Woolfonts & Chickmarsh Railway

 Sponsored by the Beechbourne  Herald & Courier 

The Woolfonts & Chickmarsh Railway is a 29.3 mi (47.15 km) community railway line in Wiltshire and Dorset, England, which operates both as a micro-franchised community and heritage railway and a relief commercial (goods) railway under an operating agreement with National Rail, First Great Western (now GWR), South Western Railway, and, as stakeholders, Wiltshire and Dorset Councils. The freehold of the track and stations is owned by the Duke of Taunton and the Taunton Estate; the railway is leased to and operated by WCR Ltd, which is supported and majority owned by the charitable trust the Woolfonts & Chickmarsh Railway Trust (W&CR Trust), itself enfolding the Woolfonts & District Community Rail Partnership. Its other shareholders are the Taunton Estate (2.5 per cent) and Sir Thomas Douty Bt (2.5 percent).

WCR Ltd operates services using modern steam trains built to match, visually, classic Great Western rolling stock; National Rail / GWR / SWR relief services run diesel and DMU traffic on the line when they avail themselves of it.

The Woolfonts & Chickmarsh Railway (1849)
The then Duke of Taunton, with other County magnates including the then Duke of Trowbridge, seized early upon the pleasing monetary prospects of a railway – so long as it might be engineered so as not to detract from their own pleasant visual prospects from their own parks and windows. The merchants of Beechbourne and Chickmarsh, and of Warminster, were swiftly recruited to the project (the Doutys, who possessed as a family both gentry and mercantile branches, of whom the latter were mostly bankers, subscribed considerable funds); and, with two dukes as moving spirits, Parliamentary approval was quickly achieved.

From the beginning, it was clear that the W&CR was to have close associations with the Great Western Railway, as evidenced by its adopting broad gauge from the start, and by its securing the services of Isambard Kingdom Brunel as its Chief Engineer: the post he also held with the GWR. Within six years’ time of the initial proposal and incorporation, and five of the Act of Parliament approving the W&CR, work had begun on the permanent way for the line from Woolfont Magna to Chickmarsh.

Great Western ‘association’ (1854 – 1892)
An ‘association’ between the W&CR and the GWR was formalised in 1854. Unlike such instances as the GWR’s backing of such nominally independent railways as the Wilts, Somerset & Weymouth Railway and the Berks & Hants, which were in fact mere fronts for the GWR, this was in effect an operating agreement, which preserved the independence of the W&CR and passed the hard graft of running the railway to the GWR in return for a perpetual lease and the right to work the line subject to the W&CR’s local traffic wants. In this regard, the situation was most like that obtaining on such lines as the East Somerset and the Somerset & Dorset Joint.

The pace of operations picked up immediately – although the railroad’s bye-name, ‘The Whenever-and-Chancy’, remained affixed to it amongst humorists – and its headquarters and sheds were moved to Woolfont Parva, which, with Woolfont Crucis, became the effective headquarters of the line. Generally, however, most work was contracted out to the GWR at Swindon.

Great Western acquisition (1892)
A temporary crisis in 1892, attendant upon the final conversion to standard gauge, a mild financial panic, and the fall of Lord Salisbury’s Conservative government, coincided with the then Duke of Taunton’s being ''hors de combat. ''The friendly days of thirty years prior, when Lord Shelburne, afterward the 4th Marquess of Lansdowne, was Chairman of the GWR, and any issues between the Great Western and the W&CR could be settled over the port by His Lordship and Their Graces the Dukes of Taunton and of Trowbridge, were past. Frederick Saunders, the GWR Chairman in 1892, was a hard-headed businessman, tout court; and he seized the opportunity to buy out the W&CR and absorb it fully into the GWR even at a very stiff premium.

Thereafter, it was run as a branch and relief line, mostly for goods traffic, of the GWR, and then, after regrouping, of the GWR in its Big Four guise.

Nationalisation and closure (1948; 1963)
Despite a fiercely fought rearguard action by Lord Portal and the GWR, nationalisation came in 1948; and the former W&CR was one of the first branch lines for the chop, a decade and a half prior to the berserk axe-wielding of Dr Beeching. It was at this time that Manny Shinwell, by then demoted to the post of Secretary of State for War, worked off a personal and class-warfare spite (as at Wentworth Woodhouse) by conniving with functionaries in British Railways’ Western Region and the British Transport Commission to have the Duchess of Taunton Railway Bridge (see below) demolished, ostensibly as a Sapper exercise.

