To complete my route knowledge from Bruton to Westbury, yesterday I rode out from Castle Cary. Thundery showers were forecast but the rain held off and the sun shone for a bit.

Brewham Road was closed to traffic and this was blissful for a lone cyclist. When I reached the blockade it was contractors working on a railway bridge and they let me through.

Sheephouse Crossing is marked by a piece of bridge rail which would once have carried a trespass notice. The fence straining posts are still in the brambles.

​It seems that the railway was able to extinguish the right of way here by providing a route under the bridge carrying the line over the River Brue. Sheephouse was also on a public footpath and this has been diverted.

​
Just along from the former crossing, Bruton Station can be seen, as well as the severe curve on what was never originally intended to be a main line to the west.

​Out of sight to the left, visible from the train, is the Bruton defensive dam. I thought at first that this may have been part of the upstream works talked about after the 2014 floods, but I find that it was built in 1984 to relieve Bruton of the awful flooding it used to suffer.

The railway crosses the Brue twice more between Bruton and Cary; the S. & D. crossed it on Cole Viaduct. The river passes under Highbridge Station and issues at Burnham-on-Sea.

​After lunch in the market square at Frome, I set off down Clink Road. Coalway Lane Bridge, now overgrown and carrying only a footpath looked interesting and as I approached it I could hear the characteristic whistling of a Class 66. This was waiting for the road through the single line junction at the head of a train of empties. Soon a loaded train emerged from the junction and accelerated rapidly away towards Westbury.

​With plenty of time before the 18.04 from Westbury, I rode on via Dilton Marsh and Fairwood, one moment enjoying the solitude of a bridle path skirting the depot, the next caught up in the murderous "going home" traffic in a quite miserable town.

Westbury isn't such a nice place as Castle Cary to while away an hour with a can of beer and a newspaper. The asinine announcements one after the other nearly had me crying out "SHUT UP!" You've heard the latest: "See it, say it, sort it."​

While looking at six empty spaces in the van, the guard informed me that he had been instructed to refuse cycles that had not been booked; this is of course to prepare us for the new trains which have fewer spaces in more than one place.

After this policy was brought in last summer, I dutifully booked on every train, on one occasion picking up nine tickets for three trains. Some clerks seemed to take ages making the reservations; some didn't seem able. I tried not to get in the way of revenue custom so often I had to stand back from the queue. Yet not once did it make any difference; every guard I asked said he would not enforce the rule. Yesterday I judged from experience whether booking would be necessary; I have sometimes booked the return on the day. Mine was the only cycle from St. David's and Westbury. I have noticed that the policy has suppressed demand, which is what the operator clearly wanted.

The HSTs were the last trains to be built with van space: the power cars, if you remember, originally had a cage for mails and parcels. Apart from a brief experiment providing two cycle spaces when the TGS was not platformed, this two-ton carrying capacity at each end of the train has run around empty for over three decades, over which time white vans have proliferated and the traffic that might have been carried has burgeoned.

This summer looks like being the last in which I will enjoy what's left of the old railway, flinging my bike in the van and leaning out of the window to enjoy the best air conditioning there is - now there's a thought!!

Drivers know the road, but how many have stood on every bridge and followed the roads and paths closest to the railway all the way between Westbury and Penzance?

With best wishes, Colin

We are most grateful to you Colin for your report - no wonder you are so fit!
​

I have it on good authority that the Network Rail NMT HST diagram to Penzance this Friday, 30th June, is to be operated instead by Colas Rail class 67's 023 and 027 T&T.  Assume the HST is in for scheduled maintenance, times are:

Reading Triangle Sidings To Paignton Via Penzance:

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/H20042/2017/06/30/advanced

Kind Regards,  Karl (Friends Of Penmere Station).        Thanks Karl

Railtour from Saltburn
​Simon Whitlock 

Any place prohibited to the general public is always more interesting than open spaces and the former MOD Wharf at the extreme end of the Turnchapel branch is such a place. A railtour 'The Devon Rambler' visited it on the 11th April 1959 and was in fact the only passenger train ever to have visited the wharf passing through the tunnel under Boringdon Road to get there.  You'll find excellent pictures of this railtour in 'The Turnchapel Branch' by Anthony R Kingdom pages 60 & 61. 
On the 31st March 1973 the late Ivor Hocking took a small party in his car on a tour of Plymouth Railways.  When we arrived in the area we quickly found the wharf and a look over the wall alongside Boringdon Road gave us a view of the Wharf, however, in those days of very high security we daren't take a picture of the wharf.
However, KJ took his life in his hands and scaled the wall and walking along the top of which alongside a lane got a very quick shot of the tunnel entrance.  Later, in 1975, Roger Winnen got another shot of the area but not from the top of the wall..

For one that was looking forward to 'The Mazey Day Cornishman' railtour and being caught up in 'will it won't it' turn up at Lostwithiel with numerous things going wrong such as 069 refusing to do anything, 059 on low Amps, a brake fault with one of the coaches, go to or not going to Paignton and now talk of it not getting back to Worcester because of an engineering blockade, has the curse of 37069 happened again??!!

Now for over a hundred years there has been strong beliefs by footplate crew of locomotives that are cursed or jinxed, this could be anything from locos dropping on top of workmen whilst being constructed to crashes and tragic circumstances.  Some enginemen would say poppycock laddie, whilst others would swear on their life these tails are true.  Examples of locos that fall into this category are 47216/299 which BR had Immingham staff practically sworn to secrecy because a medium had predicted this loco would be involved in a horrific pile up, it later did at Wrawby Junction despite its renumbering to 299 in hope to prevent this.  The loco was practically rebuilt and even then it had several misdemeanours afterwards.  There have been stories of some crew when booking on and checking the roster to see 299 allocated to them, they would refuse to take it out. Great Train Robbery loco D326 (40136), has been in several scrapes including another serious one not connected with the robbery, I believe no less than five accidents in total.  back to steam days when a Jubilee being constructed fell on top of a erecting shop member and killed him, this loco would never run smoothly even when it was stripped to it's last nut and bolt and reassembled with new parts its problems stayed with it to the scrap man.

Now we come to another another jinxed loco, 37069. This loco was running along the EMCL in pre TOPS days (D6769), when the driver swapped places with the secondman so he could get some road knowledge in.  This took place between Northallerton and York and soon after this swap occurred a Deltic headed train in the opposite direction kicked up debre from the trackside and this flew the front cab window hitting him on the head which he died instantly.  Since then 37069 has be dubbed jinxed because of unexplainable things have happened more than once such as the horn being unexpectedly blown, fire bottles discharging themselves, an airy feeling of not being alone in the cab and some drivers have even reported seeing a ghostly aberration at the controls of the loco.  Which loco packed up at Worcester and refused to play ball; 37069.  All the other problems since, has the curse of 37069 returned to haunt The Mazey Day Cornishman?

Regards, Karl (Friends Of Penmere Station).
​         Many thanks for a most interesting article Karl.

Dear Keith. Times are in the system for the test run tomorrow of a new Class 800 GWR IEP set to Cornwall on a test run:

North Pole LEP Depot To Penzance

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/K07052/2017/06/22/advanced

Penzance To North Pole LEP Depot

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/K07053/2017/06/22/advanced

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