My Father worked on the former M&GN lines during the 1950s,in the relay gang. The track was in excellent condition when they closed the line,money had been invested not only on the track but also signalling, a new turntable and engine shed at Melton Constable,they were building a new engine shed at South Lynn when the line closed, such waste.

A beautiful lost branch line made even more beautiful by the atmospheric weather.

Great, thank you so much. The dear old S&D. I met Peter Smith the engine driver last year at the Swanage, hadn't seen him for some 35 years! Donald Beale has of course passed away a good few years ago now, a real gentleman bless him.

Great film footage. I have been looking for historical maps of the Line passing through Ashley Heath..impossible!

i could watch this all day long

Really enjoyable upload, previously unseen footage, quite unique and some stark winter scenes also. Older generations keeping the S & D spirit alive but I should imagine it will all be forgotten in a decade or so.

Thank you for this i adored this railway i have many books on it. Always brings a tear to my eyes when i see this sadly i was only a child when this was ripped up. I have done a 2 year survey of existing trackbed from Bath all the way to Poole.....and surviving bridges and viaducts. As there was a rumour the government wanted to reopen closed lines as roads are now overloaded! However in spite developers in Radstock heard about this and DELIBERATELY built on the site of the old station, (as a possible public enquiry was possible) preventing the town getting a rail link again! It is feasible to relay the S&D and a mixture of modern trains and Heritage steam would bring in MILLIONS in revenue to the run down areas that ‘died’ when the railway was cruelly taken out. Many people are illegally ‘possessing’ track bed that still belongs to the railway company! The Chilcompton tunnel has been back filled but. A weekend with a JCB would see it reopened. SOMEONE PLEASE RESCUE THE S&D before any more houses get built over the track ned making it impossible to ever reopen🤷🏼‍♂️😢

Thank you so much! Some of the most atmospheric railway footage I've ever seen. The S&D and the 'Withered Arm' are surely among our most missed lines.

Had to go get a hot water bottle whilst watching 😵‍💫

Weasely BR couldn't find much of a paltry excuse to get rid of the s&d.

Excellent Thank you

Thank you gents for sharing this archive, it must have been challenging to say the least with the slow film speed of the day. TC.

Absolutely fantastic film! Well done and thanks for sharing. Brilliant.

Thank you so much for this. As a devotee of the S&D, I thought that I had either got or seen all the archive footage available-until now. I travelled as a child on the S&D on the Pines from Manchester several times in the 1950s and the last time in 1962, just before rerouting, and could scarcely believe the contrast between grimy north Manchester and the beautiful scenery south of Bath. My last memory is of leaning out of the carriage window on the Pines listening to the engines straining up to Masbury on the way home from Bournemouth. Since moving down to Devon, I have tried to explore as much of the line as I can when on holiday, bearing in mind what is left of it. I can still hear those engines 60 years on. Your film is quite wonderful in that it shows the line not in ideal conditions as most of them do, but in difficult ones which gives me a rare new perspective. If this is a short version of what was filmed, is there a full version available to purchase?

8:10 - Good to know they couldn't shut the sun down

Love anything to do with the S&D. Too young to have seen it in action, but as my sister lives in the area l have spent many a happy few hours exploring what's still remains

Next time readers attend the Glastonbury Festival you can walk the branch line trackbed. When I was a child I used to visit Bournemouth West sheds. Southern region still had ex LSWR gated push pull coach stock in the early 60s that did shuttle from Bournemouth Central.

An opportunity missed as far as i'm conce rned. I never managed to visit the S and D. I wish that i had. I was 16 when it closed. Thanks Beeching.

Excellent but very sad ☹️

I really enjoyed this. Is there a longer version available?

It’s so bizarre to see this footage knowing that there’s almost no trace of this line still in existence

The emergency service began on 5th Jan 1966,not 1965 as said on the film. Superb footage of the most famous line in the UK.

Whoever shot the winter scenes deserves a medal! To see a ride over the Somerset & Dorset - in much clearer weather - in 1963, go to kzfaq.info/get/bejne/iuBgoLF5vLiqaWw.html which I shot as a cine film, when I was a young man. Dare I suggest that "S & D" also represents the Stockton & Darlington, opened in 1825 by George Stephenson. Over the following years that S&D expanded until it became of comparable size to your S&D, before being absorbed into the North Eastern Rly.

can't help laughing - the automatic subtitling machine really can't recognise the wonderful sounds of a steam engine and interprets them as ' 'applause' - which is exactly what this film dererves!

Slightly pedantic, but surely the winter of 1965/66 can't have been the worst for many years, as in 1963 the UK had suffered what is universally acknowledged to be one of the harshest winters in the 20th century?

What is the deal with two completely different voices???