  There is lost trackbed through to Shepton.  I do not know how much trackbed has been lost from the S&D to Poole.

Red Squirrel's suggestion will need to tunnel out of Bristol to Whitchurch due to all the developments on the trackbed.  It would also be necessary to include reversing time at Radstock when switching from the North Somerset to the S&D.

Do not forget the time it is taking to reopen the Portishead line which has an existing trackbed, much of which is used for freight.

Whilst freely acknowledging that this is crayonism, I feel the need to point out that the bulk of the B&NS route out of Bristol is very much not built on - the 2.25km section running parallel to Sturminster Road, between West Town Lane and Staunton Lane, is clear; further in it would be possible to sidestep the development at Hither Bath Bridge (where the embankment has been removed) and there is also a fairly clear route along the old alignment, or close to it, from Brislington to, er, North Somerset Jct. The housing development on the trackbed at Whitchurch would be more problematic, but I would suggest that here a bulldozer would probably fit the bill better than a TBM.

As to Norton Radstock; I am suggesting a curve (and new station) near the BANES offices at Somerville Road/Radstock Road, rather than a reversal.

Crayons back in box.

Indeed.  I put that in as I was writing it.  But then trimmed back that part of the post and it got edited out.  Obviously unusual - does anyone know of any examples of where a railway line arrives underneath an airport in a tunnel ?  ;D

I agree that there are available sections, however the Northern start is now blocked by Avon Meads, the A4320 and a Sainsburys.  You then have the edge of a Tesco before the relatively clear section.

You could connect the lines through the BANES location.

I think they have one at a small airport somewhere in West London! :)

Maybe we need two lines then. Complement what you propose with Taunton - Bridgwater - Cossington - Glastonbury - Wells - (epic bit of new construction parallel to the Old Frome Road to get onto the S&D) - Chilcompton - Midsomer Norton - Radstock - Wellow - Oldfield Park High Level - Bath Green Park


With a few reopened stations, a Swindon-Westbury-Taunton local service looks a good idea... Would get rid of messy reversals at Westbury too.


I'd hope a regional train like that would not stop at all those Bristol local stations.

I don't think it needs even that ... elsewhere the idea of extending the "Bedwyns" west every hour has been mooted.  First train perhaps 06:10 off Paddington, calling at Reading, Newbury, Bedwyn, Pewsey, Westbury, Castle Cary and Taunton at 08:16, picking up the 08:18 path westwards.  Add in any two from Kintbury, Hungerford, Frome and Bruton and should still fit 06:10, and it's also an enabler for a potential Somerton / Langport station.

Every hour (from then on) and every hour back .. you have your service.

Extending trhe Bedwyns will need additional stock. And I doubt there's the traffic (where is it now? It isn't driving)

Well I don't know about you lot, but all this talk has really put me in the mood for a Babycham!

See http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=21153.0 for the maths, which suggests otherwise, though the potential complex diagram switching at Paddington makes it hard to work out down to the final unit.  If you change the terminus average from Paignton to Exeter St David's you certainly don't need the extra train, and if you carry on to Paignton and maintain that at two trains an hour, you'll release a train there - though of course it wouldn't be an IET.   Happy to look at traffic generation, but let's be clear first that we're looking at a neutral stock change proposal, so "more passenger carried" put us in the black on balance - we don't need a situation with people quieting and having to wait for the next train at Castle Cary to make it worthwhile!

Swindon-Westbury-Taunton strikes me as a pretty good idea, partly as said for Somerton. Does nothing for Shepton Mallet or Bristol-Bournemouth though.

Babycham was invented by the Showering Family in Shepton Mallet during the ?1950's. However, it is very long time since it was produced there. A variety of other owners have run the "Somerset Cider Mill" there leading to complete closure about 2 years ago.

More recently the Mill has been (re-)acquired and re-opened by members of the Showering Family to produce ciders with production and employment apparently rising.

My earlier post referred to (direct) bus services from Shepton to Bristol. I was surprised to find they do not exist (apart from some National Express services) and any such journey is lengthy, typically via Bath or Wells, and barely suitable for commuting. Whilst the service to Bath is much better than in previous years, Bristol does need to be included.
The SW Coaches service (1) to Castle Cary and Yeovil is also quite basic being essentially 2 hourly in the mornings with a single late afternoon option. It is in these areas of public transport that Mendip DC might apply the proverbial rocket with the maximum early cost-benefit improvements.
 

"The SW Coaches service (1) to Castle Cary and Yeovil is also quite basic. .  ."

Although some buses stop on the station forecourt at Castle Cary, others (including,I think, the Shepton -Yeovil) stop on the main road. It would be far more user friendly if all buses used the forecourt.

Nostalgia corner. The attached photo(well, I hope its attached! it rarely works for me) shows Wakes' Yeovil - Shepton Mallet bus in the 1963 winter snows at Castle Cary/

I have to concur will all you have said, although even HS1&2 started with a bit of Crayonistaism*.


* Not sure that word has made the OED yet!

Looking at the Adlestrop map of lines past and present, it occurs to me that some Victorian railway lines were built on a similar principle to the nineteenth-century colonisation of far-flung continents: There might not be anything we really want to get, but if we don't get it, the other lot will! Whether the other lot were competing companies or rival empires.

What this suggests to me about reconnecting places that have lost their railways, is that the routes of old lines might not make sense nowadays. They might of course be easier to build on from an engineering and rights-of-way perspective.

Also, thinking of the Bristol/Bath to Bournemouth/Poole missing connection, I would disentangle it from the Shepton Mallet/Mendips question. Looking vaguely at a map (emphasis on vaguely), one way to make that connection might be to build south from Warminster through Gillingham or thereabouts. (Repeating vaguely and adding small-scale map, not looking at other settlements or engineering challenges, etc; repeating also separate links.)

The Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth line below Frome to Weymouth was put forward as a blocking line, to claim the territory.

...and some lines, like the North Somerset, were more about extracting minerals than carrying passengers. However when looking for a route to build a new line, it may well be the case that old alignments (sometimes connected together in new ways) provide the cheapest and easiest solution; it may even be possible to recycle some of the civils.

The line that's there now, from Castle Cary through Yeovil?

I bet that the OP didn't expect this one to run for over 70 responses. We are all dreamers, at heart. :o

Wilts, Somerset and Dorset - an early line from the GWR London to Bristol line, turning off at Thingley Junction and running via Trowbridge and Westbury (first line there) then on to Frome, Yeovil, Dorchester and Weymouth.  Branches added later.

The London and South Western Railway reached Dorchester (South) too and the original platform was layed out there to let the line carry on straight ahead.  However, that never happen - it's said to be because the other line was in the way blocking it, and it turned sharp left to join that line to Weymouth.   Within my memory, trains from Weymouth to London ran round the curve at the station and reversed into the straight platform.

In the 1840s the Government wanted a through route from Dover to Falmouth, for military reasons, hence the aim of the other S&D - the Southampton and Dorchester - having the station where it is. This also effected the development of the railways in the region in the 1840s and 50s with competing narrow and broad gauge schemes having coastal and central routes.
At one point the S&D was taken over by the GWR until they and the L&SWR came to an agreement.

The reversal continued until the new up platform and station building was opened in 1989 with the Weymouth electrification.

The excellent Cornwall Railway Society has these images.

http://www.cornwallrailwaysociety.org.uk/dorchester-to-bournemouth.html

Map

GWR "Great Way Round" in mustard
LSWR "Castleman's Corkscrew" in sage (section not built in dashed lines)
Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth in maroon
Later, shorter routes in thin navy

(http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/exeter_old.png)