“The Gulf Oil Refinery Branch Line” Building a Railway in the 1960’s – Dick Watts preceded by Branch AGM

Richard Watts is a Chartered Civil Engineer (known professionally as Dick Watts) who, spent nearly 40 years in design and construction of railway Civil Engineering works, originally in the Chief Civil Engineer’s Office of British Railways Western Region at Paddington and latterly with consultants Scott Wilson & Kirkpatrick at Swindon.

During the 1960s he spent nearly five years on site as a Resident Engineer supervising construction contracts in the south and west of England and Wales, one of which was for the construction of a 2½ mile branch line to the new Gulf Oil Refinery on Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire, the subject of this talk. The talk will consist of a 30 minute slide presentation describing the scheme development, Parliamentary process, design, construction of the line, and the problems encountered, finishing with a half hour video which includes contemporary images and film footage taken during construction.