page_title: Transport in Somerset
section_title: Railways
hierarchical_section_title: Transport in Somerset / Railways
caption_attribution_description: English: The Great Western Railway system in Somerset, England.
context_page_description: The earliest known infrastructure for transport in Somerset is a series of wooden trackways laid across the Somerset Levels, an area of low-lying marshy ground. To the west of this district lies the Bristol Channel, while the other boundaries of the county of Somerset are along chains of hills that were once exploited for their mineral deposits. These natural features have all influenced the evolution of the transport network. Roads and railways either followed the hills, or needed causeways to cross the Levels. Harbours were developed, rivers improved, and linked to sources of traffic by canals. Railways were constructed throughout the area, influenced by the needs of the city of Bristol, which lies just to the north of Somerset, and to link the ports of the far south-west with the rest of England.
  Today, the trunk road and rail routes to the south-western counties of Devon and Cornwall pass through Somerset. This gives the county good connections to Wales, London, and the north of England. A major port and an international airport are situated in the north of the county.
context_section_description: The period of canals as an important transport network was short-lived. Before the Chard Canal had been completed the Great Western Railway (GWR) had opened a route following the River Avon from Bristol Temple Meads to Bath Spa. This was on 31 August 1840, and the railway was completed through to London Paddington ten months later. Shortly before this the Bristol & Exeter Railway (B&ER) had opened to Weston-super-Mare and Bridgwater. Both these companies engaged Isambard Kingdom Brunel as engineer and used his 7 ft ¹⁄₄ in (2,140 mm) broad gauge. The B&ER was extended to Taunton in 1842 and Wellington in 1843 and a branch line was added to Clevedon in 1847.
  Another GWR line that would eventually link Chippenham and Weymouth reached Frome in 1850 and started to carry coal from the collieries at Radstock in 1854. Its main line was finally extended from Frome to Yeovil in 1856 and a branch opened from Witham to Shepton Mallet and Wells in 1858/1862. The B&ER had opened its own Yeovil Branch Line from the Taunton direction in 1853. Another company, the Somerset Central Railway, built lines across the Somerset Levels from Highbridge & Burnham to Glastonbury in 1854 and Burnham-on-Sea in 1858. A branch line to Wells Priory Road was added the following year.
  In the meantime the London & South Western Railway (LSWR) had been promoting railways from London Waterloo through the south of the county, reaching Templecombe, Yeovil and Crewkerne in 1860, and Chard in 1863. The Midland Railway opened a line from Bristol to Bath Green Park railway station in 1869. These two companies acquired a shared interest in the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway (S&DJR), as the Somerset Central Railway had become. Templecombe became an important railway junction between the LSWR and S&DJR, especially after 1874 when a new S&DJR main line was opened across the Mendips from Evercreech Junction to Bath, creating a link from the south coast to the Midland Railway.
  Meanwhile, the B&ER opened lines to Watchet in 1862 (extended to Minehead in 1874), Chard in 1866, Portishead in 1867, Cheddar and Wells in 1869/1870, and Wivelsicombe in 1873. The B&ER and GWR had by now made a start on converting their lines to carry both broad and standard gauge trains. The GWR opened a Bristol and North Somerset Railway to Radstock in 1873 as a purely standard gauge line but full conversion of all lines to standard gauge was not completed until 1892, 16 years after the B&ER had been absorbed into the GWR.
  The Light Railways Act 1896 made it easier to build railways cheaply. The Weston, Clevedon and Portishead Light Railway (WCPLR) opened between Weston-super-Mare and Clevedon in 1897 and between Clevedon and Portishead in 1907, where there was a connection with the GWR. This connected three coastal towns, which were all on the end of GWR branch lines. The GWR also made use of the Light Railways Act to open a Wrington Vale Light Railway in 1901, however it also built the Langport and Castle Cary Railway which linked the line through Frome with the old B&ER route at Taunton and thus allowed the GWR to offer a shorter route from London to Taunton and the South West from 1906.
  By now motor bus services were starting to appear. At first they were often operated by the railway companies as a way of offering services to new destinations, but after World War I the tramway companies and private individuals gradually offered more and more routes. The first significant railway closures were the Wrington Vale Light Railway in 1931, and the Weston, Clevedon and Portishead Light Railway in 1941. On 1 January 1948 the railways that were still operating were nationalised to become British Railways. This didn't stop the closures: the Burnham-on-Sea branch closed in 1951, the line from Bristol to Radstock and Frome in 1959, Taunton to Chard in 1962, and Yatton to Cheddar and Witham in 1963. Despite this rationalisation British Railways was losing £140m a year in the 1960s. The Reshaping of British Railways report was announced on 27 March 1963, proposing massive cuts to lines and services. Tho
caption: Railways in Somerset c1930
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