The succeeding fifteen years saw a running battle, and indeed a race, between governmental bodies and the Taunton Estate Trustees and successive Dukes of Trowbridge, to preserve what of the old W&CR fabric could be preserved, by suits at law and by slapping preservation orders on it and scheduling and listing it under heritage designations.

The track and permanent way could not be thus protected, and in 1963, it began to be dismantled even before the full adoption of Dr Beeching’s notions.

Restoration
From at least his father’s succession in the dukedom, His Grace the current Duke of Taunton – an ‘out-and-proud-anorak’ – has meant to restore the W&CR. It surprised the District – and, equally, surprised no one at all – when, once the legislative and political environment were alike favourable under the Coalition, he ‘allowed himself to be persuaded’ to tackle the project; it surprised the District – and, equally, surprised no one at all – that he had long since had plans in place to do so. Canon Paddick made the suggestion to Sir Thomas Douty Bt, who had then recently become a widower, that he might aid the Duke in that project: partly, it seems, to cause both men to make friends with one another after decades of sniping.

Sir Thomas’ City-trained financial acumen, and the Duke’s money, connexions, and cunning, further enhanced when HG the Duke of Trowbridge was got on board, fired the community to become engaged and went through governmental and civil service reservations and delays like the proverbial dose of salts.

A community rail partnership called itself from the vasty deep with great celerity. The scheme was attached to proposals for training and education, and economic revitalisation, which were politically impossible to oppose. A cross-party working (and ginger) group in the House appeared like mushrooms in a lawn, chaired by Sir Gerry Druce QC MP, Conservative Member for Tidnock and Dane Valley (in which constituency His Grace’ Tidnock Hall is … coincidentally … located). The proposal to use the resurrected line as a proving ground for modern steam enthused not only railway anoraks, but environmentalists and industry. CAMRA threw itself upon the Real Ale Rail Ale scheme with cries of joy.

The pressure was irresistible; the forward motion, inexorable. The old ‘Whenever-and-Chancy’ had returned as the new W&CR: inevitably nicknamed the ‘Well-bred-and-Cricketing’, which perturbed His Grace not at all.

Micro-franchising and National Rail
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">By 2014, the line had been recreated, and was fully reopened early in 2015: all in just over a year and a bit, and employing and training a staggering number of young people in the District and, at the time, in Swindon, alongside older folk and some remaining GWR veterans who recalled the old, grand days. His Grace had brought together the Swiss engineer-wizards of DLM AG, Sir James Dyson, and James May, to make modern steam a reality which compelled belief and emulation; and the engineering, the permanent way construction, the historic restoration, and the daily operations of the railway, through training and employment, inspired the subsequent creation of STETHEL, the Trust created by His Grace to give work and FE to school-leavers not going on to University, apprentices, NEETs, and wounded and other demobbed former members of HM Forces.

<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">A designated community rail line, the new W&CR was swiftly micro-franchised to serve its designated community, full recognition being granted by DfT in May of 2014; and His Grace and Sir Thomas moved swiftly to make the line indispensable as well as untouchable, by entering into working agreements with National Rail and its franchisees.

Relief operations
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">The W&CR today therefore operates on three levels. It is a heritage railway which is also heavily involved in testing and refining modern steam. It is a community railway carrying on passenger and goods traffic at a profit, seventy-five per cent. of which is required to be reinvested in the operating Trust and the remainder of which is required to be invested in local charities. And it is a relief line for National Rail traffic: commonly goods traffic, but including passenger traffic relief when wanted.

Management and direction
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Owing to the W&CR’s being much more than a heritage railway of the usual sort, it relies very little upon volunteers, even in the gift shop; its Chief Operating Director is Steve Paddick, Canon Paddick’s father, formerly of the railway section of Tarmac.

Route
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">The route – and bridges – of today reflect the form which the original W&CR took during its ‘association’ with the original GWR.

Warminster / Warminster Kingbarrow to Woolfont Crucis / Woolfont Parva
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Woolfont Crucis Station and Woolfont Parva Halt – the latter so designated (as is Woolfont Abbas Rural Halt) for historic reasons, but (as is Woolfont Abbas Rural Halt) in fact a station in all but name, being the headquarters, TMD, and Swindon-Works-in-parvo of the line – are considered jointly as the central and headquarters station on the line, such that any train towards these in either direction is an ‘up’ train and any trains away are ‘down’ trains.

