Very tricky one?

[whole diary]

[Phil]

I'd say out near Frome somewhere - the landscape looks a bit flat for Wooton Bassett, more Somerset than Wiltshire?

[thetrout]

Having read Phil's post and looked at the picture with the Class 66 Loco, I would rule out Frome because I have never known Frieghtliner locos to work Torr Works or Merehead Quarries... It's mainly EWS^▸ (English Welsh & Scottish Railway Ltd, now known as DB Schenker Rail (UK^▸ (United Kingdom))), Hanson, Yeomans & Mendip Rail locos that provide the traction for the workings.

However gramhame did point out that Corsham was relevant, So as he says, this is a tricky one!

Although nobody has worked out #9 in my Puzzle Edition 1

[grahame]

I'm going back to have a look at that #9 in a minute ... and I'll add some more pictures taken within a couple of hundred yards or my previous ones;   I'm trying to make all my clues more pictorial.   Not Frome, Not Wotton Bassett ..

[grahame]

... in fact so tricky that no-one's got it.    It's Patney and Chirton on the Berks and Hants - the place where the original line ran to Devizes and on to Holt on the still-just-open-for-passengers Chippenham to Trowbridge line.  So very close to home for me!

I was somewhat surprised that Google didn't find much about the place - few pictures if any - so I've documented my "where is this" series on my own web site - see

http://www.wellho.net/share/patneyandchirton.html

Like Corsham, it's an old Wiltshire station site at a former junction, where mainline trains rush by and it seems that no-one remembers the place as railway-significant any more.

[Electric train]

Link here to what used to be like http://www.readingpsb.org/patney__chirton_sb1.htm I assume the bridge in Grahame's photos is the original station platform over bridge

[Chris from Nailsea]

Indeed - from the caption to photo 2 on that site: "The only part of the station that remains after the fall of the Beeching axe is the footbridge." 

Thanks, grahame - that was particularly obscure, especially for me, as I wasn't even looking over your shoulder when you took those photos! 

[grahame]

Here is the old and new





The old picture is reproduced from the D E Canning collection with permission of the copyright holder; the new picture I took on Saturday last.    Thanks, Electric Train, for helping me make the connection.

Chris - it was a pretty desolate spot!  Just me and my father there. No-one else fromthe forum at all (unless any happened to be on that 125!)

[grahame]

And I can now link to my Devizes Branch page from Saturday:
http://www.wellho.net/share/devizesbranch.html