| A Railway for the Community...
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In early 1978, the West Country had several heavy snowfalls, culminating in the Great Blizzard of 19-20 February which left West Somerset under several feet of snow, much of it in spectaular snowdrifts.
Nick Jones - the Operating Superintendent of the West Somerset Railway at the time - recalls the story of how the Railway came to the rescue...
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"I rode up to Williton in the cab of the 12.30 DMU from Minehead with Trevor Barnett driving. As we pulled away from the bay platform, the first few flakes of snow started to fall. Twenty minutes later as the train climbed Washford Bank, the snow started to fall very much faster and was settling deeply over the countryside. Trevor joked that when the other two members of the "Marylebone Gang" (Peter Henshaw and "Chippy" Fisher) arrived from London, they'd find more than the "sharp frost" he had predicted to them before they had set out!
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"In fact, it went on and on snowing, and the thermometer dropped and dropped. We managed to get the service finished, and I believe I decided to accept Harry Lee's invitation to stay overnight at his camping coach at Minehead rather than drive back to my place at Watchet. The engines in the DMUs were drained of coolant, to prevent freezing-up.
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"The next morning, we awoke to an almost unbelievable scene. There was a deep covering of snow, and more was falling. Not only that, the temperature was very low, and the wind was "enough to cut you in half". It was as if the Arctic had escaped and visited itself on the West Country. Nobody had seen anything like it since the winter of 1962-63.
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"Harry and I decided that we'd have to get Vulcan (the only operational steam loco) lit-up and run up to Williton and back in order to clear the line for the passenger (DMU) trains on the next day (Monday). There were some volunteers at Minehead - Barney Forsdike had stayed-over - the "Marylebone Gang" were (we rightly believed) in their caravan at Blue Anchor (next to the "camping coach siding") and we also (rightly) thought that there were some S&DRT members camped at Washford.
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"The only trouble with getting an engine lit-up at Minehead in those days was the lack of coal. We used timber for lighting-up and lack of funds to keep a stock of coal meant that this was all we had! I left Harry with the engine in the loco siding, and went to the Taunton end of the station to dig-out the points which would free us out onto the line. This was very nearly a "Captain Oates moment". As the residents in the new houses will discover, the south-eastern end of Minehead station is a very bad spot to be in a blizzard. At times I took refuge in the (then unused) signalbox to recover some warmth in my limbs, but eventually got the pointwork free enough of snow to let them move, and then I returned to the station, joining those who were preparing the engine and digging-out the loco siding points.
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"We set off eventually in the early part of the afternoon, I think just Vulcan plus a brake van. Between Dunster and Blue Anchor, we came upon the three members of the "Marylebone Gang" who had dug themselves out of their caravan and were struggling through the snowdrifts towards Minehead. The wind coming straight off the Bristol Channel was withering.
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"Vulcan was proving to be a sturdy machine, but in places the snow was so deep that it took a few bunts at the drifts to get through. I can't remember now if we got much further than Blue Anchor on this first foray. I recall digging-out the level crossing gates and the loop points. Eventually, as darkness wasbeginning to fall, we had to return to Minehead. It was "full house" in Harry's camping coach that night.
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"The next morning, we set of again, and after further struggles we got as far as Williton, collecting a number of S&D volunteers as we passed through Washford. By the time we got to Williton, it was too late to return in the path of the normal service train to Minehead, so we hastily took the decision to plough onwards towards Bishops Lydeard, in the hope that we could open some form of physical communication between Taunton and Minehead - we had heard on the radio that the snowploughs had failed to get the road open and had themselves become stuck. West Somerset had become cut off.
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"The journey from Williton to Bishops Lydeard was something of an epic. Some of the drifts in the cuttings were very deep; in fact we lost the headlamp from beneath "Vulcan's" chimney somewhere. We had to dig out the crossing gates at Leigh Woods and Roebuck Gate (they were still just about hanging on at this time). There were quite a few staff on the train by this time, which is just as well given the amount of digging we had to do. There was no snowplough on Vulcan, it was a case of bunting into the drifts where it was felt that it was safe to do so, and in other places shovels were the only tool that could be used. You can say what you like about the Bagnalls, but we were all very glad of "Vulcan's" power at the time.
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"Meanwhile, the Railways Inspectorate had been contacted by phone and they agreed that in the wholly exceptional circumstances it would be in order to operate a passenger service over the then normally closed section of line between Bishops Lydeard and Williton. Local radio stations had been contacted about this, and they were broadcasting the news. Someone even persuaded someone else to part up with some money so that we could get some coal, which we loaded at Bishops Lydeard.
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"By the time we got through to Bishops Lydeard, a number of people were waiting to be taken to Minehead. We had ambulance passengers, discharged from hospital in Taunton and in need of transport to Minehead. We had mail to take to Minehead. We had medicines to take to a patient at Blue Anchor. We also had a small sprinkling of people who needed to get to Minehead or Watchet. We had to invent fares for these people.
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"We improvised a service and I think we ran it until the end of the week - proving what an invaluable transport link the Minehead line was, and could become again for the people of West Somerset, given the right circumstances and the necessary goodwill. Certainly the determination of those then associated with the railway to be of service to West Somerset came to the fore."
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With many thanks to Nick Jones..
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