BEATLEMANIA is on the way back to West Somerset - nearly 60 years since the Fab Four rode the rails of the West Somerset Railway and caused hundreds of teenage girls to play truant from school just to catch a glimpse of them.

Now the WSR train - on which the Beatles filmed sequences for their first feature film - A Hard Day’s Night - in 1964 at several points along the line, is being lovingly re-created as a highlight of the line’s Diesel Gala which will run from June 10-12 on a “Sixties in Somerset” theme.

It was in March 1964 that the Beatles arrived on the line with their camera crews - still operated by British Railways - in a five-coach train from Paddington, for three days of filming. Despite attempts to keep it secret, word got out and hundreds of fans lined the track and crowded into stations.

“We want to make our re-creation as accurate as possible”, said organiser Robin Wichard. “We have not finalised plans about possible Beatles lookalikes, but the train they used is well documented and we know a Hymac diesel locomotive was pulling Mark One 1950s rolling stock which we still use on the WSR.

“The Beatles train will leave Bishops Lydeard station at 12.30 on Saturday June 11 and we are planning a vintage car rally which will leave Bishops Lydeard earlier and arrive in Minehead before the train.

“We will be winding back the clock to the ’60s and hope everyone will enter into the spirit and dress accordingly. There will be live ’60s music at Minehead station all day followed by an evening dance on the platform featuring a Beatles tribute band and local sixties-style entertainers.

Another highlight of the event will be a display of Beatles memorabilia and photographs and Robin is appealing to any Free Press readers who have souvenirs and memories of “A Hard Day’s Night” in West Somerset to get in touch.

Someone for whom the re-creation will roll back the years is grandmother Mary Lewis who was a Minehead schoolgirl and devoted Beatles fan who took the day off from school to see her heroes. She remembered: “There was a terrific crowd screaming and shouting around the train. We managed to get to the window of the Beatles’ carriage and they pulled faces at us. I think we had disturbed them eating their dinner! It was a sad day that the Beatles split up because it was the same time that British Railways closed the Minehead line to passengers.”

Tickets for the Minehead dance (from 7-11pm) are £15 each and can be booked through the West Somerset Railway website. To share memories or memorabilia contact Robin on [email protected] or contact WSR events manager Ally Roe at Minehead station.