This book, from the Publisher’s ‘Locomotive Portfolios’ series, describes the locomotives of the Somerset & Dorset Railway, its history, and significant people involved in its development, as well as interesting incidents that occurred during its lifetime.
Published in September 2021 by Pen & Sword and written by Tim Hillier-Graves, this hardback book in landscape format measures around 24.8 cm x 24.1 cm, has 248 pages, and around 400 illustrations, weight diagrams and logs, including over 250 mainly black-and-white photographs.
It has a published price of £35, and at the time of writing it can be purchased from Pen & Sword for £28 and Amazon for £19.40.
The book has six chapters with Chapter 1 providing an overview of how and when the Somerset & Dorset Railway was created. Chapter 2 describes the locomotives of the railway’s early years until 1875, Chapters 3 to 5 cover the Midland years from 1876 to 1903 and from 1904 to 1922, and the LMS years from 1923 to 1947.
Chapter 6 is appropriately titled ‘A Long Goodbye (1948-1966)’ as it describes the gradual and often intentional elimination of services and closure of a line which, to many, is synonymous with double-headed trains powering through the Mendips.
Part of the railway was built to Brunel’s broad gauge, and the book includes descriptions and photographs of that era.
As well as describing the histories of the railway’s locomotives, the book gives an insight into how and why other companies became responsible for building the company’s locomotives, its personalities, and some accidents that occurred over the years.
The Somerset & Dorset’s main locomotive works were at Highbridge, and although it could build locomotives from scratch as it had an erecting shop as seen at the top left, with very few exceptions, the works limited itself to maintenance.
Templecombe was a major junction with the London and South Western Railway, and as seen at the top right, it had an engine shed, but it was much smaller than those at Highbridge and Bath.
One of the railway’s first locomotives, and what must be one of the earliest railway photographs, is No. 11 seen on the left below.
According to the caption accompanying the upper photograph, it was exhibited at an International Exhibition in 1862 and sold by the railway in 1870.
Looking more like diesel shunters than steam locomotives, the small locomotives on the left were purchased from the Sentinel company for use in the Somerset coalfield at Radstock.
To carry out their duties when they were unavailable, the railway borrowed ex-Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway 0-4-0 saddle tanks similar to the one on the right.
In 1950, the Somerset & Dorset was transferred from the Midland to the Southern Region of British Railways, then eight years later the Western Region assumed control, which inevitably brought an influx to the line of Western Region locomotives such as those below.
This impressive book will fill gaps in many reader’s libraries. Tim Hillier-Graves has produced a comprehensive guide to the locomotives of the Somerset & Dorset going back to the railway’s creation.
His account includes much additional information about the line’s engineers and why most of the company’s locomotives were built elsewhere.
Many photographs are of immense historical interest, and, considering their age, are reproduced well. A major omission is the lack of detailed information about the numbering and allocation of locomotives.
The book often describes the history of the locomotive builders rather than providing specific information about locomotives destined for the railway, where they were allocated, when they were built and withdrawn, or their liveries.
Despite these criticisms, this book will be of value to anyone interested in the history of the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway and its locomotives and merits a rating of 4.5/5.
The book is available to purchase from Amazon and Pen & Sword.
We would like to thank Pen & Sword for providing RailAdvent with a copy of the book for review.
This post was originally published on here
