In 2010 Andrew Triggs walked much of the Bridport banch. En route he came across Powerstock station now owned and occupied by Mr & Mrs Brian Read.  Andrew was invited in to this private site and you can see the pictures he took by going to our Bridport branch section and scrolling down.  By kind permission of Mr and Mrs Read.

Press release                                                                    Friday 24 February

New £40 million rail depot planned for Exeter

Planning consent for a new rail depot at Exeter has been submitted by Network Rail on behalf of GWR [today]. This submission forms part of a wider programme of rail improvements to increase rail capacity in the South West, including new and refreshed trains and station improvements.

The train operator GWR is looking to improve the existing Exeter Olds View Depot train maintenance facility in Exeter to accommodate an increase in fleet size in the Devon and Cornwall area which will lead to more seats, and more frequent services. 

GWR Regional Development Manager West, Dan Okey explains:

“With brand new electric trains coming to suburban London services and bi-mode Intercity Express Trains on the mainline in Devon and Cornwall, this will allow us to move part of our existing regional fleet to Exeter - providing more carriages, and more frequent services to the area.”

The new depot is situated alongside existing facilities next to Exeter St.Davids station and will provide enhanced modern servicing, cleaning and maintenance facilities necessary to support these trains. The plans include office and welfare facilities for staff and the depot is designed to provide improved facilities for train maintenance.

GWR is seeking to begin the new depot, subject to planning consent being secured, in Spring 2018 and will complete in mid 2019.

New electric trains in London and Thames Valley area, and new Intercity Express Trains across the GWR mainline network will enable GWR to provide significant improvements in capacity on mainline, regional and local suburban services.

These changes are part of the wider franchise improvements that GWR is delivering and is one of the largest fleet upgrades that the Great Western network will see in a generation.

Notes to editors
Great Western Railway (GWR) provides high speed, commuter, regional and branch line train services. We help over 100 million passengers reach their destinations every year - across South Wales, the West Country, the Cotswolds, and large parts of Southern England.
We’re currently seeing the biggest investment in the network since Brunel so we can offer more trains, more seats, and shorter, more frequent journeys and continue the network’s heritage of helping connect more businesses to new and prosperous markets. Through a series of initiatives we aim to be a good neighbour to the communities we serve and are committed to making a positive social impact in those regions. Learn how we're Building a Greater West at GWR.com. GWR is a FirstGroup company.

James Davis | Media Relations Manager | Great Western Railway
External Communications | Milford House | 1 Milford Street | Swindon | SN1 1HL
E: [email protected] | T: 0845 410 4444 | M: 07703 890 711

John Cornelius writes :- Meanwhile,here's a couple of pics of Exmouth, one from 1988 when the place looked neat and tidy before the bushes grew up and one taken last year. The bushes do nothing to enhance the station,they tend to make it look rather tatty.  cheers   JOHN C. 
​Quote courtesy Wilkepedia.   The signalbox was closed on 10th March 1968 after which only one train was allowed south off Topsham and only one platform of the four-platform station was required. The station building was demolished and replaced with the present building. A single face (the old platform 2) was opened on 2nd May 1986. The eastern side of the station was used for a new road which opened on 10th December 1981; the town's bus station and a swimming and sports centre are also built on the old station site.

​Any diesel-hydraulic fanatic worthy of the title will know that this Sunday, 26th February, marks 40 years since the end of the Western Class 52s and also, of course, the Western Region’s 19-year diesel-hydraulic era. The final day saw D1013 + D1023 haul the Paddington – Swansea – Plymouth – Paddington ‘Western Tribute’ special throughout, with D1010 + D1048 shadowing the tour partway as back-up. All four survive in preservation.
 
The photos show the first two legs of the tour - it was dark by the time the train was on the third and final leg although I was in position on the surviving footbridge at the site of the former Patney & Chirton station on the Berks & Hants line to witness its passing. The day had thankfully been bright and sunny, although by 22.15 it was bitterly cold! Vision may have been impaired by then but the still clear night air meant the sound of 4 Maybachs working flat out could be heard for miles in both directions.

​Turning the clock back eight months to the day, bitter cold was certainly not an issue as the great heatwave of 1976 had just arrived and Cornwall was still all go on the Western front! I was only a visitor to Cornwall by then but I managed to pick the week the heat started. Of all my Western photos this one of D1072 blasting out of Truro westbound with the driver clearly enjoying himself is my favourite. Western Glory indeed! By the time D1072 was on its return run I had decamped to Tomperrow (we knew it as Hugus) and this photo would be my very last one of a Western in Cornwall. Well, until 9th August 2003 anyway…… This location was magic on Summer Saturday afternoons when the Warships were still in traffic, as they had to work harder than the Westerns to lift 12 coaches uphill from Penwithers Junction. Happy days!
 

