Wrington Vale Light Railway

The former start of the branch at Yatton is now the Strawberry Line railway walk

The Wrington Vale Light Railway was a railway serving villages in the Yeo Valley, North Somerset. Construction started in 1897 and the line opened in 1901.

Passenger services

The railway opened for passenger traffic in 1901 and trains mostly ran from Yatton, the junction for the main line between Bristol and Exeter. For the first 1.8 miles, trains followed the Great Western Railway Yatton to Witham route (via Cheddar and Wells) that had opened in 1869. The junction for the light railway was at Congresbury, where the station was given a second platform when the Wrington line opened. There were four other stations at Wrington, Langford, Burrington and the terminus at Blagdon.

The first train out of Blagdon in the morning went only as far as Congresbury, and returned to Blagdon from there. Other trains ran through from or to Yatton. In 1910, there were five trains a day in each direction on weekdays, but none on Sundays.

Construction and traffic

The railway's primary purpose was to bring materials for the building of the Blagdon Lake reservoir. Construction of the line was over-budget and over-schedule. It was constructed and owned by the Great Western Railway; due to its Light Railway status its owners used it as a trial track for various innovative, low-cost, passenger transport initiatives, such as having driver's controls in the end of the rear carriage, eliminating the need for the engine to run round and so cutting costs. The line also carried a lot of milk traffic.

Closure

The railway carried passengers for 30 years until 1931. Passenger traffic was vulnerable to competition from buses and of the stations on the line, only Wrington was conveniently situated for the village it purported to serve. Freight service continued along the length of the line until 1950, when the section between Wrington and Blagdon was closed fully. Freight services continued from Congresbury to Wrington until June 1963; Congresbury itself retained passenger services until later in 1963, when it closed with the rest of the Yatton to Witham line. The track on the Wrington Vale line was lifted and station buildings either demolished or left for derelict. The only two station buildings on the line to have survived until the present day are Blagdon, which is now part of a private residence, and the stationmaster's house at Burrington, although much extended.

Possible reinstatement

A scheme was considered in the 1970s to install a short section of narrow-gauge track near Congresbury as a tourist attraction, however this did not come to be. Apart from this no attempt has yet been made to rebuild all or part of the railway. There are several obstacles if the railway were to be rebuilt. There has been some development on the trackbed at Wrington, and Burrington cutting has been filled in, but otherwise the trackbed is still intact. The other obstacle is the current residential occupation of Blagdon Station.

References

• 1910 Bradshaw's Railway Guide
• Somerset Railway Stations by Mike Oakley, Dovecote Press, 2002