Whats in a Name? - or how the S&C Railway came about

I was quite interested in a layout advertised at an exhibition of a station that was on my list of inspirational places. I was very disappointed to find it was a freelance layout but named after a real station.

This set me thinking about what I should call my own freelance layout. The home part of the layout, which was the main line station, was safe as it wasn’t leaving the garage but the branch line station I was building for exhibition could fall into this trap. I didn’t like humorous titles, as although freelance, I wanted some semblance of reality, but credible station names just seemed to evade me.

I was musing on the problem one day and it came to me that most town names were composed of 2 parts developed from the history of the site. I thought for fun if I listed where I had lived I might be able to mix and match the parts to form a new name which would still have some relevance to me. I had not moved about very much but it was surprising how many names I could make.

I was born in Cirencester and lived a large part in Swindon, Kenilworth and now retired in Wells so I investigated the make-up of these names and found the following:

·         Ciren is the Roman name for the River Churn and cester is settlement so it is the settlement on the river Churn.

·         Swin referred to the rearing of pigs (Swine) and don is a vale so it is the vale of pigs

·         Kenil is a funny one as it is the Saxon name of the woman (Cynehild) who owned the farm which started the settlement and worth means possession or estate so it is the possession or estate of Cynehild

·         Wells stands on its own as a description of what it was known for e.g. the numerous springs and wells in the City.

By combining the individual parts I came up with Cirendon, Cirenworth, Cirenwells, Swincester, Swinworth, Swinwells, Kenilcester, Kenildon, Kenilwells, Wellscester, Wellsdon, Wellsworth.

Some work and some don’t. Some to me didn’t look right even though they were credible and some that were not credible looked OK. As mentioned before I was born in Cirencester and spent a lot of my working life in Swindon so I settled on these 2 places being part of the names for my main towns e.g. the Mainline Station and the Branch Terminus. Others may follow but I felt I needed names for these now as they were being built.

I will need further town names along the lines so I might need to expand my search for names so I thought at that time to include areas e.g. I was born in The Beeches, and lived in Watermoor which were suburbs of Cirencester.

Swincester (settlement around pigs) looked good to me. It combined both my favoured towns and was sort of credible. My mainline layout would take elements from Swindon so this worked for me.

I didn’t like Cirendon (vale of the River Churn) which is credible or Cirenwells which was not but I did like Cirenworth (possession or estate of the River Churn) which was not really credible but if you stretch a point that worth later became a way of saying settlement it does work. However, Cirenworth was not liked by my personal advisor (my wife) so back to the drawing board.

My branch terminus is a loose nod to Tetbury so how about Cirenbury? No not liked but without too much thought she came up with Churnbury which she liked and I did as well. Churn is a play on Ciren as it is the Saxon and, I believe, earlier name for the same river. I checked the internet to see if either of these towns existed and they don’t so that is how The Swincester and Churnbury Railway (The S&C Railway) came into being. I just need a credible history now.

As I said in my introduction this is just a bit of fun but it does generate town names which are personal to me.

In the beginning - the real thing

I remember my Mum saying to me when I was older how I was fascinated by the sounds emanating from behind the Cotswold stone wall bounding Cirencester Station and I presume it must have been some last vestiges of steam shunting goods traffic.  She said I got quite excited and despite both her and I trying to see what was generating the sound I never got to see it.  I was very small as I was still in a pram.

My next memory was when I was still very small and my sister was going off on honeymoon from Gloucester Station.  We must have walked over the connecting bridge between the GWR and LMS stations as I remember it was very long and quite spooky with the low light.  However what fascinated me (and also got me a telling off for delaying my sister getting her train) was the steam and smell being forced up through the floor boards of the bridge and that heavenly smell of coal and warm oil.  Again I can only surmise that is was some very last vestiges of steam hanging on at Gloucester perhaps shunting.

Redundant railways were all around me growing up.  I used to visit a playground which was called City Bank after the remains of the Roman city walls built around 2 sides.  Along another side was a tall embankment still ballasted and covered in brambles as I recall.  My Mother and I had to get on to the embankment via some steps made of old sleepers and with railings made of old 'Top Hat' rail.  From there we would walk along the top of the embankment on to a shallow graded path cut into the embankment and then down into the playing field.  This was part of the old Midland and South Western Joint Railway (MSWJR).  At the steps mentioned earlier there was a large MSWJR cast iron 'Trespassers will be prosecuted' sign and I can recall a lot of solid high toothed corrugated iron fencing painted black along the base of the embankment cutting it off from residential land which surrounded it.

