West Somerset Railway

The line begins at Bishops Lydeard, four miles (6.4 km) beyond Taunton, and immediately starts climbing. For the first four miles the railway works its way up the eastern flank of the Quantock Hills at a gradient of 1 in 86, reaching its summit — just under 400 feet (122 m) above sea level — at Crowcombe Heathfield, a station so little changed that it is regularly hired as a film location. This is the quiet, inland half of the journey: deep cuttings, beech hedgerows and the occasional glimpse west across the Vale of Taunton Deane.

From the summit the line falls away towards the coast through Stogumber and Williton, where the level crossing is still worked from the original Bristol & Exeter Railway signal box — believed to be the only one of its kind left in operational use anywhere. Williton''s goods shed is the headquarters of the Diesel and Electric Preservation Group, so a green Class 33 or a maroon Class 35 is as likely to be sitting in the yard as a Great Western pannier tank.

At Doniford Halt, a request stop reached only on foot, the railway meets the sea. From here to Minehead the journey is coastal: the harbour town of Watchet on one side, the Bristol Channel and the Welsh coast on the other. Between Watchet and Washford the line climbs again at 1 in 65, the steepest grade on the railway, before dropping to Blue Anchor, where the platform is separated from the beach by little more than the width of the road.

The last three miles run along the flat behind Blue Anchor Bay and Dunster Beach to Dunster, the station for the castle and the medieval village, and finally into Minehead. The terminus platform, extended in the 1930s to swallow whole trainloads of holidaymakers, is just under a quarter of a mile long — a reminder that this branch once handled through carriages from Paddington and the Midlands.

Today the railway carries more than 200,000 passengers a year, run by around 50 paid staff and some 900 volunteers, with a Day Rover ticket that lets you get off, look around, and pick up a later train at any of the ten stations.

Very few preserved railways in Britain are long enough to feel like a real journey rather than a demonstration run. At 20 miles (32 km) the West Somerset is the exception: an end-to-end trip takes 1 hour 20 minutes, crosses a genuine watershed, and changes landscape twice — from the wooded climb over the Quantocks to the open Bristol Channel coast at Blue Anchor and Dunster Beach.

What makes it unusual is that the whole branch was preserved, not just a photogenic fragment. Ten stations survive, each in the livery of a different period, and the infrastructure that made them work survives with them: the Bristol & Exeter signal box at Williton, passing loops installed at Williton in 1874, Crowcombe Heathfield in 1879, Blue Anchor in 1904 and Bishops Lydeard in 1906, and the quarter-mile platform at Minehead. Two museums run by the West Somerset Railway Heritage Trust — the Gauge Museum at Bishops Lydeard, created for the Great Western Railway''s 150th anniversary in 1985, and the Blue Anchor Railway Museum, opened in the former down-platform waiting room in 1986 — sit on the platforms themselves.

It is also a working monument to Isambard Kingdom Brunel''s broad gauge. The line was laid to 7 feet and a quarter inch (2,140 mm) and only converted to standard gauge in 1882, so the earthworks, bridge arches and station spacing were all set out for a track width that no longer exists anywhere in Britain.

Trains are formed of British Rail Mark 1 coaches in Great Western chocolate and cream, hauled by steam or by heritage diesel depending on the day — the timetable colour tells you which, and a busy summer day may run one steam and one diesel set. Motive power typically comes from the railway''s Great Western tank engines of the 4575 and 5100 classes, with visiting locomotives and the Somerset & Dorset 7F 2-8-0 appearing at galas.

Seating is compartment or open saloon, windows drop on leather straps, and there is a buffet car on most services. Toilets are available on the train and at every station except Doniford Halt. The railway asks that you arrive no earlier than 45 minutes before departure, and Doniford Halt is a request stop — tell the guard if you want to alight there.

Most passengers buy a Day Rover and treat the line as a hop-on service: an hour at Watchet harbour, a walk up to Dunster Castle, a look round the Gauge Museum at Bishops Lydeard, then a later train onward. Three coaches in the fleet are wheelchair-accessible, each taking four wheelchair users plus companions; eight of the ten stations have level or ramped platform access, and loan wheelchairs are kept at Bishops Lydeard, Watchet and Minehead.

