The Midland & South Western Junction Railway

Compiled by Jeffery Grayer (hardback, Totem Publishing, 80pp, £13.50 inc p&p. Cheques payable to: Transport Treasury Publishing, 16 Highworth Close, High Wycombe, HP13 7PJ. ISBN-978-1-913893-27-9)

WITH the Midland & South Western Junction Railway being a line of which I knew very little, writes Geoff Courtney, before reviewing this latest publication I had to carry out a certain amount of research, with much help from the compiler’s introduction. What was the railway’s route, for example? How long was it? When did the whole route open to passengers, when did it close, and has any of the infrastructure survived?

In order, the answers are Andover to Andoversford, 61 miles, August 1891, September 1961, and very little comprising only an occasional bridge or embankment.

There is, though, a small qualification to the closure question. Jeffery Grayer tells us that, as many readers doubtless know, the Swindon & Cricklade Railway Society is seeking to recreate a flavour of the old route on its preserved 2½mile section, while in addition, there is a short stretch of single track from Andover to Lugdershall that remains in situ and is occasionally used by MoD traffic and is also the subject of a campaign to have it reopened to passenger trains.

However, from a possible future to the past, and to a railway that the compiler says had limited coverage by contemporary photographers due to its infrequent services, which in the case of some stations amounted to one train a day in each direction. The publisher, though, has come to the rescue thanks to its collection of sufficient images from several sources.

With there being no map of the line in the book, which would have been much appreciated due to the railway’s low profile, I resorted to a website map that provided a geographical guide as I wound my pictorial way from the publication’s beginning at Red Post Junction, west of Andover, to Andoversford Junction near Cheltenham – a trip of 61 miles, despite the names being nearly identical.

On the way north we pass though, among others, the aforementioned station of Ludgershall – “a rather bleak and windswept station not particularly welcoming to the ordinary passenger,” says Jeffery, Savernake High Level with its 1898 water tower, and Marlborough with a refreshment room that opened in 1884 and doubled up as a hostelry complete with dartboard, and remained open for some time after the station’s closure in 1961.

Continuing the northward journey, we find GWR 0-6-0PT No. 9740 and SR U class 2-6-0 No. 31793 at Swindon Town, the location of the railway’s HQ that was inevitably overshadowed by the main GWR presence in the town, and nearing journey’s end we are into Cricklade, which a 1960 BR survey revealed was used by an average of one passenger a day joining a train and none alighting.

One wonders how the single passenger returned home.

Finally, we pull into Cirencester Watermoor, which in the early 1920s boasted a locomotive works that employed 80 men, and through three more stations to Andoversford Junction, including an image of a train on September 9, 1961, the last Saturday of operation.

After this spotlight on the stations come five further chapters, on the Southampton to Cheltenham service, the Swindon HQ, the Savernake Shuttle, the line’s motive power, and a finale, which includes photographs of GWR No. 7808 Cookham Manor on a seven-coach Stephenson Locomotive Society special on September 10, 1961, the day before the line’s official closure.

Of all the station and steam locomotive photographs, one image that lingers in the memory is of Swindon Town stationmaster Mr Webb and booking clerk Mrs Williams dutifully posing for the camera beside 0-6-0PT No. 4697 on September 8, 1961, just days before the closure of the station.

As Jeffery Grayer writes, the couple were doubtless finding it difficult to raise a smile, shortly being made redundant, adding:“This brings home the stark reality of railway closures which affected not just passengers, but also the staff who had loyally served the line often for many years.”

Railway enthusiasts everywhere will endorse that observation.

A PICTORIAL INSIGHT INTO A LOWPROFILE RAILWAY