S&D Midsomer

conurbations.... ](*,)


I suspect what WILL happen is we will reduce our insane desire to always be somewhere else....Internet technology will eventually mean a lot of us will be able to fully work from home ...now THAT is just around the corner, a new railway age? I doubt it..

 

"Roads themselves need oil to construct - the machines used to make roads and the materials used in them."

So do railways sunny boy. The alternatives are the human Navvy, the horse or the Steam Navvy (or all 3). Now all 3 are possible but the heavy industry needed to build and maintain railways needs lots of energy so maybe nuclear power is the answer after all.

Anyway, when the NEW S&D is launched on 6 March we'll all be enlightened like you won't we? In the meantime I think its best to keep working away to make the S&D a good heritage railway and see what happens from there instead of trying to use Peak Oil as a weapon to justify the rebuilding of a line which not everyone wants to be rebuilt (admission here - I would love to see it rebuilt but it probably won't be!)

 

Trackbed going to waste? What about all the trackbed that has been built on? Seems to me like it's serving a purpose. What about the cycle path around Midford? Seems to me like that's providing a much better transport link the the S&D at Midsomer Norton is. Too right it's been bought and paid for, but not by a railway company, by people who are actually using it. Also, I don't know where you're driving in Somerset, but there really aren't traffic jams. Around 9am and 5pm it gets busier, but it's not congested until you get right near to Bath. There may be more traffic on the roads, but it's not inhibiting the vast majority of the time.

Midsomer Norton, Radstock, Shepton Mallet, Evercreech, Wells, Glastonbury, Binegar, Chilcompton, Midford, Wellow, Templecombe and just about every other place the S&D had stops, are fairly insignificant places, given the bigger picture. Certaintly not large towns or conurbations. Also, most of the places you mentioned are complete dumps, have you ever even been to Radstock/Shepton Mallet? Mention them to people who aren't local and they have mostly never heard of them.

 

I think you are all being horrible to the new S&D scheme - beastly people. Peak oil production will mean railways are the future public transport. The new S&D will be top of the priority list for the next parliament along with the Longmoor Military Railway, where Titfield Thunderbolt was filmed, the Devils Dyke branch and the Bramely line.

You will all be suprised and laugh on the other sides of your faces when that proposed fleet of LNWR Cauliflowers complete with straw burning fire boxes for carbon neutrural locomotion are commisioned to run these new generation emergency transport lines....

Now pay attention and learn.

#-o

 

Midsomer Norton and Radstock are virtually joined together these days. The population is well over 21,000 people. Hardly insignificant.
The road traffic in Radstock is much busier these days but at least, in general, it keeps moving. When the railways were open there were two sets of level crossings. One for the S&D and one for the Frome to Bristol railway. The result being traffic on a summer Saturday in the mid sixties was really quite bad. <BJ>

 

But there is very little in either of the places worth travelling to and I would guess that a lot of the people living there are retired (although this seems to be true all over Somerset). I also bet if you went to Cardiff or Swindon and asked people, the vast majority won't have heard of them. Radstock does has a fun pair of min- roundabouts, right on top of each other, but it's never been congested when I've gone through.

 

backward thinking doom mongerers the lot of you. reliance on the internal combustion engine and tarmac is going to leave us all coming unstuck #-o like steve says, living in 1971 still.........

 

Err - no actually. Realistic folk with feet on the ground not doomongers. The country faces an unprecedented economic calamity which will take several generations to pay back and there isn't now, nor never will be a spare few hundred million to buy the land back, plan, build with full electrification (remember the oil has gone) and operate S&D series 2.

When the black gold does get scarce and if there isn't a replacement there will be many lines in high densisty areas of population that will be more of a priority to reopen than the S&D.

Squawking for the reinstatement of this line on the grounds of peak oil production actually harms the cause of environmental politics and preservation movement of a sleepy rurual secondary line. Its smacks of dreamworld.

If you want to preserve the line, say so and align your approach and choose your target audience. When you get somewhere you can play trains until your heart is content. There is no economic justification for reingineering a disused railway that went mostly from nowhere to nowhere slowly (though through fantastic scenery) on the grounds that someone in Frome can pop into Bath to get some shopping and as such there is no way it can be funded.

 

hear hear as they say...well said Coz

 

If you want to convince us, it might help to answer some of the questions that have been asked so far. You sound like a stuck record.

 

Stewie,

If you read the whole thread I have repeatedly asked the same questions and said more or less the same as you and got a load of verbal abuse and accused of being a troll! Attack is the best form of defence - particuarly when there isn't any defence and the argument is a bit thin.

Anyway - must go and polish the Land Cruiser.

 

Wow...there was me hopping to pop and here and read about a really interesting heritage site in Somerset and all I see is people being immature and bitching at eachother! I for one would love to see the S&D going again, but its not viable as a transport corridor, would be a great heritage railway though, especially as I am moving to Bath soon (maybe, hopefully)!

But the fact of the matter is that this is a forum for talking about the goings on at Midsomer, not for some armchair domestic economists and politicians to debate something in a rather inpolite and unnecessery way! Just chill out yea, get some perspective and some winging at eachother, if a bunch of 'trainspotters' cant get on then there truely is no hope for society...

 

I have no problem with the Midsomer Norton project in itself. Indeed, although I have never visited it appears (both from reports and from speaking to people who have) to be a worthwhile project that seems to be going about its business in a sensible way.

I do however have a problem with the 'Mendip Main Line' faction, which is simply down to the inability to comprehend the fact that if they make outlandish statements, people will ask questions, and when people ask questions the best way of changing their opinion is actually responding with facts rather than enviro-babble and 'You wait and see'.

 

Hit the nail on the head there. If by some miracle a future government decides the S&D must be reopened whether or not a few parcels of land have been bought up and a bit of bullhead rail thrown down the whole cher-bang would be comp-purchased, electrified and streamlined. Goodbye Midsomer Norton signal box and all the other relics of the past.

Play trains - yes, strategic transport corridor of the future - No.

When the oil does run out we will have more to worry about than rebuilding the S&D. Examples of worries could be: getting food, keeping warm and maintaining civilisation. Rebuilding S&D - err no.

One or two loonies spurting inappropriate arguments about the end of the world degrade the whole scheme which otherwise may have a chance to establish itself as a small preserved railway.

 

Planning permission has just been granted by BaNES for "Extension of operational heritage railway and engineering works, including track-laying and associated infrastructure" at Midsomer Norton (07/02516/FUL).

http://planning.bathnes.gov.uk/Publ...lication_detailview.aspx?caseno=JMHZ5VCTKK000

 

Any word on when they'll be granted running powers?

 

I guess that'll be up to Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate. The planning permissions already granted by BaNES allow steam working during the daytime on weekends and public holidays, but not mid-week.

 

I popped in to the station site last Sunday after visiting the ESR event. Most interesting and the blokes I spoke to were very friendly and informative.

Regards

 

I have added a video to YouTube of my visit to Midsomer Norton Station of last Sunday

http://www.youtube.com/user/PenrithBeacon

Regards

 

As a (distant) member of the S&DRT I'm delighted that planning permission has been granted as it now gives this railway the authority to "break out" from the somewhat (by necessity) crowded environs of the Station site and, in time, offer public rides along a stretch of the "real" S&D at last. (I know the Gartell Railway does a lovely job on its site but it is a narrow gauge railway so isn't quite the same as the original - but excellent just the same). Fantastic news and thanks for posting the video.