Not exactly hot on trail of its classmate “Knowle”, much travelled Terrier “Martello” has made to the West Country where it proved to be one of the stars of the famed Autumn Gala on the West Somerset Railway

The four day Gala now seems to be turning into a two day plus two day style event with the weekdays very much appealing to enthusiasts and aficionados.  Further proof of this was the adoption of the same timetable on both the Thursday and Friday with an alternative presentation for Saturday and Sunday.  Although the sun came out on every day, the first two days featured almost unbroken blue skies after early cloud on the Thursday whilst at the weekend the amount of sunshine varied around the railway

For the first two days, “Martello” was engaged on four Minehead to Blue Anchor shuttles on a three coach train; the only slight downer being that the two coaches nearest the London end were ex-DMU stock.  Apart from the inevitable linesiders in abundance in the welcome autumnal sunshine, the shuttles appeared to be quite well loaded and Blue Anchor in particular was often heaving with photographers when 662 arrived

One particularly nice touch was that on arrival of the second train, the 11.45am off Minehead, the train had to wait for the 1055 ex-Bishops Lydeard scheduled at Blue Anchor about 12.10pm which gave everyone plenty of opportunity to record the scene for posterity.

The weekend saw the Terrier on the traditional goods service to Dunster followed by shunting demonstrations in the yard as illustrated in the accompanying photograph.