In 1856 the businessmen of Watchet — still twelve miles from the nearest railhead at Taunton while rival harbour towns had been connected in the 1840s and 50s — engaged Isambard Kingdom Brunel as engineer. Brunel, fully committed elsewhere, delegated the work to his assistant James Burke, who took the classic Victorian line across the Quantocks by following one watercourse up to the summit and another down the far side. Construction began on 7 April 1859 under the contractor George Furness of London, and the line from Norton Fitzwarren to Watchet opened on 31 March 1862, worked from the outset by the Bristol & Exeter Railway.

The nominally independent Minehead Railway carried the branch on to the coast, opening on 16 July 1874. The whole route was built to Brunel''s broad gauge of 7 feet and a quarter inch and converted to standard gauge in 1882; the Bristol & Exeter had by then been absorbed into the Great Western Railway, which ran the branch until nationalisation in 1948. Holiday traffic peaked between the wars and again in the 1950s and 60s, with through trains from London and the Midlands and a Minehead platform lengthened in the 1930s to just under a quarter of a mile.

The Beeching report marked the branch for closure, and when Somerset County Council moved school transport from rail to road in 1970 the economics collapsed. British Rail closed the line at the start of January 1971. After five years of negotiation the preserved West Somerset Railway reopened Minehead to Blue Anchor at Easter 1976 and reached Bishops Lydeard in 1979. The early years were precarious — unreliable services earned the nickname "will something run?", and the company came close to bankruptcy in the early 1980s — before a volunteer-driven recovery, helped by the hire of the locomotive Evening Star in 1989, put it on its present footing.

The branch has no tunnels and no great viaducts; its engineering is in the alignment. Burke took the line over the Quantock ridge by climbing continuously at 1 in 86 from Bishops Lydeard, holding that grade for roughly four miles (6.4 km) to the summit at Crowcombe Heathfield, then falling at the same rate towards Williton. For a steam locomotive with a loaded train this is the hardest sustained work on the railway, and the reason Crowcombe Heathfield is the favourite lineside spot for photographers.

The second climb is shorter and steeper. Between Watchet and Washford the line rises at 1 in 65 (1.5 percent) to get up off the harbour and around the coastal headland — the steepest gradient on the route — before dropping back to sea level at Blue Anchor.

The rest of the infrastructure is branch-line practice preserved intact: mechanical signalling worked from boxes at Bishops Lydeard, Crowcombe Heathfield, Williton, Blue Anchor and Minehead, with the Williton box a Bristol & Exeter Railway design that predates the Great Western takeover. Passing loops were added as traffic grew — Williton in 1874, Crowcombe Heathfield in 1879, Blue Anchor in 1904, Bishops Lydeard in 1906 — and all four are still used to cross trains, which is what allows a two-train service on a single-track line today.

The railway runs daily from early April to early October, and that is when the full ten-station service, both museums and the station cafés are all open together. July and August are the busiest, with the highest train frequency and the most steam, but also the fullest coaches and the most competition for a window seat.

May, June and September are the sweet spot. The Quantock climb is at its best in late spring when the beech hedges are in leaf, and September gives you warm light over Blue Anchor Bay with far fewer people. Autumn colour on the inland half peaks in October, when the timetable is thinning out — check the colour-coded calendar before travelling, because Mondays are often blank outside high season.

Outside the main season the line runs half-term, evening and festive services, including the pre-booked Christmas programme. These sell out early and are priced separately; an annual pass is not valid on them. Gala weekends, when visiting locomotives appear and the timetable is intensified, are the exception to the quiet-season rule and are worth planning a trip around.

Buy a Day Rover rather than a point-to-point ticket unless you are certain you only want one leg: at GBP 36.00 in advance against GBP 25.50 for a single, it pays for itself the moment you get off anywhere. Rovers are the only tickets sold online — intermediate singles and returns must be bought on the day at a booking office or from the inspector on the train.

Sit on the right-hand side travelling from Bishops Lydeard to Minehead for the sea: the coastal views from Doniford Halt through Watchet, Blue Anchor and Dunster Beach are all on that side. Coming back, sit on the left for the same view, then swap attention inland for the climb to Crowcombe Heathfield. For photography, Crowcombe Heathfield summit and the seawall stretch at Blue Anchor are the two classic locations, and both are reachable on foot from their stations.

Arrive no earlier than 45 minutes before your train — the railway asks this explicitly. Toilets are on the train and at every station except Doniford Halt, which also has no car park and is reached only by footpath, and is a request stop. Dogs travel for GBP 3.50 but must stay on the floor and out of the buffet car, and are not allowed at all on dining or festive trains. Group bookings of 16 or more must be made by telephone. There are no refunds on unused tickets, though the railway will exchange them for a later date.