The W.C.P. Railway was a fairly typical country railway complete with a whole coach load of affectionate memories. Fans of the Sherlock Holmes stories will have noticed that whenever a particularly dastardly crime took place out of London, the Great Detective could always get to the scene by rail. Those were the days when even the most rural areas were served by a line studded with picturesque stations beautifully cared for by the staff.
It was all part of a network on which, once Greenwich Mean Time had been accepted nationwide, you could usually plan a complex journey and expect, reasonably, that the railways would get you fairly close to your destination.
Every little branch line had its own eccentricities, many of which have become almost folklore. Pretty typical was the Weston, Clevedon and Portishead Railway The W.C.P. was something of a joke from start to finish. It took 12 years to build the first eight miles and another 10 years for the next six miles. It opened between Weston and Clevedon in 1885 and was extended to Portishead in 1907 - a move which pushed the company into receivership. By then, the company had run up a debt equivalent to a million pounds by present day values and it remained in receivership for the rest of its life.
The ramshackle rolling stock, extraordinary level-crossing system and haphazard attitude to passengers on the W.C.P. were the cause of much local hilarity - and frustration. The coaches were a cancelled order for the Argentine railway and had very un-English open verandas at each end. In addition, there were 12 four wheeled carriages ( bought second hand ) and 28 assorted wagons.
A favourite local joke was advising visitors to - Go on the W.C.P, and there were claims that cowcatchers were fixed on the rear of trains to prevent damage to coaches from overtaking cattle ? Then there were characters like Charlie Coles - who was said to have stopped one train he was driving to pick mushrooms to fry on the fireman's shovel. He would throw lumps of coal at passing pheasants and blow yard-wide smoke rings as his engine climbed Walton Park incline.
Another crew held up their train at Clapton-in-Gordano - so they could join a wedding reception in the village church. Driver George Morgan, an ex-soldier would often turn up drunk on pension day and clip minutes off the timetable by driving at hair-raising speeds. Guard Jack Riddick took his refreshment en route - he would jump off as the train reached Kenn Road level- crossing, sink a pint with the crossing keeper and rejoin the train when it crossed the road.
The operating system was somewhat unique too. The weird petrol-driven rail car used between the wars sometimes pulled a small trailer. To link the two, the railcar charged at the trailer at speed, hitting it so hard that it was often knocked a hundred yards down the track ?
A anonymous poet commented: 'Of snails and tortoises I've heard lots of talk. But if I'd been in a hurry I'd have got out to walk'. And not surprising, either. Because of the level-crossings en route, it took half-an-hour to travel just eight miles from Clevedon to Weston. But if anything sums up the haphazard way in which the line was run, it was its most spectacular accident. A bridge across East Town rhine, near Wick St Lawrence, had just been renovated.
Unfortunately, the engine chosen to pull an ash train was just too heavy and was catapulted into the water when the bridge collapsed. They couldn't get a crane to the scene because the Yeo bridge wouldn't carry the weight, so the engine had to he jacked up with the aid of 300 chopped-up sleepers.
The W.C.P did approach the GWR to buy them out but the GWR insisted the line was brought up to minimum standard first. That would have cost £30,000 and the railway didn't have that. So it closed in 1940. It was still in receivership and had no directors or shareholders, and no one could be found with the authority to dispose of the assets Some of the rails were lifted for the war effort, squatters started building pig sties and hen houses on the track but an effort to revive the railway in 1955 foundered when they still couldn't discover who actually owned it.
People were especially fond of a pair of American- style coaches, complete with end verandas, which had been bought new from a Mid-West company. The most famous loco on the WCP line was Northiam, which, transformed, became Gladstone in the 1937 Will Hay classic 'Oh! Mr Porter'... But if anything summed up the haphazard way in which the line was run, it was a most spectacular accident.
A bridge across a rhine near Wick St Lawrence had just been renovated. Unfortunately, the engine chosen to pull the train was just too heavy for it and was catapulted into the water when the bridge collapsed.
They couldn't get a crane to the scene because the Yeo bridge wouldn't carry the weight, so the engine had to be jacked up with the aid of 300 chopped-up sleepers. Some devout passengers would make the sign of the cross when crossing the 240ft-long rickety bridge. The WCP even made it into the realms of poetry. The Rev W. Gregory Harris wrote in 1925: ' There ez a line in Zummerset (and aw! to think o't makes I zwet); The queerest quaintest thinh I ween that ivver wuz by martals zeen.'
Children who used the line would sing: 'Of snails and tortoises I've heard lots of talk. But if anybody was in a hurry it would have been faster to get off and walk. The fastest the trains could go was 25mph and that was with a strong wind behind it. The WCP closed on May 18th, 1940, after an incredible 32 years in the hands of the Official Receiver. It was sadly missed.
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