<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">The main line from Warminster, as a junction, and Warminster Kingbarrow as the first W&CR station, up to Crucis / Parva, runs from Warminster, over the Kingbarrow Railway Bridge, to Warminster Kingbarrow, over the Duchess of Trowbridge Railway Bridge, to Sharpington Station, Beechbourne Station, Chickmarsh Station, Chalkhills Halt, and Woolfont Magna Station, to Crucis and Parva.

<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Scenically, it takes in, after Kingbarrow, the Wylye Valley, views of the Deverills, the Duke of Trowbridge’s country including Sutton Littlecombe, Sharpington, and views of Littlecompte House, Beechbourne, Chickmarsh, the Woolbury Stud, Woolfont Magna, and Claudius’ Camp, as well as Woolfont Crucis and Woolfont Parva, with the railway’s headquarters, sheds, works, and depot, and the Woolfont Brewery.

Bridges
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:1.47in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">The Kingbarrow Railway Bridge has been recreated to a Brunel design, with the alteration of its materials to Chickmarsh stone in place of brick. It is a two-arch, elliptical skew arch bridge over the River Wylye, with a deeply-raked course of rusticated stone at the base of the piers, ashlared stone body, stone quoins, and a parapet with barley-sugar balusters. Brunel designed it as an elaboration upon his bridge designs at Moulsford and Gatehampton; his design replaced an earlier W&CR iron bridge. It is a Grade I listed structure.

<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:1.47in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">The Duchess of Trowbridge Railway Bridge – so named because it recrosses the R. Wylye between Warminster Kingbarrow and Sharpington, which latter station is within the Dukes of Trowbridge’s country – is a stone three-arched bridge of similar appearance, with an embattled parapet and at the head of the central pier a carved representation of the marital arms of the the then Duke and Duchess of Trowbridge. It was designed by Charles Barry the Younger, and is a Grade II* listed structure; it is the original bridge, the magnates behind the original railway having insisted upon consequential architecture where the line crossed their estates. The bridge is a scheduled monument and has been preserved in excellent condition since the closure of the original railway; Scheduled Monument Consent was obtained for its reopening as a railway bridge upon the reopening of the line.

The Yarncombes to Tisbury Connecting / Tisbury
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:0.98in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">This branch line to Tisbury as a junction leaves the main line just down from The Yarncombes Station and heads Eastwards to Tisbury Connecting Station, where passengers may depart, and thence, for goods and passengers who so choose, directly to the junction at Tisbury Station, crossing the Nadder on the Nadder Railway Bridge.

Bridges
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:1.47in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">There is one bridge on the branch, over the River Nadder between Tisbury Connecting and Tisbury Station. Designed by Robert Pearson Brereton in 1863, after Brunel’s death, the Nadder Railway Bridge is a thoroughly Victorian wrought iron truss arch bridge of two spans, with a central brick-faced iron pier, and is listed Grade II.

Woolfont Crucis / Woolfont Parva to Gillingham Peacemarsh / Gillingham
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">The main line down to Gillingham Peacemarsh, the last W&CR station before the junction at Gillingham Station, is perhaps the most scenic portion of what is throughout a quite scenic railway. It runs past Abbot’s Glebe and Woolfont Abbas, over the Duchess of Taunton Railway Bridge across the River Wolfbourne above Wool Ford, through Woolfont Abbas Rural Halt – the station (in all save name) for Wolfdown House – and Agincourt Ducis Station (the Gurkha station), over the Somerford Harstbourne Railway Bridge, to All Somerfords Station, Semelford Malet Station, Wadhay Station, The Yarncombes (Stoke Yarncombe With Yarncombe Mitton) Station, over the Yarncombe Railway Bridge (just down from which the branch line to Tisbury Connecting for Tisbury leaves the main line), over the Sennell Railway Bridge, to Gillingham Peacemarsh Station, the last W&CR station on the line, and to the junction at Gillingham Station. It thus takes in views of Wool Ford, Wolf Down, Wolfdown House, the neo-Georgian new build for old Gurkhas of HM Forces and their families at Agincourt, the Downlands (and Tenter Down to the Eastwards), a distant prospect of Wodewough Wood, Coytmoor Wood to the Eastwards, the Vale and the River Sennell, and the downland country between the Vale of Sennell and Shaftesbury and Gillingham.

