From Swift & Delightful … to Sadness & Despair
With a circular tour ticket in hand, Robert Darlaston discovered the northern half of the Somerset & Dorset system in 1961, including the Highbridge branch, and then in 1963 returned to travel over the entire main line route between Bournemouth (West) and Bath (Green Park) and so witnessed a former joint railway split across two BR regions and with its future ebbing away. All photographs by the author.
Over the years, the initials of the Somerset & Dorset Railway gave rise to various alternative titles ranging from the flattering ‘Swift & Delightful’ to the critical ‘Slow & Dirty’, but by the time I came to know the line its end was approaching and a more apt title might have been ‘Sadness & Despair’. The line had long held a magical attraction for travellers – reasons included the delightful scenery through which it passed and the rather bucolic names of the attractive Wessex towns and villages served. For the enthusiast, the fascination derived from the range of locomotives employed and the line’s vicious gradients which placed huge demands on those locomotives and their crews. With such thoughts in mind, on a fine May morning in 1961 I set forth for Birmingham (New Street), suitably equipped with a British Railways circular tour ticket costing £2 11s 0d, ready to explore the northern half of the S&D system.
My day began with a local journey into Birmingham (New Street) whence I walked across to the Great Western’s fine and spacious station at Snow Hill. After a short wait on platform 7, Collett ‘7P’ 4-6-0 No 7026 Tenby Castle arrived with the 9.40am service to Penzance, ‘The Cornishman’. No 7026 had been built at Swindon in 1949 and was quickly allocated to Wolverhampton (Stafford Road), where it spent most of its comparatively short life. From Snow Hill the train headed out through Birmingham’s southern suburbs, making first for Stratfordupon-Avon. The journey continued along the foot of the Cotswold hills, passing through Broadway, now the northern terminus of the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway’s steam operation. After calls at Cheltenham and Gloucester, ‘The Cornishman’ reached Bristol (Temple Meads), punctually at 12.15pm. Truth to tell, it was hardly a demanding schedule, the GWR route from Birmingham was at 92 miles slightly longer than the Midland line; the latter is now the only route between those cities.
I left the train at Bristol and having travelled in the rear carriage to secure a window seat in an otherwise crowded train, I hurried forward, hoping to photograph No 7026, only to find that it was already disappear
