to handle a considerable volume of holiday trains, when it seemed every possible locomotive was drafted into service to handle heavy trains requiring double-heading and banking over the steep gradients. It started before the railway network in England had settled down, and both local and strategic aspirations structured the line's earliest days. Work has now started to restore some remnants of the S&DJR to working condition. The S&D in the early 1960s The fame of the Somerset & Dorset line reached its peak in the first years of the 1960s, just before final closure as part of the nationwide reduction of railway services, usually called the Beeching Axe. The main line was still active, carrying local passenger trains and a daily long-distance train, the Pines Express, from Manchester to Bournemouth West, reversing at Bath Green Park. Local freight on the route survived in adequate volumes, although the Somerset coalfield was becoming ever more uneconomic to work and so coal traffic had dwindled. On summer Saturdays, the line continued to carry a very heavy traffic of long-distance trains, from northern towns to Bournemouth and back. The traditional nature of the operation of the route was reflected in the fact that most of the originating towns were on the former Midland Railway system, almost as if the railway grouping of 1923 had never taken place. These trains brought unusual traffic combinations to the route, and the home locomotive fleet was augmented by strangers such as LMS Jubilee Class 4-6-0s from the north, though these did not work over the S&D proper, and West Country Pacifics from the south. For the summer seasons of 1960, 1961 and 1962 a small number of BR Standard Class 9F 2-10-0s, which were designed as heavy freight locomotives, were transferred to Bath locomotive depot, in an attempt to reduce the preponderance of double-heading required on the majority of trains between Bath and Evercreech Junction on account of the steep gradients encountered on either side of Masbury summit. For the same reason, during the summer months the native S&D class 7F 2-8-0s were also pressed into service to assist, or to handle lighter trains on their own. The route remained almost entirely steam-worked until closure, though some diesel multiple units ran over the line on a couple of excursions only in the final years. After closure, diesels worked demolition trains, and some diesel workings operated to Blandford Forum