​Dear Keith,
Not a great many people roam the minor roads across the Somerset Levels. For a cyclist used to exhausting climbs and exhilarating descents, these byways seem quite strange and disorientating. During the floods of 2014, many of the place names were featured on national news and passing through them in the summer brought the striking images back to mind.

Near Westonzoyland, where the Battle of Sedgemoor was fought, the last on English soil, is a fascinating little museum with a narrow gauge railway layout. It is a good place to learn how the Levels, much of which lie below sea level at high water, were, and are, drained.

http://www.wzlet.org/
(The above is well worth clicking on)
Not surprisingly, many buildings suffer subsidence.

​This apparatus at the nearby Northmoor Pumping Station springs into operation automatically. The monorail carries a grab which positions itself above the screen, picks up debris below the water and returns to drop it into the parked trailer. It may be stretching it to include this in a railway website but I feel that anyone of our persuasion couldn't help but pause to watch it at work.
Many thanks for this Colin, we'll see if Roger can organise a special trip to view!!   Unusual but it is rail.

​Hello Keith,
                 Thanks for your interest in the photos of Westbury Minehole and the ex Dainton signal box.  Having never given much thought to the layout of the Ironworks tramway system I had a look in several of my books but was unable to find anything pre 1920.  As you know, Westbury station was completely rebuilt in 1898-99 prior to the opening of the direct line to Patney and I think this provides the answer.  Try www.old maps.co.uk and you will see on the OS County Series for Wiltshire 1890 that the  Minehole in front of the station was indeed connected by a tramway that passed under the station approach road and main line just to the west of the bridge carrying Station Road. At a guess I would suggest by 1898 that particular pit was no longer being worked so the tramway was removed/infilled and other pits as shown on later maps were used instead.

A book I have on Westbury states that limestone was also dug out locally for use at the Ironworks, water was extracted from the juvenile River Biss and coke was brought up by rail from the North Somerset Coalfield around Radstock.

There is another mystery about Westbury I have pondered over for many years.  The large iron bridge at the end of the station was built in 1899 but on the town side of that is/was another bridge made of stone and similar in appearance to those between Thingley and Frome and built between 1846 and 1850.  This bridge was at completely the wrong angle for the original line out towards Trowbridge, too far over and of the wrong era to serve the Stert extension.   Post-1899 it took the road over a couple of sidings leading into a small yard that was closed c1968.  It is my belief that when the line was first built this bridge was located approximately where the iron bridge is today and then in 1898-9 it was dismantled and rebuilt in the later position.  In the late 1960s the road was widened and realigned as the bridge had a 'dog-leg' alignment and today only the station-side parapet wall is visible in the embankment, the remainder having been completely infilled/demolished.  I'll send some pics at a later date on this subject.
Cheers for now,  Guy.

PS I've been enjoying the Bridport branch feature recently.   I remember seeing the closure notice for the line being posted up on one of the large blue British Transport Advertising boards at Bradford-on-Avon station in the spring of 1975, just as I was getting into the hobby that has been both a delight and a right pain at times ever since! 
Many thanks Guy - it's amazing what interest the Bridport branch has created - it's with many thanks to our contributors that the lines history is recorded for all to see.
With regard to the tramway extension from the Iron Works and under the main line and station approach road it is suggested that you consult the 25" map of Westbury. There was one line running the length of the 'Minehole' with a short siding.

​Dear Keith. Just a quick update on this weeks test train to Cornwall with 37025.  As test trains normally run on Short Term Planning (STP), things can change at the last minute and this did happen during the night when it pretty much sticked to its schedule until Par, when it missed out Par to Parkandillack and return thus now running 105 mins early direct to Falmouth Docks(103 mins early there), arriving at Penzance (73 mins early).  Why it missed out Parkandillack is a mystery, but route knowledge of the driver and the fact that 025 is a single fuel tanked loco thus reducing somewhat its range between refuelling (twin tanked examples hold 1690 gallons where as single tanked including 025 only hold 890 gallons), might be plausible factors.

I've checked the return times I posted a couple of days ago and there doesn't seem to be any changes yet, but be warned anyone wanting to get it this evening to check the link every so often just to see if there have been any route alterations, or if its running early which is usually marked in green on the timings.

Just to clarify, as per Roger's pictures at Penzance today, the loco is now on the Paddington end of the formation.

