A trip to the Somerset coastal resort of Minehead was on the cards after seeing the West Somerset Railway (WSR) featured on a TV show. I think my last visit to the railway was with my parents (30+ years ago) and Heather had never been on what is the longest steam railway in operation in the UK.

Our day trip started with catching the 07.26 High Speed Train from Derby to Taunton, for a bus connection to Bishops Lydeard the southern terminus of the WSR around five miles from Taunton. This trip got us to Bishops Lydeard at around 10.45 and we had around an hour and a half to fill before the steam train departure to Minehead at 12.13.

This time allowed us to visit the museum at the WSR station, which provided a good potted history of this 20 mile long heritage railway as well as the chance to view other railway artifacts. It also allowed us to take the short walk to the Quantock Brewery, just up the road from the station, to sample a locally brewed beer and pick up a snack or two for the 90 minute journey to the north Somerset coast from a local delicatessen.

The WSR is a delightful railway to travel on, the scenery is really nice and the stations all seem to be well maintained. Our northbound journey was behind ex GWR locomotive 7822 'Foxcote Manor' took around 90 minutes.

The sun was out in Minehead when we arrived and it was nice to have a walk along the seafront, have a walk around the town centre and enjoy a breath of fresh sea air. With the large Butlin's holiday resort at one end of the bay this is well away from the old town centre area, but I think a few of the holiday makers had made it to the bars in central area. It was a little rowdy on a warm sunny day but only a few steps away it was actually fairly peaceful.

Our journey back to Bishops Lydeard, after two and a half hours in Minehead, was on the 16.13 departure hauled by GWR locomotive 6960 'Raveningham Hall'. It was a rather warm journey back south which was accompanied with some local cold cider to beat the heat.

The bus connection back to Taunton was scheduled for 15 minutes after our arrival back into Bishops Lydeard which gave us around half an hour to kill before our CrossCountry service back to Derby. The 18.55 CrossCountry service, another High Speed Train, had us back into Derby at 21.40.

It was a nice day out to the seaside, if a bit of a long one, and hopefully we will find another Saturday date where we can do something similar in the future.