Radstock

The rain is still falling as we run under the Somerset & Dorset, and into Radstock, where the famous "trap 'em between both sets of gates" scenario is played out before our very eyes - to the annoyance of any road users unable or unwilling to avail themselves of the limited options offered by the underpass beneath the S & D. The S & D station has since been levelled, but the GWR platform on this side is still there. Radstock also has a good museum right in this area (not open Mondays). After a couple of minutes, our dmu passes the funicular-style facility  belonging to  Kilmersdon colliery, and worked by the weight of loaded coal.

A Peckett 0-4-0 saddle tank will be herding loaded wagons for the otherwise impossible rope-worked descent, or collecting empties which have arrived, one by one, at the top of the incline.

"To" Frome, the direction of our travel today, is "left" at the bottom of our photograph of the incline, the line rising out of Radstock at a visible 1 in 68. In the third of his excellent "Signalman's" book trilogy, (pub. John Murray), Adrian Vaughan details how this stretch of the railway unofficially enjoyed local creative variations on the official timetable, enabling three regular and enterprising guards on the first goods train of the day, to supply a Bristol butcher with remarkably fresh rabbit and pheasant.

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