<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">After crossing upon the Sennell Railway Bridge, the grade becomes rather steeper in places, which is why the branch line to the junction, at Tisbury, with the West of England Main Line, was opened as – and remains – a preferred route for the heavier goods traffic, although it carries and has always carries passengers as well. The modern steam of today’s W&CR has eliminated this concern, and goods trains quite easily now run to and from the West of England Main Line via Gillingham Peacemarsh as well as by the Tisbury Connecting branch line.

Bridges
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:1.47in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">There are four main line railway bridges between Parva and Peacemarsh.

<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:1.47in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">The Duchess of Taunton Railway Bridge spans the River Wolfbourne between Crucis / Parva and Woolfont Abbas Rural Halt / Agincourt Ducis Station. It is a facsimile recreation of the former bridge of that name, which was destroyed at the personal instance of Manny Shinwell in 1948, out of sheer personal spite (but ostensibly as a training exercise for the Royal Engineers, who very nearly mutinied over the orders). The recreated bridge, like the original, is based upon the design of Rennie’s Dundas Aqueduct, as the then Duke had insisted in creating the original W&CR (he preferring Georgian architecture to Victorian). It is all of Chickmarsh stone; and the sole variance from the original structure is that the new bridge adds, to the original bridge’s display of the marshalled arms of the then Duke and Duchess, the achievements of the current Duke and Duchess. It is to be scheduled in 2018, likely as a Grade II listed structure (being a recreation, it is unlikely it to attain any higher classification).

<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:1.47in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">The Somerford Harstbourne Railway Bridge makes one of two crossings of the Harst Bourne on the line, between Agincourt Ducis and All Somerfords station. It is a single-arched span in Chickmarsh stone, with an elliptical arch, designed by Robert Pearson Brereton, Brunel’s chief assistant, and, but for its being rather in stone than in brick, could be one of the arches of Brunel’s Maidenhead Railway Bridge. It replaced an earlier W&CR iron bridge, and is listed Grade II.

<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:1.47in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">The Yarncombe Railway Bridge makes the second of the line’s two crossings of the Harst Bourne just down from The Yarncombes Station, and just prior to the junction of the branch line to Tisbury Connecting with the main line. It is a Brunel-and-Brereton-designed replacement of the earlier W&CR iron bridge, and is in brick with Chickmarsh stone quoinings and cutwaters, brick being the characteristic building material in the Vale. The Harst Bourne being at this point at its widest on the line as it proceeds towards its debouch into the River Sennell, the Yarncombe Railway Bridge is a two-arch elliptical skew arch bridge very similar to the Kingbarrow Railway Bridge. It is listed Grade II.

<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:1.47in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">The final bridge on the main line, the Sennell Railway Bridge, marks the start of the increased grade to Gillingham Peacemarsh. Brunel’s design, to which the current bridge is built, is a redaction in miniature of his design for the Royal Albert Bridge over the R. Tamar between Plymouth and Saltash, consisting of two lenticular iron trusses upon Chickmarsh stone masonry piers. The adaptation of the Brunel design was carried out by Brereton. The bridge is listed Grade II*.

Stations
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">The restored or recreated stations and other buildings of the line are also those of the original W&CR in its GWR halcyon days. They are, from Warminster to Gillingham, as follows (the descriptions are in part taken, by kind permission, from the railway’s official history; stations in italics are Grade II, stations in bold italics Grade II*, stations in bold are Grade I):


