Heritage route
West Somerset Railway
Bishops Lydeard → Minehead · England
Britain’s longest standard-gauge independent heritage railway: 22¾ miles of steam from the Quantock Hills down to the Bristol Channel shore at Minehead.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 163857 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 5 m from it
- The operator publishes this line's timetable: West Somerset Railway — a place to look it up, not a check of our drawing
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
- See for yourself: open this line on the map with OpenStreetMap's own railway drawn underneath it
Questions and answers
How long is the West Somerset Railway?
The West Somerset Railway runs 37 km from Bishops Lydeard to Minehead.
How long does the West Somerset Railway take?
The fastest scheduled journey is 1 h 20 min for the 37 km. That is an average of 28 km/h end to end. The line's top service speed is 40 km/h.
Who runs the West Somerset Railway?
West Somerset Railway, with heritage steam.
How old is the West Somerset Railway?
The line has been in service since 1976. That is the year the atlas dates it from: for a modern brand running over an older railway, it is the railway's date, not the brand's.
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