Blogs

Hawkeridge Junction

2006 August 29 (Tuesday), 170 miles.

For the first time in over a year, I went rail roving today. I've been meaning to do it for a while, and I'm doing it now largely because of the diversions caused by the closure of Wootton Bassett Junction for refurbishment will give me a chance to see some trains (mostly HSTs) in places they don't usually go.

First up was an Adelante ride to Bath. Adelantes haven't been used regularly in these parts for some time, although one was working the Temple Meads to Chippenham shuttle. This one was replacing a broken HST. At Bath I changed onto the 1040 Temple Meads to Southampton Central and alighted at Freshford.

The last time I visited Freshford (2004-04-16) it was dull and very wet after extensive spring rain, but today the sky was mostly blue with a sprinkling of cumulus. Since then the southbound platform had been refurbished with a new shelter and the gap between it and trains narrowed, and new lighting on both sides. I noted with approval that the lamp housings appeared to be designed to limit light pollution. Unfortunately someone almost next-door to the station was mowing a very large lawn with a very loud mower, and I could only sporadically hear the birdsong which was so evident on my previous visit.

I saw a couple of HSTs going each way, then caught the next train to Westbury, the 1140 Bristol Temple Meads to Weymouth. The guard, though seemingly only in his twenties, was sporting that currently unfashionable yet distinctive of facial decorations, a handlebar moustache: not one that one would yet luxuriant yet, but otherwise all present and correct.

At Westbury station someone told me that from around 1530 there were usually three heavy stone trains which went through the station, and that I could get a good view of them from the Bath end of the main island platform. I noted this for a future visit, for today I wanted to visit Hawkeridge Junction, a walk of some fifteen minutes from the station, to see HSTs using the chord between the Berks and Hants line and the Bath-Westbury line. At the bridge by the junction there was already someone waiting, bicycle leaning on bank, camera ready in hand.

He turned out to be most amenable, and we spent much of the afternoon exchanging railway knowledge and anecdotes and contemplating the moral degeneration of our fellow citizens. While doing so, we saw not only a good few HSTs (including two passing one another, very slowly, in the chord) but also a delivery of coal for the cement works and the Avon Binliner empties. The binliner took us by surprise by not using the chord as we'd expected, but instead heading towards Westbury station. We figured it must sooner or later reappear heading towards Bath, but instead of the loco simply running around, when it reappeared (surprisingly promptly) it was top-and-tailed, headed by 47811. My companion suggested this might be so that it could go via Melksham and reverse, though neither of us could think of a reason why it should do this.

When I returned to Westbury station, the large plasma screen on the wall facing the top of the main staircase was showing a speeded-up movie of work being done at Wootton Bassett Junction. There seemed to be a lot of people moving around and not much actually being done, though it must have been from one of the early days of the work.

After that, I took the opportunity to travel from Castle Cary to Taunton for the first time. Much of it wasn't especially interesting, with lots of flat marsh and farmland and much of the rest in cuttings, though a World War 2 concrete pillbox west of Cogload Junction caught my eye. My stay in Taunton was peremptory, but long enough to notice two very distinctive fellows I'd also seen on my previous visit to Taunton three years earlier (2003-09-21) and, I'm sure, before then.