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13th November 2008
School Visit Launches Railway Heritage Link (Photos David Wright, Somerset & Dorset Railway Trust) A visit by pupils from a Danesfield Middle School in Williton, Somerset, has launched a link between two railway heritage projects. The Somerset & Dorset Railway Trust is working to forge links with the West Somerset Mineral Railway Project. The Trust's Museum and shop at Washford Station in Somerset is situated close to the alignment of the former Mineral Railway and visitors to the area often use Washford as a starting point to explore the line. The Trust has joined with the West Somerset Mineral Railway Project, which is led by the Exmoor National Park Authority, with the aim of helping school children better understand the origins and working of the line which finally closed for good in 1911. The West Somerset Mineral Railway Project received a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2007 to conserve key industrial sites on the Mineral Line , improve physical access and enhance people's understanding of this legacy of Victorian industry both within the National Park and along the Somerset coast. As part of the joint relationship, the Trust hosted a visit to Washford Station by pupils from Danesfield Middle School, Williton, who are studying the Mineral Railway as part of their Key Stage 2 history project. Trust members David and Joan Wright, Roger Newport, George Moon and Robin Pearson were on hand to show the youngsters around. Mining of iron ore started on the Brendon Hills in the middle of the nineteenth century and work started on the construction of the Mineral Railway in 1856. The railway was a means of transporting the ore to Watchet for shipment across the Bristol Channel to the furnaces of Ebbw Vale in South Wales. The standard gauge line was completed in 1861 and included a 1 in 4 incline from a summit on the Brendon Hills down to Comberrow, from where the line ran to Watchet via Washford and Rowberrow. Steam locomotives hauled filled wagons from the mines to the summit of the incline from where they were worked by cable from a winding house down to Comberrow. Trains were then locomotive hauled to Watchet, with empty wagons being returned from Watchet to Comberrow hauled by cable back up the incline Passengers were also carried on the line, but these were mostly miners and their families and it is recorded that they travelled free up and down the incline but "at their own risk" Better quality ore became available from other sources and this meant that iron ore traffic had ceased by 1880, although a few passengers and other goods were still carried until the line closed in1892, by which time the miners and their families had moved away to find work elsewhere. After lying derelict for several years the line was re-opened in 1907 but finally closed in 1910 due to lack of finance. The rails were removed for scrap during the First World War. Every year over 2,000 people visit the Somerset& Dorset Railway Trust's Museum and shop at Washford where an outstanding collection of artefacts are on view. The Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway ran from Bath to Bournemouth with a branch from Evercreech Junction to Highbridge and Burnham on Sea. The line closed in 1966. Depicting a by-gone age of steam railway travel from the Victorian era, through its Edwardian heyday to its eventual demise in the sixties, the Museum provides a perfect link to those wishing to study and enjoy the history of the two railways, both of which were an important part of Somerset's industrial heritage. Photographs and publications about the Mineral Railway are also available at the shop. The Trust's Museum and shop are open from 10am to 5pm during June, July, August and September and during special events on the West Somerset Railway. The Trust owns two steam locomotives , Kilmersdon an 0-4-0 saddle tank based at Washford, which worked at Kilmersdon Colliery in the Somerset Coalfield, and No. 88 a former Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway freight locomotive which now frequently hauls passenger trains on the West Somerset Railway between Bishops Lydeard and Minehead. The former West Somerset Mineral Railway track bed is now laid out as a walkway between Watchet and Washford - a perfect starting point for those wishing to explore the line.
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