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In order to help
you navigate our site more easily, we've added
these 'quick links' to the latest features:
Recent
Site Updates. This website was hardly updated at all between
May and July 2010 due to severe short-staffing at the school where
the Webmaster works, which necessitated long working hours. However,
the welcome arrival of the summer holiday has provided an opportunity
to catch up with the outstanding work. Four new batches of photographs
(groups 45 to 48) have just been added to the Photo
Gallery, with more to follow in the autumn. The News
2010 and AGM pages have been brought
up to date, as has the online
gazetteer which once again reflects the current situation around
the country. The Contact Us
and FAQs pages have been separated,
and an online form added to the former.
Inactive
Areas. For some time now, the committee has been worried
by a gradual falling off in area activity. Click the link here
for the full text of an article, published in magazine number 125,
which sets out ideas as to how members can get things going again.
The key issue will always be having a group of enthusiasts –
an area team – to kick start proceedings and share the workload.
If you are interested in helping to start a group in one of our
inactive areas, plaese get in touch with the club's secretary (his
contact details appear inside the front cover of the magazine).
The committee will offer every possible assistance, including an
annual budget.
Railway
Walks
– the Books.
The History
Press has now re-published all of Jeff Vinter's Railway Walks
books, namely Railway
Walks: Wales, Railway
Walks: GWR & SR,
Railway Walks: LNER and Railway
Walks: LMS. The first of these (Wales) sold out
very quickly, but a further batch was printed early this year to
cope with demand. The publication of this book coincided exactly
with the ending of the 'Railway Walks' TV series on BBC2, which
was superb good timing. The first reviewer on Amazon gave this book
5 out of 5 stars and described it as 'sad but good ... a facinating
book, so good for people who like to see something of our past and
get some exercise' – sentiments which can be applied to the
whole series. For further details, see our Publications
page.
The
Strawberry Line Project. In Somerset, the Strawberry
Line project plans to re-use a variety of old railways across
the county to create an integrated network of off-road walking and
cycling routes. The 'spine' route on the network will be a railway
path from Cranmore to Clevedon via Wells and Cheddar, with spurs
to the north and south, often using other old railways such as the
Blagdon branch. The project is supported by Sustrans Ltd, Somerset
County Council and all the local district councils, which is a good
start, but your
backing is needed so have a look at this
page for an overview of the project, and click the 'Vote now'
link to support it.
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Comes the Concrete ...
Why
is This Report Still Here? Because we believe that guided
busways (1) have the potential to wreck well-used and popular rail
trails throughout the country – see below for two examples,
and (2) represent appalling value for money. The guided busway that
has been built between Cambridge and St. Ives (fortunately not previously
a rail trail) should have opened in February 2009, but may not now
be ready for its deferred opening in December this year. This is
how the 'Hunts Post' reported the situation in June:
'The
total cost of the project – originally estimated at £116.3
million, including land and supervision expenses – is now
forecast to top £161 million, though the council [Cambridgeshire
CC] believes it will end up having paid £118 million for
the busway, which was due for handing over in full – including
the southern section between Cambridge and Trumpington –
in February last year. There
is even some doubt about whether BAM [the contractor] will meet
its own revised deadline for finishing the southern section by
December.'
Click here
for the source of this material.
Bath-Bristol
Railway Path Still Under a Cloud. Bristol City Council
has not abandoned but merely postponed plans to
turn the Bristol end of this immensely popular rail trail, built
by Sustrans in the late 1970s, into a guided busway. Click here
for further details. On 19th June 2009, the BBC reported that Bristol
had become one of Britain's 'Cycling Capitals', although the corporation
failed to mention how much the city owed to Sustrans for this accolade.
What, then, is Bristol doing in promoting a scheme that will spoil
one of the city's (and the country's) flagship cycle routes?
Guided
Busway Planned for the Comber Greenway. This route in Northern
Ireland, part of NCN99, re-uses the old railway line from Belfast
to Comber via Dundonald. It was opened officially on 8 November
2008 but, two years earlier, a survey found that the trail was already
generating 122,000 walking and cycling journeys at one of the towns
along the route. However, while the greenway was still being
constructed, the Labour government announced that it intended
to establish a guided busway (called Eway) along part of it.
Comment.
This is Sustrans' response in a recent edition of The
Hub, its quarterly magazine for supporters: 'While Sustrans
fully supports plans to improve public transport, we do question
whether bus routes should be built at the expense of walking and
cycling paths. It seems counter intuitive to develop public transport
in direct competition with walking and cycling when the aim is to
tackle road congestion and greenhouse gas emissions [and rising
levels of obesity - Webmaster]. What this trend seems to show is
how under-valued walking and cycling are as transport choices in
their own right.'
Many
share this view. Many also question the wisdom of building guided
busways in the first place. Not only are they visually intrusive
structures that deploy vast amounts of concrete, but the example
between Cambridge and St. Ives has cost millions of pounds more
than reinstating the former railway which now lies buried beneath
it – and the busway isn't even open yet. Local residents in
Cambridgeshire did not want this scheme and yet expect to pay for
it via their council tax.
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What
Was News ...
Full Colour Brochure.
We have good stocks of an excellent brochure which can
be accessed in electronic form by clicking the link here.
Note that the brochure is in PDF form, so you will need Adobe Reader
(available here)
in order to view it. Stocks of the printed version can be obtained
from the club's Membership Secretary in the first instance (see
contact details inside the front cover of the magazine). Several
walk organisers have found the brochure to be very useful when approaching
landowners for permission to walk privately owned trackbeds, since
it sets out clearly what the club is about and helps to convey the
professional and responsible impression that we wish to project.
