SHILLINGSTONE
(Pic copyright 'John M' 1962)
This is what thousands of us alongside the S&D and further afield are working towards! Although this pic dates back to an LCGB tour of the line in 1962, it also shows what we will see again all along the S&D when the line is restored! As well as the normal passenger and freight trains that will run on the new line it has always been intended that the line will feature classic infrastructure and will encourage the operation of specials over the line - particularly steam hauled specials! If you want to help make this happen lease join one, sone or all of the various S&D groups that are doing the work on the ground!
This part of the S&D has been transformed over the last ten years or so, with the station site at Shillingstone being fully restored and a new signalbox built from scratch. This is just a small example of the incredible activity along the line in recent years. Hard to believe that the S&D was once a dead railway!
If you are a member of the North Dorset Railway Trust and want to see railway track relaid Northwards beyond the present station lease in your lifetime, you are strongly advised to attend this year’s AGM. There is a motion to reassert the mandate from members, made on 12 Aug 2017, that the organisation becomes a Heritage Railway to link Shillingstone to Sturminster Newton.
ReplyDeleteLack of visible progress on the Planning Application since that date, and the discovery last April of a secret proposal within the committee to sell a key plot of land, which was gifted to the Trust to enable relaying track (now thankfully quashed), indicate that some in the NDRT may be opposed to rebuilding the railway over Haywards Lane bridge towards Sturminster Newton.
That mandate was never taken up in the minutes of the special general meeting of August 2017.
Make sure you come to the AGM, which is tentatively scheduled for September.
Shame we lost a lot of lines & stations it would be great to see them re-open ?
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