The Somerset & Dorset from the Footplate

In the 1980s the Oxford Publishing Company produced an amalgam of two books written by former Branksome fireman Peter Smith entitled ‘Mendips Engineman’ and ‘Footplate over the Mendips’. They told the story of a young railway fireman and his driver Donald Beale working on the fabled Somerset & Dorset line. Unavailable for over 30 years, the book has now been reprinted. This new version contains the complete text of the original but now comes with a new set of black and white images illustrating the remains of this much loved cross-country railway.