TREASURE OF THE FOREST!
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Dean Forest Railway’s first steam open day, with an 0-4-0ST running on a modest 200 yards of track. Thanks to half a century of vision and hard graft by enterprising revivalists, this scenic rural byway is now valued as a priceless gem of the local tourism economy, as Robin Jones reports.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Dean Forest Railway’s first steam open day, with an industrial saddle tank running on a modest 200 yards of track. Thanks to half a century of vision, painstaking endeavour and hard graft by enterprising revivalists, this wonderfully-scenic rural byway which lost its passenger services 92 years ago is now valued as a priceless gem of the local tourism economy, as Robin Jones reports.
FEBRUARY 21, 1970 saw 28 enthusiasts gather for a meeting in Cinderford’s Swan Hotel, called purely with the initial intention of saving a GWR steam locomotive. However, a mighty oak was to spring up in the forest from a small acorn planted that day.
It was agreed that not only should a locomotive be acquired, but also a section of track on which to run it, and during the meeting, a likely candidate emerged, for British Rail had recently announced that it intended to close the line from Lydney to Parkend – the last survivor of a labyrinthine network of railways which had once penetrated the Forest of Dean.
One of the surviving ancient woodlands of Britain, the Forest of Dean became a medival royal hunting forest. From Tudor times onwards, the forest was used a primary source of timber for the Royal Navy’s warships, and by the Victorian era it was a major site of industry, with coal mines dotted among the trees and tramways bisecting the rich green leafy landscape.
The rail presence in the forest began in 1809, an Act of Parliament giving the green light for the Lydney & Lydbrook Railway to build a tramway. That company became the Severn and Wye Railway & Canal Company a year later, when authority was also granted for the canal and dock at Lydney.
The 3ft 6in gauge horse-operated line was opened in 1810 and its first steam locomotive arrived in 1864. It had flangeless wheels so it could operate on the plateway, and in 1868, a broad gauge line was constructed alongside the original tramroad.
The broad gauge line was converted to standard gauge in 1872 as the GWR converted its 7ft 0¼in gauge track through Lydney to 4ft 8½in. The first passenger train ran in 1875, between Lydney and Lydbrook. The tramroad continued in use until 1879; indeed, three of the branches survived until the 1930s and 1940s.
Origin
In 1879, a fresh horizon opened for the forest, with a spectacular new crossing of the tidal Severn – a 4162ft 21-span wrought iron bridge 70ft above the waterline designed to carry coal from the forest to Sharpness docks.
The Severn Bridge Railway linking it to Lydney opened, and the Severn & Wye Railway joined with it to become the Severn & Wye & Severn Bridge Railway Company. This new company operated until bankruptcy in 1894, when the Midland Railway and Great Western Railway jointly took over operation of the line as the Severn & Wye Joint Railway.
The Severn & Wye also extended to Coleford and Cinderford, but many years of disappointing financial performance led to most of the passenger operation, including those north of Lydney, being discontinued in 1929, and the decline of local mineral extraction after World War Two saw progressive closure of the forest network.
Despite the widespread decline in passenger numbers, services from Lydney Town across the Severn Bridge to Berkeley Road continued, mainly due to children from the far side of the river attending school in Lydney.
In 1960, two petrol barges attempting to reach Sharpness drifted in fog and collided with the bridge, killing five crew, and the bridge was never repaired. It was demolished between 1967 and 1970, leaving the children to be taken to school on a 40-mile daily detour via Gloucester.
Many of those attending that meeting at the Swan Hotel were already involved in railway preservation, several being part of the Dart Valley Railway revival, making the long and arduous regular trek from Gloucestershire to Buckfastleigh. If only there was a similar scheme much closer to home…
The name Dean Forest Railway Preservation Society was decided upon there and then, along with the goal – save Lydney Junction to Parkend.
A new committee was elected and held its first meeting in Worrall Hill, Upper Lydbrook, on February 27 at the home of John Hancock, who had called the first meeting. Here the new chairman, Mike
Rees, introduced Geoff Griffiths, the BR Severn Tunnel Junction area manager, who subsequently arranged a walk of the Parkend line on April 26. Help also came from Bill Poskitt, BR’s permanent way inspector for the Lydney area.
Local newspapers and influential people had been contacted, together with forestry and railway authorities. By the second meeting, the aims of the society had been drawn up, together with a constitution and membership fees, while initial fundraising to cover administration costs came from small raffles and the sale of souvenirs.
The nascent society then set about raising more money from collecting waste paper, cardboard, aluminum foil, and postage and trading stamps, and by June a sales manager had been appointed. Funds were also set up to cover the acquisition of track, locomotives and rolling stock. Talks opened with BR at Slough over the purchase of the line for £4000 per mile, the Forestry Commission which owned the land north of Whitecroft, and with Gloucestershire County Council.
