Bath to Midsomer Norton. On 24th September 2011, a group of 93 cyclists rode along the route of the soon-to-be-completed rail trail between Bath and Midsomer Norton. Click here and here for our photographic report.

Grant to Support New West Yorkshire Project. Earlier in September 2011, the club made a grant of £2,000 to Sustrans to assist with the conversion of the former link line from Dewsbury Junction to Headfield Junction, which features some substantial pieces of civil engineering. See our News 2011 and History pages for further details (search for 'Dewsbury'). The club plans to make a grant to another railway path project in 2012, possibly in Scotland or Wales.

In order to help you navigate our site more easily, we've added these 'quick links' to the latest features:

• Vinter's Railway Gazetteer (see panel on right)

  Above: Where to find Britain's railway paths – click here.

• Our new Walks page
• The Lost Lines of Britain (a new book by Julian Holland)
• Recent site updates
• Inactive Areas
• Richard's Fruit Cake (a delicious rambler-reviving recipe)
• Railway Walks - the books (click for press releases on Wales, GWR & SR, LNER and LMS)
• The Strawberry Line Project (Somerset)
• This year's news
• Guided busways – a concrete future for some railway paths?
• What was news ...
• Thank you

Recent Site Updates. The AGM page has been renewed and now reflects the proceedings of the 2011 AGM, which was held at Loughborough on Saturday 21st May. The News 2011 page has been completed and a News 2012 page started, while ongoing updates to the online gazetteer ensure that it reflects the current situation around the country. After a long delay, the Photo Gallery has been updated to include eight new sections, numbered 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60 and 61. At the time of writing (January 2012), we have only one more batch of photographs to evaluate and process.

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 re-published all of Jeff Vinter's Railway Walks books, namely Railway Walks: Wales, Railway Walks: GWR & SR (now sold out), Railway Walks: LNER and Railway Walks: LMS. The publication of these books coincided with the broadcast of the 'Railway Walks' TV series on BBC2, which was superb good timing. The first reviewer on Amazon gave the Welsh 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.

Here 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 overran by 2½ years (and many millions of pounds) to open, finally, on 7th August 2011. The 'lost' 2½ years were consumed mainly by legal wrangles between Cambridgeshire County Council and the contractor, BAM Nuttall. When Labour ministers decided to partially fund the scheme, the cost was quoted as £116 million; but even before the busway was opened, this had escalated to £160 million, representing an overrun of £44 million or nearly 38 per cent. Just before the Labour government left office, it gave the green light for the former Luton to Dunstable branch line to receive the same treatment. Is this really what we want to do with our old railways?

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. Local residents in Cambridgeshire did not want the Cambridge to St. Ives scheme, but they will be asked to help fund it via their council tax bills and business rates for years to come.

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 in them. The result will be of great value to residents in the Midford area, since it will make Bath accessible via a nearly 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 Poole. The Two Tunnels route is expected to open during the course of 2012.

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 (1984 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.

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!