Heart of Wessex - 2018. Somerset and Dorset - 1963.

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From the same 1963 timetable

[JayMac]

Yes, by 1963 The Pines Express was no longer running over S&DJR^▸ (Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway) metals. The last time it ran via that route was 8th September 1962.

[grahame]

Was there much protest at the time about the closure?

Oh yes there was plenty but too no avail.

Yes, by 1963 The Pines Express was no longer running over S&DJR^▸ (Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway) metals. The last time it ran via that route was 8th September 1962.

Very much an organised rundown, with lots of other railways in the same period.   The Devizes line closed completely and the Melksham line to passengers the month after the Somerset and Dorset. The year also saw the end of passenger trains on the Waterside line, to Yeovil Town, at intermediate stations on lines which are still open (such as Wilton South station), Taunton to Barnstaple, the Cowes line, Wroxall and Ventnor on the Isle of Wight.

With so much going on, protests with regard any single line were in some ways "just another protest", though there were some lines threatened but survived through this period.  Without "online" and with just a handful of TV^▸ (Thames Valley) channels, the media and the voice of the individual had very different metrics in those days.

[eXPassenger]

Yes, by 1963 The Pines Express was no longer running over S&DJR^▸ (Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway) metals. The last time it ran via that route was 8th September 1962.

There is a great description of the last N bound run by the driver in his book 'Mendips Engineman'.  The train was hauled by Evening Star and was the heaviest, unassisted, load over the Mendips.

[WSW Frome]

The last day of regular operations on the S&D^▸ (Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway) was Saturday 5 March 1966 with the various specials operating on Sunday 6 March.

I was there on the final two Saturday afternoons/evenings as a mere 14 year teenager allowed to venture out on my own (not unusual for me!) all the way from Weymouth by rail to view the demise. I attended school in Dorchester on Saturday mornings. On 26 February, after returning home (by train, of course) and a hurried lunch travelled back to Templecombe, via all three Yeovil Stations, and then went north to Bath Green Park arriving around 6pm. The return train was almost immediate, with me eventually arriving in Weymouth, via Yeovil,  around 10.30. Weather was grim that day and I do not recall any enthusiast turnout so the trains were quiet. I do have photos of this somewhere but they are not great. In the 15 minutes I had in Bath I looked in vain for some food and also decided that this part of Bath looked pretty grim then! The southbound trip was very emotive on a quiet train stopping at very dark stations with the odd staff voice heard somewhere out there. 

On 5 March, I repeated the exercise but went south from Templecombe, arriving in Poole around 6pm. It was a fine day with a major enthusiast turnout. So at least the S&D final services went out with a smile.

I still have some of the tickets from that time and I was recently reminiscing on exactly which trains I did travel on. The joys of retirement! 

[bradshaw]

Having used the S&D^▸ (Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway) to travel from Crewkerne to Bournemouth in the late 1950s for family holidays I was sad to see its demise but was able to travel on one of the last day specials.

There was one abortive attempt to connect to the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) (Wilts somerset and Weymouth) at Wyke Champflower and the earthworks could be seen until recently. This was carried out by the Somerset Central Railway around 1861. The north to east junction was from the SCR to the WSWR. However the amalgamation to form the S&D seems to have put paid to it.

There is an interesting piece on p52 of the book 'Disconnected'byChris Austin and Richard Faulkner, OPC 2016.

May I presume from the Saturday morning school, WSW Frome, that you went to Hardye's School? I taught there in there from 1976-1988.

[RichardB]

It's worth remembering that Dr Beeching only recommended closures.

In 1964 Labour came to power with Harold Wilson pledging, in the run up to the election, to halt the closures. Labour actually accelerated them and added further line and station closures not recommended by Beeching.

Barbara Castle is the real villain. She signed the S&DJR^▸ (Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway) closure order.

I don't want to get into a political fight here but I have looked at lots of Ministry of Transport files relating to 1960s closures and the view generally was taken that BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) saw the line up for closure as a dead loss and wanted it shut so why should civil servants or the Government (who were not, of course, railway people) take a different view unless the TUCC said there would be hardship for a lot of people and keeping the railway was the only way of solving it.

Look up a guy called F J Margetts - he was the leading BR officer in charge of closures for the key time in the 60s and he pushed the Ministry hard to get the closure decisions BR wanted.

Much more of the non Inter City or London suburban network would have gone without the principle of subsidies for loss making but socially necessary services being introduced in the 1968 Transport Act.

[bradshaw]

The book by Charles Loft - Last Trains, Dr Beeching and rage Death of Rural England, makes interesting reading on the subject.
Also, if you get a chance to hear Colin Divall talk on the S & D, he has some interesting views.

[WSW Frome]

Bradshaw is correct that I did attend Hardye's School in Dorchester 1962-69. A large contingent of boys travelled by train from Weymouth and intermediate stations (like Radipole Halt for me) to Dorchester West, and later South. This included Saturday mornings.

For most of the period these were specially-provided trains between Weymouth and Dorchester and in various years not shown in the public timetable. Having written my piece on the S&D^▸ (Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway) I was speculating at what time was our return train on Saturday lunchtimes. I have timetables for the mid 1960s and it is not shown but the answer was probably 12.10 or 12.15! Of course, until mid 1967 nearly all these trains were steam-hauled and later by Class 33s.