 * <p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Warminster Kingbarrow: a Chickmarsh rubble, Victorian Gothick station with ashlared and raked Chickmarsh stone quoinings and window dressings, a Tudor bay window, and lancet windows.
 * <p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Sharpington: in the duke of Trowbridge’s country: ‘Sharpington of the riotous canopies, an eﬀusion of Strawberry Hill Gothick Revival which, it was generally suspected, had been filched from Johnson of Birkenhead and run through (in the words of Kenneth Clark) three bottles of port, a volume of Ruskin, and a committee (likely comprised of Barlow, Woodward, and Deane).’
 * <p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%">Beechbourne: cod-Jacobean in form, its train shed like a hall or long gallery or tithe barn, recreating in wrought iron a hammerbeam roof.
 * <p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%">Chickmarsh: ‘that overweening polychrome monstrosity which Butterfield had wrought at his most ecclesiastically Romantic, and which always amuses Fr Campion as being just what his own college (Fr Paul Campion, like Canon Paddick, is a Keble man) had been had it been a railway station. (The duke, who was of course up at the House, insists Keble is.)’
 * <p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%">Chalkhills: To the pattern of Warminster Kingbarrow.
 * <p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%">Woolfont Magna: a smaller-sized Brunel’s Old Station, Bristol.
 * <p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%">Woolfont Crucis: the centre point on which the parishes rested in their balance, ‘its station something Brunel should have called home were he brought back to see it’. Designed by Brereton, after Brunel; an expanded Weston Junction Station.
 * <p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%">Woolfont Parva: called, for historical reasons, a halt, but now a station in all save name, serving as it did brewery and hamlet and the railway itself, and rebuilt to an old design of Tite’s, as had been intended when the line had first been planned in the days of the Queen-Empress
 * <p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%">Abbas Rural: ‘a halt in size and traﬃc but, as His Grace’ station, necessarily magnificent and of a station’s rank and precedence’; ‘as His Grace’s all but lodge-gate station, a magniﬁcent Brunelian terminus in fact’; Georgian in design, as originally insisted upon by the then Duke when the railway was begun, and a halt because His Grace had no intention of having it as a scheduled stop for the gawking uninvited. Ferrey was inspired by it in running up the Helen’s Bay halt at Clandeboye for Dufferin and Ava.
 * <p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%">Agincourt Ducis: the new Georgian station which served the new housing for Old Gurkhas, mirroring the new build in its Georgian chastity of stone (as supplied by Hari Dhillon Singh at the ducal quarries).
 * <p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%">All Somerfords: a ‘digniﬁed, curiously ecclesiastical stone station which looked as if Yatton Station and Bradford-on-Avon Station had had a son who’d gone into the Church’.
 * <p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%">Semelford Malet: an extended version of the Twyford Station pattern.
 * <p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%">Wadhay: to Brunel’s 1843 Culham Station pattern.
 * <p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%">The Yarncombes (Stoke Yarncombe With Yarncombe Mitton): ‘a Victorian exuberance by Scott at his least restrained’.


 * <p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Tisbury Connecting: a station of the Melksham pattern.
 * <p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%">Gillingham Peacemarsh: ‘that restored station prodigal of Victorian ironwork, that curious hybrid of Evercreech Junction of old and a cottage orné, in the design of which the inﬂuence of Nash and John Adey Repton was evident: as was natural enough, Blore having done the plans’.

Operation and services
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Heritage traffic as such is run primarily in the Advent and Christmas season; between Easter and Whitsun Week; during the Summer hols; and on Bank Holidays.

<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Regular passenger and goods service is effectively continuous daily, goods services running, in an agricultural district, from 4.00 AM through to Midnight. After 10.00 PM, these generally share the line with relief National Rail goods traffic.

<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Clergy of all faiths and communions, medicos, and schoolchildren going to and from school or school activities ride at the Duke’s personal charges, free to them.

Signalling
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">The W&CR maintains both an ETCS system with TPWS+ and, alike for heritage purposes and as a fallback system, lower quadrant semaphore signalling.

<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">There are signal boxes at Sutton Starveall (Kingbarrow); Toadleaze (Sutton Littlecombe); Buttercombe Down; Pinfold Down; Chalkhills; Wolf Down; Harstbourne Over; Cliff Ambries; Grimmelsmere; Tenterton; Sparverham; Nadder Over (on the Tisbury Connecting branch); Maidensigh; Sen Bridge; Blackmore Monachorum; and Nuns Leaze (Gillingham Peacemarsh). All are visually of the standard GWR main line pattern of the Victorian era.

Rolling stock
<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%">Family class (passenger as of 2017):

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.98in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">In their outer integument, the Family class locomotives resemble the GWR Castle-class (4703 class, 4-6-0). Within, however, each is a marvel of advanced steam. They are liveried in Oxford blue and China red and chrome. They were the first locomotives of the new line, and were originally used for all trains, passenger, goods, and mixed.

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1001 Sir Thomas Douty

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1002 Lord Mallerstang

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1003 Master of Dilton

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1004 Duchess of Taunton (ex-Lady Lacy)

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1005 Lady Trulock (ex-Lady Crispin, ex-Lady Clare)

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1006 Duke of Trowbridge

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1007 Countess of Freuchie

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.98in;margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%;">2016: Added in 2016, these Family class locomotives are modelled visually after GWR’s 6000 Class (King-class), 4-6-0.

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1008 Lord Grampound

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1009 Earl of Builth

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Estate class (goods):

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.98in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Visually based on GWR 1000 Class (County-class) mixed traffic 4-6-0s; began service in 2015/2016.

