The next bit is completely off topic! Having done much research on the matter over the years, I have concluded that one of the starkest examples of misplaced blame concerns the Somerset & Dorset. When you compare the final
S&D▸ timetable of 1965 with the Bradshaw 1922 reprint you find that, excluding the expresses that were diverted in 1962, the local passenger service hardly changed over those 43 years. Also remember that the expresses over the line didn’t actually serve intermediate stations, and the only people who were even mildly inconvenienced were those who wanted to go from Bath to Bournemouth and in future would have to change at Southampton.
In 1965 the S&D was being run in almost exactly the same way as it had in 1922, and in 1922 its only real competition was the horse and cart. It didn’t stand a cat in hell’s chance against the Morris Oxford or the Austin A35...
I suspect there will be some readers who disagree with all this, so let’s have a discussion
You write a lot that I can agree with. There is however this:
I slightly disagree that the S&D didn't have any local traffic and that the timetable wasn't degraded. A friend of mine Mother lived at Shillingstone and used the train for shopping in Blandford Forum. Originally there were several trains she could catch both ways with varying time to shop in Blandford. Gradually these trains were reduced and you either had 5 minutes or 4 hours in Blandford. So the train became unusable.
There are few things I enjoy more than testing anecdotal evidence, especially when it’s third hand. So I dug out the Bradshaw reprint from 1922 and the 1959 and 1965 WR timetables to see what the evidence was to back it up. There was a minor issue that, in 1959, the S&D timetable in the WR book only gave full details as far as Templecombe, because beyond that was
SR‡ territory. So what I had to do there was look at the 1959
WTT▸ which shows trains arriving and departing Templecombe to the south, and extrapolated the times for Shillingstone and Blandford (not that there was much extrapolating to do because the times were all identical within 8 minutes).
Draw your own conclusions
The only caveat I would throw in is that in 1965 there were two trains (0953 ex-Bath down, 1140 ex-Bournemouth up) that were semi-fasts and didn’t stop at Shillingstone. Both called at Blandford, but the 1140 up was non stop between Blandford and Evercreech Junction.
Personally I can see no evidence to fully support your friend’s mother’s assertion of five minute or four hour waits (unless of course she was going down on the 0935 and couldn't get back for the 1032, but that in itself would not render the whole service unusable for the journey she wanted to make)
Note to mods - as this has absolutely nothing to do with Gloucester to Hereford can some of it be split into a new topix, especially if the discussion develops further?
