We moved to Shepton Mallet just over a year ago, and we have been fascinated with the history of our town that we moved too. The fact that shepton once had two railways with its own stations is incredible. I have been really blessed to find this amazing footage of this historic journey as well and I will watch this many times again. Thank you for sharing it with us..........
Some of the best footage I've seen of Bath Green Park... I really wish I could have seen it as an operational station and not a supermarket as it's been for my whole lifetime.
Such a waste of a truly scenic line a comple lack of foresight and no ambition by Barbra Castle and others at that time it might be gone but will never be forgotten so sad
At Radstock you can see them connect the GWR (South) to the S&D (North) with a new section of track so the scrap trains can come in from Westbury via Frome to take up the track, hence them running wrong line through there. Great quality film for it's age.
Radstock created road chaos when I first knew the area. Summer road traffic on the Bath road would wait for the trains on the GW line and then be held up by the succession of holiday specials on the S&D...sometimes both sets of crossing gates at once.
@@johnjephcote7636 Yes the road level crossings were well known for the traffic jams when trains were running on both lines. the S&D had a dive under road for road traffic. in the film I was talking about the physical rail connection being slotted in for post railway operations.
Not only a fantastic time capsule of an iconic line but, despite the depredations of the Western Region, still even at this late stage in its life a terrific testament to the pride that all who worked on it clearly felt for the old girl. Forget the trains; look at the condition of the stations, boxes and, most of all, the permanent way and lineside. In 1966 there must have been very few routes which were so demonstrably well maintained as this. Many years ago I saw pictures in BRILL of "showcase" P-way from the 30s on the old NE which were no better looking than much of what is seen here. Pride in a job still done properly, every day, regardless of what was happening or what threatened on the horizon. I visited Green Park in 1998 while on holiday in England and could still feel the ghosts and hear their voices...
All those places i remember. I used the line in its heyday and right at the end and in the early to mid 1970s, l studied, lived and worked in the area. Very good filming!
A great piece of history and at the same time, very sad. Such a destruction of magnificent engineering, the lines, the trains, the stations and the signal boxes and other lineside buildings.
Proud railway company's invested and built these lines with beautiful architecture, and wonderful structures that were built to last. Then our governments came along and destroyed them with insane haste, and let the property developers build upon them as quick as they could so they could never be brought back.
@@levelcrossing150 the railways were losing over 100,000 pounds a day? if people like you are interested to save things then when something is losing huge amounts ,then please you and your mates club together and volunter to pay an extra 10% wages at least, you , not me or the rest
@@bobtudbury8505 When they cancelled all these lines nobody thought of the impact it would make to people that still used them. It should not all be about profit but they should be maintained as a service and life line to all people, not forgetting the jobs created resulting in prosperity in their areas. Stories of all kinds of tricks were played to show certain railway lines were doing badly, trains were diverted away from lines, connections were timed badly and surveys were done during school holidays. Think about HS2, is that worth the cost? It was supposed to extend to the North but that has been cancelled now, so what use is it? At the very least these closed lines should have been mothballed. The proof is that railways have been reopened in recent years and there is a demand for others to be reopened too, showing that they should never have been closed in the first place, it's costing far more to replace them now. At least we would see something for the excessive taxes we now pay these days, I see an excessive waste of public money otherwise. I've already paid more than my 10% in taxes throughout my life and have seen very little for it.
Good quality film stock nice clear picture, sign says Passenger must not cross the line here, cuts to half the train all wondering around Templecombe on the main line with the down starter signal pulled off, crazy scenes. I know it was a different time, but that and the mum with baby stood on the tracks at Bath makes my blood boil at how stupid people can be.
