Binegar Photo archive and club layout

The Shepton & District Model Railway Society completed its first Digital Command Control (DCC) layout, Castle Corfe, in time for it to run at the S&DRT Edington Exhibition at the very beginning of the Year. The addition of a SR T9 and M7, both Drummond locos, has raised the quality of the rolling stock to match the higher standards we are seeking to achieve on this layout. The first away outing of the layout highlighted certain revisions are required, particularly in the fiddle yard, and these are currently underway. The operators are learning fast too as DCC permits individual operation of each loco without section switches!
Meanwhile the decision was made at the end of 2010 to bring some element of auto-control to the largest Club layout, Binegar. The aim is to allow one operator to control automatically a number of trains which will alternate in the fiddle yard loops. As a first step the fiddle yards (which suffer from severe expansion problems in the heat) have been re-laid. The completion of the hand built Binegar station building is almost there too. Bachmann’s SDJR 7F loco (ideal for this layout) finally arrived at the turn of the year and a number of members have purchased 53806 or 53809 in BR black livery. (Number 88 is not yet available.) They look great on the Binegar layout.

The accident at Binegar 1885 Shepton Mallet Journal August 7th 1885

When Colonel F H Rich, the Government Inspector was at Binegar Station on the morning of Friday 31st July 1885, during his examination of the new double line from Chilcompton to Binegar, he could have had no idea of the disastrous consequences of his request for minor alterations to be made to locking of the signals and points which affected the sidings. After his examination he told Mr R A Dykes the traffic superintendant and Mr A Colson the engineer that the line might be used and they in turn gave instructions that the work was to be commenced immediately and to be completed and ready for inspection the following morning.

William Edwards, a locking fitter with the LSWR had been working all week on the Somerset and Dorset and had been at work at Binegar since 4.00am on the day of the accident. He was working with very little supervision and commenced the alterations requested by Col. Rich at about 1.35pm in the signal box. He removed some brass lever points and also the No.12 locking bar, which locked the facing points and up line signals and began alteration to No.11. The relief signalman that morning was William Applebee who had come on duty at 9.03am and had to be present in the box during the inspection. He had slight conversation with the fitter but no clear instructions seem to be given concerning the disconnections. He gave “line clear” for the 11.45am up passenger train from Bournmouth which was about 11 minutes late and left Shepton Mallet at 1.46 and Masbury at 2.03pm. This train was timed to run through Binegar Station and pass the 11.50am down goods train from Bath which was standing on the down line. After receiving the “line clear” from Chilcompton, Applebee stated “…..I pulled over a lever that I thought to be a locking lever. I then lowered the up starting signal, the up home and the up distant signals, not knowing but that everything was alright….I was not are that any alterations in the locking were being made, to effect the up signals…….”, the result of his actions was to set the signals at clear and set the facing points on to the down line.

The goods train consisted of a tender engine No 48, with 25 wagons partly loaded, two brake vans and a tank engine acting as a banker. It was standing opposite the station building about 147 yards inside the facing points. James Morley the driver was standing on the end of the up platform waiting for the passenger train to pass and saw it run on to the down line at about 25 miles per hour. He shouted to his fireman to get clear and then ran out of the way. The two guards of the goods train were also on the platform and also unhurt.

The passenger train consisted of a bogie tank engine No53 with a steam brake on all wheels, a van with a chain brake acting on all three coaches, two coaches apparently without brakes and a second van with a chain brake. Alfred Bruford the driver noticed that the points were wrong about 30 yards before he reached them and whistled and applied the steam brake. The fireman was working the hand brake and he could see the guard in the front van applying the chain brake. All this was to no avail and the collision occurred at 2.06pm. The engines met smokebox to smokebox, both buffer planks were broken and frames bent the cylinders and motion shifted. The front of the passenger train was entirely smashed; the third class carriage next was smashed; all but one compartment; the next composite had the under framing smashed; and was driven 16 feet under the third class carriage next to it. The damage to the other coaches was slight… The rear of the goods engine was lifted up on the wagons behind it and seven wagons were thrown off the rails. Three were thrown onto the platform. Two broken to pieces and the others seriously damaged; the other wagons were not injured or knocked off the rails.

The driver of the passenger train managed to leave the engine just before the collision, but the fireman remained on the engine and both received injuries. The guard in the leading van who had thirty years service on the line had both his legs broken and died soon after from his injuries. Annie Charles the passenger who died, was travelling in the first class carriage and in the words of Nathanial Meech the station master “..I saw the deceased in the carriage, jammed near to the top….A man on top of the carriage told me she was dead….I should think it must have been an hour before we got her out. She was quite dead. I had her removed to my garden and thence to the ladies’ waiting room at the station…” The accident report states that 14 other passengers were injured but no details of these are given.

