A few hours at Catcott Crossing watching the train go by...

Forget motor cars. Get rid of anxiety. And here, to the rhythms of the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway dream again that ambitious Victorian dream, which caused this long railway still to be running through deepest, quietest, flattest, remotest least spoilt Somerset. Sir John Betjemen 1963.

In this delightful area of Somerset also known as Avalon, the topography to the south of the Mendip Hills is very flat with the boggy land being only a few feet above sea level. Made famous by the 1963 BBC documentary A Branchline Railway hosted by poet laureate Sir John Betjemen, viewers of this delightful film will know that railway between Glastonbury and Highbridge for much of its length followed the course of the Glastonbury Canal - much of it running straight as dye for mile after mile.

Many spots where roads crossed the railway utilised manned level crossings rather than bridges, with each crossing having its own crossing keeper and railway cottage. Several of the cottages had no running water or electricity right up to closure in 1966, the water being delivered by train in milk churns!

The model here, is a could have been scenario is heavily influenced by the aforementioned BBC TV film, with the layouts creator being taken in by the wild open feel of the area much dominated by willow, water and big skies.

Catcott, one of the many crossings on the line never was a halt or had sidings. In the parallel universe world here, imagine if to serve the local peat deposits things had been very different?

Chris Nevard
www.nevard.com/modelrailway

Size: 500x15 (1100x15 including fiddle yard).

Scale & Gauge: 00/16.5mm finescale.

Era: 1950s & 1960s British Railways, former Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway.

Location: Somerset Levels.

Scenario: Part reality and part fiction what if scenario, had the real Catcott Crossing become a small halt with sidings.

Track: Hand-built using C&L components and C&L flexi-track.