Regard, Karl (Friends of Penmere).  Many thanks Karl,
Karl's e-mail recd at 16.39  on web at 20.20

Weston Mill Halt lay in a cutting on the old Southern alignment just before St Budeaux Victoria Road. It was opened on Wednesday September 26th 1906 in connection with a suburban service between Plymouth and Saint Budeaux for Saltash Railway Station.
The station suffered from a lack of use would have led to closure but the main factor was that it had wooden platforms which posed a fire risk to nearby houses in the event of an enemy attack during World War 2.  It closed from Sunday 4th may 1942. (This was over a year after the Plymouth blitz).
To find this site go to http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore and type in Camels Head hen  select One inch 1895 - 1903 Hills

Click here :- ​http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=15&lat=50.8779&lon=-2.7360&layers=168&b=1

​Hi Keith,

I started my footplate career as a secondman at Westbury in 1973, and at that time the Bridport branch work was shared between Westbury and Weymouth traincrew depots. I'm not sure of the exact times but I remember Westbury men worked two afternoon turns from Westbury station.   The first was a down Weymouth service ( loco plus 3 or 4 coaches) which we worked as far as Maiden Newton and then relieved by the branch crew who then carried on to Weymouth. We then worked the branch bubble car for a return trip to Bridport and then swapped over with another Westbury crew at Maiden Newton with a following down service to Weymouth where we took our break. On our return up working (loco & 3 or 4 coaches) we carried a lot of mail, some from the Channel  Islands. At Dorchester West we were timetabled something like a ten minute stop to load more mail, this was just long enough for the second man to leg it down to the chip shop to collect the fish & chips which would be shared at Maiden Newton with the second Westbury crew on the branch whilst waiting for a down Weymouth to clear the single line. The second crew then worked the remaining branch service and on returning to Maiden Newton worked the bubble car empty stock home to Westbury depot, this was often a spirited run but we were required to stop to pick up the single green painted hurricane oil lamps( the only illumination) at Thornford and Chetnole holts. These had been strategically placed earlier by the guard when working the down service and unless they had been moved they could be scooped up by the guard or secondman without stopping! They were then handed over with the staff to the signalman at Castle Cary. After putting the bubble car to bed, and if you had the right mate, you could just about catch last orders in the railway club. From memory, working the branch was a leisurely affair and stops would be made to drop locals off at foot crossings etc if requested. Bridport station was the only station I worked to that was totally lit with gas lights. I also seem to recall that once or twice the crossing gates were "modified" by the branch train.  David Shepherd, the wildlife artist, sadly wrote in his autobiography " A Brush With Steam" that he had considered buying the branch from BR but he received little support.

Driver Tim Comer
​
     A real life story a real gem - lots of interesting facts -                          many thanks to you Tim

I found an etching of this proposed station in a book on Egyptian Influenced architecture and wonder if it had connections with the early lines to the West Country...could it have been on the site of Kensington Olympia Station?...Also has it ever been suggested that the pillar tops of the Brunel bridge have an Egyptian 'flavour'?   Michael West 

​Dear Keith
This Wednesday sees the return of a test train into the South West region including trips along Falmouth, Parkandillack and Fowey branches.  It is comprised of 37025 (Large Logo Blue), three test coaches and a Mark II DBSO.  As this contains ex EMU coach 62384, assume it is the Ultrasonic Test Train.  The 37 from YouTube footage I have found so far, was on the rear of the train as it went through Longbridge Station Birmingham, heading for Cardiff Canton.  Assuming it sticks to it's plan and goes through Patchway and Filton thus direct to Bristol Temple Meads without reversing at Parkway first, the 37 should then be leading on the Cornwall end when it works down here.  Times are:
Wednesday 22/02/17:
Down run: http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/H20479/2017/02/21/advanced
Return run: http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/H20480/2017/02/22/advanced

Regards, Karl (Friends of Penmere).          Many thanks Karl

​I wonder if you could post the following query for me please?
 
“Arising from a discussion elsewhere, does anyone know please why Liskeard signal-box had two closing switches in 1994, as seen here http://shop.studio433.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=11590   ? Neither switch appears to be labelled, nor do they appear to be mechanically linked to operate together, as was sometimes the case where one switch alone had insufficient contacts.”
 
Kind regards
 
Chris

Within ten minutes I got this reply :- Dear Keith, I can't help much on this one. I was a regular visitor to Liskeard box in the 1960s and there was only one switch then. Liskeard survived until 1980 i n a kind of historical 'bubble', for there had been no 1960s rationalisation - the layout was intact, unaltered since 1949 and the box did not even have sequential locking. I visited every GW box in Cornwall that was open in the 1960s and only Liskeard lacked sequential locking. None had 2 switches either! My guess is that the 2 switch thing dates from after 1980 (when up and down sidings were lifted, colour light distants installed, illuminated diagram fitted and Coombe Junction closed, with consequent alterations). In 1980, Liskeard made up 40 years! I am aware that some other boxes (Dainton and others) also acquired 2 switches after the 1960s, but I am unaware of the technical reason for this. All the very best from Yangon/Rangoon -32 degrees today! Roy                 Still very interesting - many thanks to you Roy.

With many thanks to John Cornelius, and  Ron Kosys.