Great news that the Railway will be used by up to 17 trains bringing a total of around 7000 tonnes of stone boulders from the Mendips to Minehead. The stone is for sea defence work at the Dunster end of the Golf Course.
Trains will run early morning, as required, to Minehead, where the loco will run round its train and haul it back to Drift Crossing where the stone will be unloaded and later taken across the fields to the worksite on the coast. The empties will then head back to Westbury leaving the WSR at lunchtime.
What a marvellous example of a railway doing what a railway should do. And well done the WSR for negotiating the deal.
So that's the fourth contract for stone traffic now. Plus the ongoing spent ballast trains calling at the Norton Triangle worksite.
It makes you wonder what other freight could be carried on the Railway. Do Tesco or Morrisons get their stores deliveries by train elsewhere; or what about the timber from the nearby forestry works?
Showing posts with label norton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label norton. Show all posts
Monday, 1 November 2010
Sunday, 23 December 2007
Next stop Barnstaple...
As the picture shows, the tracklaying along the West Chord of the new Triangle at the WSRA's Norton Fitzwarren site has now reached the former Barnstaple Branch formation. The alignment of the "Barney" is being re-used to form the South Chord of the Triangle, and also for two storage sidings. The works at Norton are proving to be an engineering showcase. Not only are the new embankments, culverts and waterways all behaving impeccably and dealing well anything the sky can chuck at them, but the site itself remains green, with grass fields making the whole scene pleasant to view and likely to be let out for grazing stock before too long. It could look like a bomb site but the WSRA are tidy people, for sure. The reaching of, and relaying of track on, the Barney line could be seen as an embryonic step towards a truly westwards extension of the West Somerset Railway - but the dismantled bridge at Allerford Lane conveniently severs the route at that point which seems terminal to me. Thanks for my good chum Malcolm Anderson for the picture.
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