Dunno if you’ve been back to the ancestral acres recently or not. But you recall the old railway line that was up at the top of Maple Grove? They’ve opened up the tunnels there now and turned it into a cycleway. Waste of damn money, undoubtedly, seems to be some quango being paid etc.
However, since it exists – went out it this morning. Tunnels underneath Bloomfield Road, Wellsway into Lyncombe Vale, then another tunnel which comes out at Midford. Being underneath Combe Down is of course better than being in Combe Down.
Midford being, of course, where they filmed the Titfield Thunderbolt.
The whole route being the old Slow and Dirty line. Just thought I’d pass that on, you know, local to local like.
More fuckwittery.
I ride those tunnels at least 4/5 times a year – cycle path is not new, of course, been there for years.
The Slow & Dirty branch from Evercreech to BoS goes right through my ‘manor’ – mum-in-law can remember using it to take her from Highbridge across the levels to Glasto many (many) years ago.
http://www.cornwallrailwaysociety.org.uk/sd-burnham-to-evercreech-junction.html
Not sure about Twinhoe!
I feel we’ve strayed into a Flanders & Swann song.
According to my Mum the stations on that line were, in fact, used in the lyrics of one of their songs…..
@TW… “The Slow Train”. Stations axed by Dr Beeching.
Slow Train is a great nostalgic song and the first verse references Blandford Forum and Midsomer Norton, both on the S&D. But Flanders and Swann created the lyrics working from a (lengthy) list of Beeching’s station closures, picking out the ones that sounded more poetic. It doesn’t seem that they knew where all of them actually were – they sing of “Formby Four Crosses” as though it’s one station, when Four Crosses is actually in Wales, a fair step from Formby.
@Chris: interesting. I recently went to “Millersdale for Tideswell” and it’s a lovely place. Mow Cop and Scholar Green (the next line of the song) are a bit further north, in Staffordshire iirc.