Wrington Vale Light Railway

The Wrington Vale Light Railway was a railway from Congresbury on the Cheddar Valley Line to Blagdon, and serving villages in the Yeo Valley, North Somerset. Construction of the line started in 1897 and it opened in 1901.

Passenger services

Initially trains generally ran from Yatton, the junction for the main line between Bristol and Exeter, and traversed 1.8 miles of the Cheddar Valley line (the 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 only.

Construction and traffic

The railway's primary purpose was to bring construction materials for the building of the Blagdon Lake reservoir. Construction of the line overran cost and time forecasts. It was constructed and owned by the Great Western Railway. The GWR used it to trial various innovative schemes to reduce the cost of lightly used passenger services, such as the push-pull system, where driver's controls are provided in a trailer coach, enabling the locomotive to propel its train, eliminating the need for the engine to run round at the end of a run, and so cutting costs.

Milk traffic was a considerable source of business on the line.

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 buildings on the line to have survived until the present day are Blagdon station, which is now part of a private residence, and the stationmaster's house at Burrington, although it has been 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