My other interaction with the MSWJR was at the old redundant works which at this time was a scrap yard.  Despite all the warning signs and keep out signs we still saw it a a special place especially if there were scrap bikes.  When it was closed it had loose Alsatians roaming the yard and while some distracted them others would try and drag bikes out of the yard and over the fence.  Many a time the dogs realised what was happening they would then chase after the 'dragging team' and by now they were so wound up they would have torn us to shreds if they caught us.  No one however did get caught and despite all the hard work not a single bike was rescued.

On the occasional summer evening my brother and I were taken out to Kemble Station where we were supplied with pop and crisps, sat on the bench outside the pub and left to our own devices.  I think my parents were related to the station master as I recall us going into his house on several occasions and he giving me an old station masters hat which I invariably lost.  As the station was usually deserted we clambered over every part of it including the now disused Cirencester and Tetbury branches.  We would watch long coal trains made up of short wheel base steel mineral wagons hauled by a class 37 or 47 in blue and tailed with a standard brake van.  Both driver and guard were very friendly waving as they went by.  The long container and tank traffic did not have brake vans and always seemed less friendly.  Passenger stock was mainly DMUs and longer trains with Mark 1 or 2 carriages again hauled by class 37 or 47.  Some people have asked why I haven't modelled this period as usually it is this train spotting era that interests people but to be honest I found the period very depressing with stock and buildings so run down I felt even then that the railways were not going to exist much longer.

On other occasions when we visited my Gran at Oaksey, despite my mum shouting as both my brother and I left the house 'don't you two get on that railway or I'll have your guts for garters!', we again invariably clambered up the embankment and onto the railway where we listened for the ringing of the rails for approaching trains.  However the driver and guard (if the train had one) were not so friendly and basically tried to shoo us off the track.  My brother always wanted to flatten pennies using a passing train but I always thought that was a waste considering what you could buy with a penny at that time.  My mum never found out that we always made a bee line for the railway and she always got some primroses given to her picked from the hedgerow when in flower (her favourite flower) so always thought we were 'good boys'.

My grandfather was a platelayer foremen and his section of track was around the Oaksey area.  He would walk his section of track every day and quite often take a train into Swindon for meetings as required.  I remember my Gran saying he would put his coat on and check the line out of hours during bad weather.  I, however, never met my grandfather as he died from the effects of mustard gas poisoning with my Gran paying in instalments for his hospital treatment - she still put the money by even after the National Health came into being as she thought it wouldn't last and she would have to pay the bill owed.

My Uncle Bill was a guard based at Gloucester and he used to tell tales of his antics in the war.  I remember Gloucester because of it massive level crossing which to a child seemed to hold up all of Gloucester when the gates were closed.  He was a guard on some explosive trains and he recalls guarding trains through bombed out areas with signal boxes out of action but always the right of ways kept clear for his train by men with flags.  Track was quite often damaged and temporarily held together to keep trains running by men who kept working through the bombing raids.  He told us of being tailed by a German bomber once but I'm not sure where reality and fiction combined.  Although not much was spoken of in those days I think the stress may have got to him as just little things said by my aunty sunk in as I got older.  He lost friends in the war on the railways and I think it effected him as much as if he had gone to fight.

Unfortunately my Father's career with the railway was somewhat short lived as it only lasted a fortnight before being sacked from a porters role at South Cerney Station!  It was never spoke of and to this day I never found out why he go the sack.

When I was ten or eleven my Dad took me to see the prototype HST on trial.  I stood on Didcot station with my parents and watched the prototype HST at speed run through on test - WOW!  It took all the waste bins with it and left a trail of rubbish all down the platform but this just added to the impact the train made.  Station staff hurriedly got down on to the tracks to retrieve the waste bins before another train came through and a little later they were seen tying them to railings with rope.  I later travelled a lot by train for work and always had a soft spot for the HSTs.  I think they are past it now though and all the constant refurbishments and upgrades are a little like 'granny wearing young persons clothes' let them pass away with some grace for goodness sake.