THE RAILWAY

I have heard it said that the factory closed because of the fact that The London and South Western Railway, as it was then called, refused to open a station at Axewater, and being so far away from the station made it uneconomical.

I well remember, many years later, this was still a very controversial subject, this projected railway station to service the village, and even again at a later date a 'Halt' was considered and this idea actually got as far as the siting stage. This time the whole village was convinced that, at least something, was going to materialise, but it never did. It might well be that the first world war may have shattered the dreams of ever having a railway station here. One must always bear in mind things were very much different at that time as regards the railway. Coaches and lorries for the transport of people and goods over long distances were virtually unheard of, the railway then was very much the number one method of transport. As children, it was a sight for us to go down to Axewater to see the trains going by, and there wasn't a lot of time between them. Passenger trains, Goods trains, (with up to seventy trucks, and it was out of interest to count them) Ballast trains and special excursions. In those days a Sunday League excursion trip from Waterloo to Chard Junction was seven shillings, and a single ordinary fare from Chard Junction to Waterloo was eleven shillings and seven pence halfpenny.