BBC Documentary - The Somerset and Dorset railway

and on bbc one we journey back in time to the days of the summerset and dorset railway with enthusiast mike arlett for me this is not only a journey into the past but also the opportunity to pay tribute to a friend ivo peters whose name is synonymous with the old somerset and dorset joint railway much of ivo's filming and photography was undertaken on the northern section of the line between bath and midsummer norton and on over the rugged mendip hills to shepton mallet and to evercreech junction the midland a reminder that in addition to brunel's great western the city of bath was once served by the midland railway here at green park station perhaps better remembered as the northern terminal of the somerset and dorset line and full of memories from me i used to stand here willing engineman to invite me onto the footplate little did i then imagine that the passage of 30 years would in turn witness closure dereliction and now the superb restoration of the station albeit to serve primarily as a car park to an adjacent superstore today if we wish to travel over the mendips to evercreate junction it must be by car and here where steam once ruled the surroundings now echo to the sounds of other motive power to most people the somerset dorset was a holiday line the majority of heavily loaded through trains running only on summer saturdays required the combined power of two locomotives such were the gradients over the mendeth hills but the pride of the line the pines express ran daily throughout the year sunday's accepted between manchester and bournemouth it was at the midland station that ivo took his first railway photograph in 1925 today close to the spot where trains departed is an aptly named road for nearly 60 years until his recent illness ivo has recorded the changing railway scene throughout the british isles but it is no secret that his favorite line was the somerset endorser with its close-knit family of dedicated rally men for whose skills ivo had the highest regard many were to become his friends and still visit or correspond with him at his home in bath amongst them fireman peter smith because i i was photographing on the smd before peter appeared on the scene and my first photographs of donald were with your predecessor peter um frank stickley yes that's right who was donald's fireman and then you appeared yes it must be through donald i met peter yes i think i first met you at um bath green park because you were then in the um in the habit of issuing photographs that you've taken perhaps a week previous to drivers and firing and used to have extra prints done for us and i believe we um ran him one day on the pines and you were on the end of the platform and said oh here you are some photographs for you something i took last saturday and uh that was our first meeting that's this would have been in about 1954. peter's owed driver donald beal is also commemorated here in bath where in 1919 he first joined the somerset and dorset railway when filmed by ivo in 1962 donald's locomotive handling over the s d was already becoming legendary well he was a charming man um and yet nearly all the drivers on the s and d were charming people it was very very rare to find someone who who wasn't pleasant yes donald of course was absolute charmer 22 years later donald now a youthful 83 is back amongst old friends his fireman peter smith and colleagues david massey and ray stokes both ex-smd engine men when they extended the service well evening started running with three coaches on john thorne took ten up last saturday with a nine and uh frightened him how easy she took the bank he couldn't understand it back see yeah when we dropped a couple off somewhere oh no there are no engine products indeed they worked yes they came too late tonight that's a trouble before that's right and they would have saved some certain doors at cranmore donald and peter are reunited with another old friend loco number 92203 on which donald first taught peter to drive the engine is now restored to working order here on david shepard's east somerset railway come and show us how it should be done that's your seat oh forgot what a long way up it was peter welcome aboard thanks very much hello donald all right yes thanks mike how are you not too bad what's it like to be back in the old driving seat again fine all right fine quite a long time fish so good so setting off from bath um first of all you came to bath junction then you had to climb out of bath which was one in 50 climbing up to devonshire tunnel anyway you came out of denver tunnel into lincoln vale that was a very beautiful spot and still climate 1 and 15 and came up into a little wooded section at the end in the early spring peter and i decided to revisit some of ivo's favorite line side locations between bath and evercreech junction we headed first to the summit of the two mile climb out of bath at the southern end of lincoln vale and isolated and in summer a picturesque location that's right and also i'm used to seeing across here in the field of course um we used to take broadside shots of us and the pines express yes well that was possible in those days but it wouldn't be no i mean it's that was all grass there was a lot of all overgrown named trees and so on it's incredible really to come back and see it yeah hold up there's the old brick base to the linesman's hut that was situated there yeah of course when the line was uh first opened in 1874 right it was a single track all the way down to evercrease wasn't that well yes but of course later on most of the line was struggled my favorite spot of mine there was just about the entrance to coom down tunnel and in the spring when the spring greens about on the trees it was quite delightful amazing when you think peter the entire 26 miles from bath junction down to evercreech were built in just two years yeah it was amazing incredible feat of engineering really wasn't it well peter here we are come down tunnel i don't suppose you used to want to hang around in here too long well not really mike i mean this channel was just over a mile long and the extremely um restrictive ball if you had a large engine there's only about 12 inches from the top of the chimney to the roof i suppose that explains this the old build-up of the uh well i think i probably contributed to some of that you reckon you put half