Since its great days, Britain's railway system has been treated shabbily.

Our railways have been cut up, cut down, messed about and under-resourced.

Public cash has been poured into road building and subsidising road transport.

There appears to be discreet antipathy to railways amongst regional officials.

Yet I have recently read something to the effect that out of about a hundred delegates at the recent South West Region Examination in Public, all but one supported improving our railways as the way forward for regional transport.

The exception seems to have been Wilts CC, again talking up its eastern bypass which makes no attempt whatsoever to interface with Westbury railway station.

Railways are the obvious solution to our transport and environmental impasse. The infrastucture is in place.  Our railway needs investment and better access.

This is obvious to most people viewing the big railway network at Westbury.

It also happens to be Wiltshire County Council's official freight policy.

Charlie Hill, in the cab, at Westbury, Wilts, 1962

Here is a further page on a return of steam at Westbury.

The Trans-Wilts rail line, via Warminster, Westbury, Melksham & Chippenham, parallels the choked A350 road (which Wiltshire County Council wants to build
a series of bypasses along) but the under-used railway is starved of funding.