Add
Private Notes
When Dr Beeching took his axe to the rural railway network few cuts were as savage, or as deeply resented, as that of the entire Somerset and Dorset system. Its staff took great pride in working this steeply graded line over the Mendip Hills, and a strong sense of family loyalty existed. Before it was all swept away in 1966 Bath enthusiast Ivo Peters recorded the railway on film.
n the days before motorway madness, there used to be a saner way to travel - by steam train. The Somerset and Dorset railway linked Bournemouth with Bath and the north of England. Now it's all gone. Twenty years after it closed Mike Arlett brought together driver Donald Beale and his fireman Peter Smith , to re-live their own golden age of steam.
In 1963, John Betjeman took the train from Evercreech Junction to Burnham-on-Sea. Railway enthusiast Mike Arlett and former driver Rodney Scovell retrace Betjeman's journey.