Sustrans'
Connect2 Project Wins National Vote! In December
2007, Sustrans'
Connect2 project won the 'People's £50 Million', gaining
42% of the
overall vote. Huge amounts of research and planning had already
been completed, so work started in earnest from January
2008.
We have left the link here in
place, since it contains further details of Connect2, including
a list of those projects which involve the re-use of old
railway infrastructure. Connect2 will bridge significant
gaps in 79
communities throughout Great Britain with safe, traffic-free
routes. It
was the only project in the final shortlist of four which
offered significant benefits for Wales, Scotland and Northern
Ireland.
Want
to Walk or Cycle Into Bath via the Somerset & Dorset Railway?
It's on its way! The Connect2 project (see above) includes a scheme
to re-open the old S&D from Midford to Bath. This provides for
opening up both Combe Down and Devonshire Tunnels, which will have
street lighting installed. The result will be of great value to
residents in the Midford area, since it will make Bath accessible
via a level 4 mile route instead of a very hilly 7 mile route. The
project, known as 'Two
Tunnels', will also support long term plans to develop the S&D
as a cross-country cycling route between Bath and Bournemouth.
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| Above: Cwm
Prysor viaduct was the main engineering feature on the Great Western
Railway's line from Bala to Blaenau Festiniog via Trawsfynydd,
although the whole route was heavily engineered with the track
at times running on shelves hewn out of mountain sides. The line
closed to passengers on 4th January 1960, although the section
from Trawsfynydd to Blaenau Festiniog remained open until 1998
for the transport of nuclear waste from the power station at Trawsfynydd.
According to Dave Sallery (whose excellent website on
this line is well worth a look), the viaduct can 'be crossed on
foot by following a permissive path which leads from the main road
at the head of the valley.' This wintry scene from 2005 affords
a better view of the viaduct than is possible during the summer
months, when foliage hides much of the structure. (Richard Lewis) |
Viaducts,
Viaducts! Two viaducts now carry plaques commemorating
the contribution of Railway Ramblers to important restoration
projects. These are at Midford in Somerset, and Haltwhistle
in Northumberland. This is a tremendous achievement for the
club, and an endorsement of the decision to set up a 'Footpath
Fund' to help finance projects like this at a time (1983 or
thereabouts) when a few doubters reckoned that it wasn't worth
bothering with. So, many thanks to all those who have supported
the Footpath Fund over the years – what a difference
we've made! Click here for
further details.
Message
Board. Our message board can be accessed by clicking the
link here.
Any club member can update this by entering the username and password
that are published in each quarterly magazine. The Webmaster does
not have time to maintain area walk programmes on the main site,
but area organisers can do this easily by posting their programmes
on to the message board. Similarly, ordinary members can use the
message board to get in touch with each other (remember to include
your e-mail address) in order to arrange local walks and shared
transport. Honestly – it really is easy, so give it a try!
'On Tour'.
If you haven't had a look already, why not visit the page which
gives a flavour of one of our occasional special events? Click here
to take a look – the event was based on a visit to sites on
the former Somerset & Dorset Railway between Templecombe and
Blandford Forum. We have also uploaded a further batch of S&D
pictures in Photo Gallery 48,
which feature an exploration of the company's Burnham branch between
Glastonbury and Burnham-on-Sea.
Search and
Site Map. These features can be accessed by clicking here.
The site is now too big for more than a part to fit into the
site map, but the search feature is really useful if you are
looking for information on a specific route.
Access. Our Access page
contains guidance on which old railways can and cannot
be walked,
as well as a brief history of how we lost our
railways, and how some came to survive as walks and cycle trails.
This page also includes a link to our Non-Trespass policy.
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| Above: A
selection of photographs from Cornwall's Mineral Tramways Project,
which runs from Devoran (near Truro) to Portreath. The southern
part of the route is based on the Redruth and Chacewater Railway,
but later the Portreath Tramroad is used to reach the north coast. Top
Left: When you drive west along the A30 through the village
of Scorrier, near Redruth, there's no mistaking the location of
the Portreath Tramroad thanks to this sign, situated on the north
side of the road at grid reference SW 722446. Right: The
Portreath Tramroad as it looks today, about a mile inland from
Portreath where the trackbed adjoins the B3300. Bottom Left: The
trackbed of the Redruth and Chacewater Railway passes underneath
the Truro-Falmouth branch, just after it has left the GWR main
line west of Truro station. The masonry stumps behind the viaduct
are the piers from Brunel's original viaduct, which was built with
a timber superstructure. The Falmouth branch was the last GWR line
to have its timber viaducts replaced, this work taking place during
the 1930s. January 2004. (Richard Lewis) |
New
Railway Paths. All new railway paths are reported initially
in our News pages, after which
they are added to our online
gazetteer. This is a members' only area, which is a good
reason for joining the club – click here for
details. If you would prefer a printed copy, Vinter's Gazetteer is
out of print but is expected to be re-launched by a major
publisher in an enlarged and updated edition during the course
of 2010. Keep
an
eye on
this and our Publications page
for the latest news.
Site Re-Design
and Statistics. Our
site was re-designed in 2004 but we 'carried over' the hit counter
from the original version, which was launched in 1997. Our
objectives remain to make the site run quickly, for narrowband
as well as broadband
users;
to
keep
it simple
to navigate; and to provide well written and interesting content.
If you are interested in the useage statistics, please click
the link here.
Thank
You. Finally, it is only right and proper that this
introduction to our site should conclude with a huge 'Thank you'
to all those members who keep the information and photographs
flooding in. Without this constant stream of intelligence from
around the country, the content of this site would be nowhere
near so varied and interesting. So – thank you, one and
all!
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