Revival
Green shoots quickly sprang. The first working party took place at Whitecroft on April 12, 1970, when the old ground frame was recovered for safekeeping. June saw the first edition of a society newsletter, which, by issue 4 in late August, had been retitled Forest Venturer, and July 7 saw outline planning permission granted for the society’s scheme.
Sadly, the Lydney Junction station building, earmarked as headquarters for the society, was demolished, along with some Brunel structures on the Up platform.
The society switched its attention to Parkend station, where the goods shed, two platforms and gents toilets were still intact. The station, which had lost its passenger buildings after services were withdrawn in 1929, still handled freight in the form of small coal from Free Mines and railway ballast from Whitecliff
Right: Uskmouth No.1 in steam at Parkend in 1974, with GWR small prairie No. 5541 in the foreground. First steamed on the line in November 1975, No.5541 became known as the ‘Forest Prairie’, and was a mainstay on the line for most of its first 50 years. In the Down platform are GWR 4-6-No. 7812 Erlestoke Manor and GWR large prairie No. 4150, both newlyarrived by rail from Barry scrapyard. Due to a lack of suitable restoration facilities in those early days, neither stayed on the line for very long. Both moved ‘up river’ to the Severn Valley Railway, where they are based today. CHRIS BLADON
Quarry, loaded at the Marsh Sidings, under the jurisdiction of a shunter who occupied a small adjacent cabin.
The society’s Parkend tenancy included the site of the goods shed siding, but the track had gone and it needed to be relaid if rolling stock was to be stored.
The first item of rolling stock arrived at Parkend on September 5 in the form of eightseater Wickham trolley No. WD9045, which was saved from a Pontypool scrapyard, while a GWR Toad brakevan and two Mica B vans were acquired from Avonmouth Docks.
Basil, a small Hunslet diesel shunter, came from Standard Telephones and Cables in Newport, but the big landmark was the purchase of the society’s first steam locomotive. Peckett 0-4-0ST No. 2147 of 1952 Uskmouth No. 1, which had just been been replaced by a diesel shunter at Uskmouth Power Station, came with a current boiler certificate.
Open day
The society held its inaugural steam open day at Parkend on October 23, 1971, with the stock shunted out on to the Marsh Branch siding for the day, and Uskmouth No. 1 formally handed over and giving rides under a ‘local arrangement’ with BR.
By that year’s end, membership had increased to 360, and plans were made to extend the siding by 60ft to encourage the Forest Prairie Fund committee to bring No. 5541 to Parkend for restoration.
Built at Swindon in 1928, No. 5541 was a veteran of Somerset lines to Radstock, Wells, Portishead, Clevedon, and Weston-superMare, as well as the Cambrian Coast Line and the Launceston branch. Withdrawn in July 1962, it arrived at Barry scrapyard the following November, and waited almost a decade to become the 25th locomotive saved from Woodham Bros for heritage purposes, arriving at Parkend on October 1972, and being returned to traffic three years later.
The society agreed to buy GWR auto-trailer No. W167, which arrived at Parkend on the last booked BR train in 1976, having undergone much restoration in Gloucester. It formed part of the society’s first passenger train hauled by No. 5541 in March 1978. The last BR goods train left Parkend on March 26, 1976, and much of the track was dismantled.
Expansion
In 1978, for use as its headquarters, the railway bought the Norchard site, which previously housed a colliery and a coal-fired power station. Open days similar to those at Parkend were organised to raise funds, and the line’s main engineering base was developed there.
The watershed moment came in 1986 when the trackbed of the Lydney to Parkend ‘main line’ was purchased from BR. The line to Lydney Lakeside (later St Mary’s Halt and now closed) was subsequently opened.
Following the completion of the A48 bypass in the early 1990s, the railway crossed it via a new level crossing and in 1995 ran into Lydney Junction for the first time. Vegetation had been busy claiming the track north of Norchard, but nonetheless did not deter the railway from pushing north. Tufts Junction, where major bridge works were required, was reached in 2001, Whitecroft in 2003 and finally Parkend in 2006, when steam services first arrived on March 25. Parkend station was opened by the Princess Royal on May 19 that year.
Norchard, the heritage line’s main station, houses an impressive museum, gift shop, cafe, toilets, the ticket office, and a spacious free car park to welcome visitors. Footpaths provide access to the forest from Norchard, many with views of the trains. The station has two stations, Low Level (two platforms) and High Level, which has just one platform (Platform 3) serving trains from both Lydney Junction and Parkend, making it the main platform.