Report - Bleadon & Uphill Station, September 1983

[Bovine]

This was a small country station on the Bristol to Exeter main line. After closure on October 5 1964, a small railway museum was established in the goods yard and called the Yieldingtree Railway Museum. This had been closed for quite a while when visited, but the yard gates were open on this fine September evening, so a sneak explore ensued. Happily, all the items were eventually removed for preservation elsewhere.

The entrance, with an engineless railbus visible

The former station building, note the Scammell 3 wheel truck in the background

1898 built ex Cardiff Railway No 1338

Hunslet 0-4-0Tank No 1684 of 1931, ex Kilmersdon colliery, Somerset

 

[westernsultan]

Yieldingtree Railway Museum at Bleadon & Uphill Station near Weston Super Mare was run by Bob Smallman in the 1960s. The origin of the museum was that the station was adjacent to his house and when it became an unstaffed halt, he was able to rent it for the purpose of a museum. Besides 1338, there were also many narrow-gauge exhibits including from Ireland. After it initially closed, it was reopened as the Somerset Railway Museum on 7th June 1969 and exhibits included the BR Railbus. I cannot find a date for final closure. My picture of 0-4-0ST 1338 was taken in July 1976

 

[Calamity Jane]

Bit different. But I came across this I would nosey. Nice one

 

[Seffy]

Interesting that - thanks for sharing!

 

[westernsultan]

I’ve found some information about the railbus
W79976 was built by AC Cars in 1958 and delivered to the Western Region for staff training in August of that year. Alongside classmates W79975, W79977 and W79978, it was put to work on the Kemble-Cirencester Town and Kemble-Tetbury branch lines from February 1959 until closure in April 1964. W79976 and W79975 were used on services between Yeovil Town and Yeovil Junction starting from December 1964. When Yeovil Town closed in October 1966 the services continued through to Yeovil Pen Mill but the railbuses soon found themselves displaced by larger DMUs. As with the other AC Cars railbuses, W79976 was transferred to Scotland in January 1967 and operated around Ayr, chiefly on the branch line to Kilmarnock. However, it did not last long in service and in January 1968 it was officially withdrawn.
It then went to the museum at Bleadon & Uphill station and was donated to the Bodmin & Wenford Railway when Bleadon closed. Bodmin removed some seats and used it as a static buffet before setting it aside for disposal. It moved it to County School in Norfolk before it was taken to the Colne Valley Railway where its sister W79978 was based. It was then moved again, to the Great Central where the group restoring the Mountsorrel branch were interested in restoring it for use on their line. The engine, gearbox and final drive were removed by BR at Ayr in 1968 before it went to Somerset as they are standard DMU components which could be re-used on other classes. It’s been a shell at the back of the running shed at Loughborough for some years with no restoration done. It needed to be moved as the GCR expands, and there was a crowd funding page set up to take it to Wirksworth, but that fell through and the vehicle was transferred to new ownership, with movement to Nemesis Rail's Burton depot following. W79976 is now stored at Nemesis Rail.