an inch of that on there yeah i probably do like that but of course these uh this tunnel and the similar devonshire tunnel they they were really bad for around foot plate man because they were on sleek gradients and of course the engine would be um laboring for a tunnel like this i mean this particular tunnel if you're on the northbound freights you will be traveling pretty slowly through here and the engine will be working extremely hard and of course all the exhaust fumes would be going down off the chimney and choking the footplate crew and it certainly wasn't pleasant at all so you swept down through comb down tunnel and you popped out the other end into horse conveyor which was oh superb scenery absolutely magnificent the gradient increased to 155 down and you swept down over tucking mill viaduct and then on down past the grounds of midfoot castle and then you came to a little midfoot station all single line well to me peter of course this was the most picturesque section of the entire line down through midford station along the midfield valley but of course mike you're buyers aren't you i mean uh length of midford station which we're approaching now and there's the old great western line from limpest out to camerton over on the bridge there oh yeah thunderbolt in 1952. i remember yeah no i think actually um the first photograph of either that i saw was taken at midfield i thought what a marvelous place how beautiful and still isn't it yeah yeah even the sun comes out at medford you see but of course let's walk on down and try and find the station right oh just along here peter is where one of the signal wires used to uh run underneath the platform yeah there there's the pulley wheel just there you see oh yes there it is we used to work all the expresses to baths and so we used to fly through here at some speed and we didn't see the incidental details if you like i know you used to come through a bit too fast sometimes you used to rattle the windows in the box peter was that right the midfoot box it was quite magnificent it was always absolutely spotless there'd never be a trace of dirt anywhere and the brass was cleaned every day and the floor was polished at least twice a week and this was done mainly by two cinnamon the late percy savage and the late harry wiltshire said they both died now but percy and harry two absolutely charming people gentlemen in the true sense of the term and what absolutely staggered me was that the very last day the summer certain dorset was open all the brass was cleaned and the floor was polished just as just as usual now it's so sad peter to see all this desolation of something that you would have thought would have gone on forever indeed let's have a look at this picture i've brought along of ivo's now we're stood in exactly the same spot that he took this picture oh yeah 50s well the old viaduct's still there peter and uh the pub let's go down and have a pint nevermind the pipe mike i thought you were going to tell me about your recording date in the signal box of midfield well i promise sandra we wouldn't mention that sadly not a foot of track remains between bath and evercreech but the somerset and dorset railway trust found a home and established a museum here at washburn on the west somerset railway one exhibit in particular recaptures from me the atmosphere of the old line it's the creation of peter catamol midford box this brings back special memories for me peter how on earth did you manage to recreate this so accurately well it's thanks to ivo and his marvelous photographs because from those we've collected together all this stuff here and recreated the interior of the old midford box right down to the lever plates and the lever descriptions are any of these from midford boxes just one item from the old medford box and all the rest has come from southampton and from british rail elsewhere and what's the one item one items number 14 plate oh the old up in a home that's right yeah and all the brass work we polish up and it all most of it works now and whether you would like to try your hand at reliving 25 years ago in our box here well we'll have a go let's see if we can uh let's see if we can put a down train too well over there there's the duster you're taking it train on for willow then mike right let's have a go long time since i've done this a little bit easier to pull than they used to be i thought they might be don't forget your number four no and this is a big pool coming up for the distance oh there she goes that's it what do we got in here mike well it's still a little bit missing i see yes but uh it's not that far away another of the trust's more ambitious projects led by mike palmer is the restoration to full working order of s d class 7 f number 53808 when ivo filmed the same engine at bath in the early 60s she was nearing the end of 39 years service on the s d during which period ivo must have photographed her on countless occasions a number of real women have a great collection of photographs thanks to ivo and it's certainly a collection in my case it's something which is always treasure and also we were always pleased we had the opportunity to give him a footplate ride which donald bill and i did on a number of occasions it made me feel very humble at times a way these expert real women would welcome me sort of up with open arms i was a pure amateur and yet wherever i went on a saturday um i'd be say welcomed with open arms and had delightful treatment by all and sundry this is the camera i used which was um bellen howell and i did all my filming in 16 millimeter and all in color most of my shots were done on the tripod very early on i'd been given a lecture by a professional saying either you must remember that what you are filming is doing the moving you are not and i was also given very wise instruction early on about practicing panning a penny is where you swing the camera on its tripod keeping as closed as you can focused on the engine it's a one sweet swing through the slightest hesitation or the slightest jerk in panning and when you see it on the screen you'll be horrified thank god what have i done the once picturesque midsummer norton was a frequent winner of the best kept station competition an award it well deserved as each summer the station was bedecked with superb floral displays following years of dereliction the buildings and the gardens are now to