A busy time at South Junction, Westbury

Many people will have forgotten the 'blue' period of British Railways before it was privatised. Rail Grey was the start of many changes!

indentI spent many hours in the early 1980's watching the traffic movements at Westbury so that my customer knew which trains ran, at what times and what stock they used.v I found that goods trains arrive at Westbury from the South and East throughout the day for marshalling into trains for various destinations in Wales and the South West - and vice-versa.v Block trains also arrive and stop to change engines or engine crews.v This is the normal traffic pattern but once every two hours the goods are cleared away from the main lines and within half an hour a whole raft of passenger trains arrive.v A DMU "all stations" from Frome; Class 33's with through trains from Southampton or Salisbury (the lines under the bow bridge), and Bristol; HST's from London (from the left) and Plymouth or Penzance (from the right).
At such times Westbury can get very busy indeed, even without including any light engine movements to and from the Motive Power Depot in the foreground.

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