Clevedon Branch

[martin bennett]

Does anyone remember the Yatton-Clevedon Branch? As a teenager I visited the branch, probably just in time before closure, with a school friend. It must have been 1962, just before I was dragged screaming and kicking to Australia. The "train", which left from the Yatton bay platform on the 'up' side, was a single-unit railcar ("bubble-car"). Clevedon station was largely intact - overall roof and all - though with only one track and no points whatsoever.

[horace]

when i last went along it, it was in a DMU, there was if i remember rightly more than one track in clevedon station, that would of been about 1959/ 1960, not a lot else i can remember about it, as i was fairly young at the time.

[Steve Huddy]

I can remember visiting a friend who had moved to Clevedon during the last summer of operation when it was a single car DMU. As Martin said there was no pointwork at Clevedon by then. Part of the line had been relayed with FB rail on concrete sleepers, no doubt to inflate costs to aid the closure preceedure - the line would otherwise have needed to bridge the M5 when that was built. Closure was announced with indecent haste after the plans for Clevedon's expansion as a "dormitory" town were proposed.

[martin bennett]

Yes, I remember the concrete sleepers, and there was a fixed distant signal on the approaches to Clevedon - the only surviving signal then (1962).

[AndyK]

I travelled on the line when I was very young but I don't remember much about it. I think it would have been a diesel by then.

There was for a time a Clevedon and Yatton Preservation Society. Its leading light was one O.H.Prosser who died recently and was credited in the obituaries with having first come up with the idea of preserving the Talyllyn by means of voluntary efforts.

I remember he continued to write letters to the Evening Post in support of the scheme even after the track was lifted and the M5 had been built,

He was not daunted by the severance of the route by the M5. His solution was to operate the service with a "road-railer"-style bus which would begin the journey at Yatton on the rails, then when it reached the M5 it would dismount and continue to Clevedon on the road.

By the time things had reached this stage, I suspect that he probably *was* the Clevedon and Yatton Preservation Society.

[Steve Huddy]

They had reached agreement to buy a pannier and had started work on it at Bath Road (I think) before actually completing the purchase, BR suddenly sold it for scrap from under them, track lifting took place fairly rapidly while they were still negociating the sale... All in all I'm sure the Ministry of Transport wanted the line out of the way before the M5 was built and BR were happy to oblige.

[simon]

Its hard to think of a railway that's been closed and hasn't had a preservation society formed..... and old O.H. was, I think, involved in them all.....

[dragonryder]

i posted an old pic of yatton station from '63 with the flying scotsman passing through, it is in the wrington vale cheddar strawberry line thread, im quite proud with myself tracking it back down after many years!

[Steve Huddy]

i posted an old pic of yatton station from '63 with the flying scotsman passing through, it is in the wrington vale cheddar strawberry line thread, im quite proud with myself tracking it back down after many years!

A very interesting photo, it shows how things have changed there. Back then Yatton was a junction not just for Clevedon and the Wrington Vale line but for the line to Witham via Cheddar, Wells and Shepton. If you look on http://www.systemed.net/atlas/ you can see the large area of Somerset that was connected to the railway network via Yatton.