THE Thursday, February 9, meeting was very well attended.

Graham Sturgess – trustee of the Vale of Berkeley Railway – gave an illustrated talk on the VBR’s conception and history, the assembled locomotive and rolling stock fleet, and plans for running the heritage branch line and its workshop facilities at present and into the future.

The speaker began with a history of the line, starting in the 1870s, when interest was growing in linking up the railway lines of the Dean Forest with the mainline from Birmingham to Bristol in order to speed up the transportation of coal from the Forest.

Work started on the construction of the Severn Railway Bridge in 1875 by the Severn Bridge Railway Company with the line from Berkeley Road (on the MR mainline) to Lydney via Sharpness and the Severn Bridge fully on October 17, 1879.

Soon after this the Severn and Wye and Severn Bridge Railway Company was formed, but went bankrupt in 1893.

Unusually the following year the line was jointly purchased by the Great Western Railway (GWR) and Midland Railway (MR).

At this point the railway was renamed the Severn and Wye Joint Railway (S&WJR). The main revenue for the company was from coal and mineral trains. Passenger trains also ran, but from the 1950s the passenger services on other parts of the ex S&WJR were slowly discontinued.

The service from Berkeley Road to Lydney via Sharpness continued, until the night of October 25, 1960.

That night, in thick fog and with a high tide, two barges – Arkendale H and Wasdale H – missed the entrance to Sharpness Docks and hit column 17 of the bridge.

The barges were carrying about 10,000 gallons of petroleum/heavy fuel oil which ignited, fracturing the gas pipeline on the bridge, resulting in two of the 22 spans collapsing on the barges, sadly killing five crew members.

As a result of the accident, the passenger service was severed and by 1964 the stations were closed.

The bridge itself was never repaired and in 1967 work started on its demolition, which was completed in 1970.

However by the early 1960s Berkeley & Oldbury Power Station came into operation, by 1964 at Berkeley (ex-station goods yard) a special gantry crane was erected for the transfer of nuclear fuel flasks by train to Sellafield. Nuclear traffic still continues to use the line today.

In 2015 the Vale of Berkeley Railway was founded, and has a phased approach to building a heritage line in co-operation with Network Rail.

The first phase is to build a temporary station on the edge of Forest Sidings at Sharpness and link to another temporary station at Berkeley.

The second phase aims to reconstruct the original 1878 MR Sharpness Station and GWR signal box.

While the actual station buildings have gone, some of the original platforms still survive.

A line would then be taken off Oldminster junction to this station site.

Phase two would also concentrate on improving facilities at Berkeley, perhaps starting reconstruction work of the 1875 MR station building itself and re-installing a suitable MR signal box.

Later phases would look to developing the railway further, possibly extending further up the line towards Berkeley Road and improving facilities for visitors.

Rolling stock and locomotives are currently being restored in the dockyard loco shed (this is a temporary but well-equipped engineering facility – that will move to the forest sidings area in later years).

Motive power at Sharpness currently includes diesel Class 14 & 03, while steam locomotives include an LMS 4F and Black Five, to name a few.

At the end of the show Mr Kelsey conducted a question and answers session, and then gave the speaker a vote of thanks.

A donation to the VBR signalling fund from our society was also made.

The next Wings and Wheels meeting is on Thursday, March 9, at 8pm in Dursley Community Centre GL11 4BX.

Paul Barnett will give an illustrated talk titled “The Severn Railway Bridge”. This will focus on the life of this historic site, including the bridge disaster.

Paul will talk about the time of the railway bridge’s design, and along the way hopes to unravel several myths by presenting some newly discovered evidence.

For more information please contact Rich on 01453 544489, or visit www.wingsandwheelssociety.org.uk