West Somerset: here comes the big one!
NEWS FOCUS SPECIAL
It was while working a firing turn on Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway 7F 2-8-0 No 53808 (in S&D black as No 88 at the time) on the West Somerset Railway back in 1995, when the subject of the 30th anniversary of the closure of the S&D came up with my driver for the day, Bill Montieth. We chatted about the unique character of the S&D line and how much the WSR had been able to preserve of that character.
The WSR had recently been able to increase its axle loading from 17 1/2 tons to 25 tons in order to be able to run bigger locomotives to cope with its increasingly heavy trains; indeed No 71000 Duke of Gloucester had recently been at work on the line.
It was this fact that encouraged us to talk about the possibility of having some more ex-S&D locomotive types together for a gala weekend to mark that closure anniversary. Bill had always liked the Bullied Pacifics, being a predominantly Southern man. Some of the larger BR Standards would also be able to work on the line now.
We talked the idea through some more while we worked our train to Minehead and back that day and agreed to take the idea to the WSR’s then managing director, Mark Smith.
This we duly did and Mark was in support of the idea as it would confirm the axle load increase that he had worked hard to achieve. He took the plan to the WSR plc board and convinced them that we could turn a profit from such an event and that it would elevate the WSR up the heritage railway league tables.
We had to decide when to hold the event, the actual anniversary would fall on 5-6 March – when it could still be cold, and trains would all need steam heating of course.
Would we be able to attract sufficient passengers at that time of year? Could we get the permanent way department to complete all their winter maintenance tasks in time to have the line open again that early?
It was decided that this was achievable, so the date was fixed for the first weekend in March 1996. With Mark’s help we managed to get all the WSR departments on board with the idea and work commenced planning the event.
My first task was to source suitable guest engines to give the event an S&D feel. The WSR only had the resident 7F in its fleet as suitable at that time, although GW Collett 0-6-0 No 3205 was based on the line at the time it was out of service under repair.
I contacted a number of locomotive owners and host railways to see what might be available and at what cost. I also needed to establish the cost of low loader movements for these