be restored by the avon training agency after climbing a further two miles the line passed through a short tunnel close to the village of chilcompton this was another of ivo's favorite locations and of course on heavy drains you'll be really pounding away here this is with a steady 153 gradient heading towards marsbury at this point and uh on heavy train you'd be really into them yeah it'd be a lovely sound coming out of the exhaust i suppose a steam engine is the nearest from mechanical thing to a living creature it behaved almost like a living creature it responded to human treatment if it was well fired and well driven it would repay that handsomely an equally well it was a very faithful machine and of course if the overall effect of a steam locomotive climbing hard uphill we had this sort of the exhaust being poured out the chimney and uh the sound was tremendous just two miles short of the summit of the railway at massbury the line passed through vinegar here peter and i met up with another old friend norman down who was station master here and today still lives in the old station house it's very sad to see it like this i must say i just can hardly recognize the place well it used to be used to be such a busy place didn't it and now you're living here norman more or less in isolation yes we don't get the uh pines through in the morning like we used to with don giving the familiar wave as he went by not much of it left now very little now mike uh signal box used to be here yeah waiting room the station buildings are of course for on this side with the waiting rooms and porter's room and how did it feel when you saw it all being raised to the ground because you've been here what 20 odd years yes yes we felt then that uh it was a sad day to see it bulldozed in the way they did the station itself would have made my opinion an ideal bungalow for someone yeah of course once a year norman you used to get a special delivery by train courtesy of ivo i believe oh yes ivo he was very kind in always sending his album photographs to all stations uh used to arrive by train so all the staff could go through it and in due course we'd notify the next station that would be on the way to them and that way it would go all the way down the line through the line yeah this is a very nice guest here on ivo's park of course norman um you were active weren't you in trying to prevent the closure of the of the line well they were better times peter we we didn't like it we didn't like their methods and the traffic being uh deliberately uh taken away from us to make it look make the picture look really bad yeah a census of passengers taking when school children were on holiday to make the numbers lower that sort of thing it was a bad way of doing it in happier days ivo in his faithful bentley would often chase a train managing to photograph it at several locations on the long climb to massbury summit one had great fun chasing trains and seeing how many times you could photograph the train between should we say points a and b and uh more often than not the crews on the locomotives were fully aware of what you were doing and they would more or less say uh right we will troll we'll see we get to march with some before ivo does well we've come eight miles uphill from rad stop pete and uh this is again one of ivo's favorite locations but not on a day like this i would imagine i wouldn't think so i mean the weather today is absolutely abysmal isn't it well we're over the top now uh downhill all the way now is it to ever creature apart from one little short stretch yeah it's just just a short stretch through chapter mountain but virtually all downhill here at last on the downhill section south of massbury the train crew could afford to relax and on sunny summer days enjoy the delights of the rolling mended countryside evercreach junction where once passengers could change trains for stations to burn them on sea bridge water or even wells the engines which fought the heavy freight traffic over the mendip were turned here at evergreen prior to setting off back here too peter and i decided to turn back but not before saying farewell to ray stokes this is the end of the line for us then peter that's right mike but of course this is only the first 26 miles of the line and uh if we were on the pint express now there's another 46 miles to go yet to bournemouth and then of course you had the branch up to high bridge and burnham that's right that branch off to the left it's about a half a mile from here and that's where you that's where we came came in from temple combat that's right i suppose you still think about the old line right here oh very often yes um can't forget it eden um but when you come to look at it places like this this is the first time i've been in here now since we retired since we closed and you just can't you can't imagine what it was like now uh you forget all about it i mean it altered it all um it's impossible now to think um what the line used to be like the only thing is you've got your memories and you can remember as it was on our way back to bath i took peter to one final location the viaduct at presley just south of shepton mallard well peter i've brought you up here at presley just to have a look at this i i would really is the end of the line it is isn't it yeah incredible that's just how it must have looked when before they built the railway 1872 they must have started building this amazing is now very very sad i started filming the eston in 1958 and i didn't appreciate um what i was doing i did it because i loved the s d and i thought what fun to be filming it but at no time whilst i was filming the s d did i think well this is going to be unique in some years to come that never crossed my mind helps me go to sleep sometimes uh instead of counting sheep i uh picture myself now working a train from eric creek's junction up over the mandips i try to visualize everything every little detail you know perhaps as you've got by the good shard you used to see the shoulders come out and they'd have waved to us and that and and i try to visualize all that in every signal and by doing that i don't think i've got power chapter mallet yet you

Channel: VintageLynx

Views: 181,871

Keywords: Somerset And Dorset Joint Railway (Business Operation)

Id: SZ7RtDHoi9w

Length: 29min 23sec (1763 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 04 2015