Britain’s longest “heritage” railway, the West Somerset, has recorded the best annual passenger figures in its 31 year old history in 2007.

When the last trains of 2007 steamed into Minehead and Bishops Lydeard (near Taunton) the total number carried stood at 213,423.

“Not merely was this an increase of 13,000 over our total for 2006”, said WSR General Manager Paul Conibeare, “it was 10,000 more than our previous record set in 2005 when we reached 203,297. The new record marks a terrific effort by our volunteers and staff, both in bringing people to the Railway in the first place and also giving them such a good day out when they do travel that many come back for further visits. We knew that our main season had gone very well but we also had excellent numbers of passengers on our pre-Christmas special trains and our services between Christmas and New Year also loaded very well with 1,100 visitors to our Winter Steam Festival on 29 December ”

The Railway is now looking ahead to 2008. “We don’t run passenger trains now until the mid February half-term holidays. This year they will be run for the first time over the whole length of the line on 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23 and 24 February, said Mr Conibeare, “but we will be very busy with winter maintenance of our equipment getting ready for the new season whilst commercially we shall be attending the “Excursions” travel trade fair at Alexandra Palace on 12 January to spread the word about the West Somerset Railway and the areas we serve to new markets in South East England.. Other promotional activity is going ahead and we look to consolidate and build on our record year as we go into 2008.  Our major projects including the installation of the timetable at Minehead and the turning triangle at Norton Fitzwarren are also progressing with implications for growth in steam hauled excursion trains from the mainline network into West Somerset for future years. There are exciting times ahead and we will be pleased to see new faces joining our 600 active volunteers.