Extract from the achieves From the achieves of the Shepton Mallet journal July 17th 1903 Researched by Percy Lambert

The new Oakhill Railway
On Monday there was opened very quietly at 7 o’clock in the morning the new railway which for the past 14 months has been under construction between Oakhill and Binegar Station to enable the Brewery Company not merely to take there traffic off the roads but also to more efficiently cope with the heavy receipts and dispatches. About three years ago the Company introduced steam traction and laid down a plant for the purpose, including a 12 ¾ ton of twelve or fourteen horsepower and a sufficient compliment of road wagons. It was soon found, however, with the heavy gradients that had to be negotiated and the narrowness of many of the places through which the traffic had to pass, that this was far from satisfactory and the thing became something of a nuisance.

The Company were first to realise the failure of the experiment and seek in every possible way to minimise the trouble. In the village itself every precaution was taken to reduce to as low a limit as possible the inconvenience to those in the neighbourhood of the Brewery which the shunting of engines and trucks caused. Along the roads, little could be done but the Company, without admitting any liability to do so, have paid a handsome contribution year by year to meet the increased cost of keeping the road in repair. But so long as the engines were on the road it was found impossible to maintain them in anything like efficiency. Though the work is not complete for the new railway yet, at the earliest possible moment when the line was usable, Mr Spencer had it put in operation and the engine was taken off the roads. No one will regret it final departure from the village. The new road is about2 ½ miles in extent and is carried for the most part over the property of the Company, some of it acquired for the purpose. Stating from the front of the Brewery itself where a couple of sidings are put in, with the exception of a few feet entirely on the Company’s own premises and in such a way that there will be less interference with the general public user than there has ever been. The line turns off sharply towards thee stables and striking into the fields proceeds along the ground and allotments on the south sides of the Malthouses etc to the Bristol road, which crosses at appoint near Batts Farm, a few hundred yards below the junction of the Bath Road and over 100 feet above the level from which it started. It the followed the line of roadway through the fields and Gales Lane for some distance and turning at a convenient point towards the station, crosses Binegar Bottom on two high embankments 50 feet wide and 26 feet high in one part connected across the roadway with a three span girder bridge 84 feet in length and 7 or 6 feet wide carried on stout masonary pies at a height of 28 feet above the roadway. A little further on a single span girder bridge crosses a path used as an occupational road – an instance of how very considerate the Company have been towards the existing user; for equally good success could have been obtained in a different direction and so conceivable “right” appears to have been claimable.

From this point the railway traverses the fields again and an occupational lane purchased from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for the purpose brings the new line in contact with the Somerset and Dorset, close to Binegar Station. Here ample siding accommodation has been provided by the Company and two sheds placed at the disposal of the Brewery for their traffic, one being a new one for the purpose.

The station, strange as it may seem to those who know the district, is practically on the same level as the Brewery. The benchmarks of the Ordnance Survey show a height above sea level at Oakhill Church of 695 feet and near Binegar station of about 700 feet; Mendip Inn being slightly above at 802 feet mark it shows that the rise in either direction is fully 100 feet. In both directions the traffic is very heavy, for while the empty vessels returned to the Brewery are lighter than the full, there has also to be conveyed from the station large quantities of malt and hops used in the manufacture of the Oakhill stout for which the Brewery is famous. The traffic for the Brewery will be conveyed on specially constructed wagons, a long bogie type being adopted which from their construction minimises the labour of lifting the barrels onto wagons and from there to the platform at the station. They are also the best suited for negotiating the difficult curves of the route which are in several cases of 50 feet radius only. The gauge of the railway, by the way, is 2 feet 6 inches and is carried on some 5,000 transverse creosoted sleepers securely bolted down. A powerful locomotive appropriately christened “Mendip” has been purchased for hauling the train. It weighs about 8 tons and takes a train of at present seven wagons loaded each with 16 or 18 barrels or hogsheads, or 32 smaller casks from Oakhill to Binegar and back again within an hour. In fact its first journey with a load on Monday occupied only about ¾ of an hour, including all the stoppages to pass gates.

These latter are well built simply both in the fields and where the road is crossed. The train is staffed by a driver, a fireman and a conductor whose duties are properly defined. Ample brake power is provided for the trucks which have curvilinear buffer fronts so that on the inclines, the worst of which is 1 in 25, there is ample control. The whole of the work has been carried out by the Compay’s own special staff, Mr Edwin Emery, their surveyor acting as engineer of the line and the man being the charge of a smart and experienced ganger. The only portion of the work let was the building of the pies for the bridges which was undertaken by Mr Ford of Cheddar. When complete the works will include sidings to the Malthouses and sundry other buildings. The pubic roads are , we understand, to be at once put in proper order again. The cost of the railway runs into thousands of pounds.
(My father at one time was the engine driver. Percy