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1010 Wolfdown

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1011 Tidnock Hall

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1012 Castle Camserney

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1013 Hellgill Hall

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1014 Luineag Lodge

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1015 Isle of Avard

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1016 Melverley Court

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1017 Taunton House 

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1018 Malet House 

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1019 Plas Buallt

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">projected:

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.98in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">An Caisteal

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.98in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Raittsburn Castle

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Cousins class (dual / mixed):

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.98in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Visually (outwardly) GWR 8750-sub-class 5700s, 0-6-0 panniers; since 2016.

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1020 The McCammond

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1021 Earl of Maynooth

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1022 Marquess of Badenoch

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">being built:

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1023 Marquess of Breckland

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1024 Earl of Treskilling

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1025 Baron Ardagh

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">1026 Nawab of Hubli

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Bank engines / shunters / repair:

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.98in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Visually, GWR 9400s – outwardly; 0-6-0 panniers, entered service 2016.

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;"> 1027 Canon

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;"> 1028  Rector

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;"> 1029  Curate

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">projected:

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.98in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Archdeacon of Beechbourne

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-left:0.98in;margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Dean of Wolfdown

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:0.98in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Bishop of Sarum

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Coaches and wagons:

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">A contract commencing in 2020 with Royal Mail shall see the return of TPO vans to service. The W&CR also notably runs milk trains transporting pasteurised milk in bulk and in bond insured against contamination, in next-generation milk tank wagons built to be readily sanitised at the TMD and visually resembling the pre-war three-axle MTW; refrigerated fruit and meat vans, based on the old ‘fruits’ and ‘micas’; ‘beetles and mexes’ and ‘bloaters’ (cattle trucks of various types and fish vans, respectively); and other specialised goods stock: notably to and from the Brewery and the maltings which supply it, including ‘ales’ and ‘granos’. The general term for goods vans, from their Turkey red livery, is ‘red jobs’.

<p align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-left:0.49in;margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Passenger coaches, in Turkey red and ivory, are based upon Toplights, Super Saloons, and the Hawksworth domed-end corridor coaches. Restaurant cars of a pre-war GWR design are laid on for some heritage trains.

Passenger volume
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">ORR statistics for the reporting year of 2016 – 2017 (April to April) record a total passenger volume, exclusive of relief traffic from the National Rail System, of 262,747 passengers.

Goods traffic
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Goods traffic notably includes vegetable produce, meat, livestock, corn, malt, ale, milk and dairy products, spent grains from Woolfont Brewery, and Chickmarsh stone.

Community rail
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">As a designated community rail line, the W&CR is necessarily responsive to community needs (as for instance by carrying pupils to and from school); the 2017 user survey gave it overwhelming approval (97.9 per cent. consider its operations and responsiveness Good, Very Good, or Excellent). Cllr Teddy Gates is diligent in asking after community opinions for the line at every constituency surgery, and His Grace insists upon doing the same at at least one parish meeting a month.

Rail Ale scheme
The Rail Ale scheme for the line is a CAMRA-approved real ale scheme, and includes the Woolfont Brewery as a partner as well as the free houses of the Woolfonts, Downlands, and Vale.

As the restored cider-apple orchards of the District, such as those at Chickmarsh, begin to bear, and the Brewery is able to expand its real cider operations, a new excursion train is scheduled to be inaugurated, the Apple Blossom Special.

Heritage organisations
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">The W&CR, itself supported by heritage and charitable organisations, has partnered with every other such in the District. In this context, one of the activities which Sir Thomas and His Grace intended and have insisted upon from the beginning has been to make even excursions and heritage tourism gently educational: Headmaster Trulock and Deputy Headmaster Mirza, His Grace, Canon Paddick, the Hon. Mrs Maguire, and many others have given brief talks to parties entrained, upon local history, railway history, church architecture, and the like.

Innovation
<p align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom:0in;border-width:initial;border-style:none;padding:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;">Both in its engineering and modern steam advances and in its training and operations, the W&CR is a leader in innovation, as recognised by its receiving the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2015, 2016, and 2017, in multiple categories.

In popular culture
<p class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%">The original W&CR and its successor as a GWR branch line was painted by Turner, Cuneo, and David Shepherd, and of course written of and made the subject of a television presentation by Sir John Betjeman, one of the present Duke’s godfathers.

<p class="western" lang="en-GB" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%">One of the last – alas, unfinished – paintings by the late Sir Ben Salmon RA, a direct tribute to Turner’s most famous GWR painting, is on display at the W&CR’s museum in Parva: Dawn, Speed, and Modern Steam.