When the transforming power of the East Somerset Railway arrived in Shepton Mallet the population celebrated with cannon fire. This Sunday (November 9), the 150th anniversary will also go with a bang.

Passenger trains on the line were axed in the notorious Beeching cuts of the 1960s but much of the line is still active thanks to the East Somerset heritage railway, founded by famed wildlife artist David Shepherd.

It is ready to welcome a huge crowd to its station at Cranmore, to commemorate the opening of the line which ran from Witham Friary to Shepton, on the Westbury to Weymouth line.

In 1858 the first train arrived festooned with flowers to be greeted by a crowd of 10,000, all conscious that the iron horse would widen horizons and boost the economy.

East Somerset Railway wants to recreate that Victorian event and the train arriving to commemorate its predecessor will also be decorated with flowers.

Fireworks, flags and band music added to the carnival atmosphere when the line opened, and 1,000 shillings were distributed to the poor at Shepton's Market Cross. There is no suggestion of a similar distribution on Sunday, but Dick Masters, chairman of the East Somerset Railway said detonators would recreate the thunder of the cannons.

Visitors are encouraged to go in Victorian costume and invitations have gone out to schools to take part with prizes for the best boy and best girl in costume.

There will also be prizes for adults in costume. Victorian- style refreshments will be served, there will be clog dancers and Victorian music, and storytelling.

Five trains will run on the line during the day. Entry to the station will be free, with normal charges for train rides, but accompanied children can travel free.

The entertainment starts at 10am with the train steaming into the station at 11am. Since it is Remembrance Sunday there will be a two-minute silence before the train moves off with its first passengers.

The railway opened as a broad gauge line, extending to Wells in 1862, but was not commercially successful and was sold to the Great Western Railway in 1874. It then became an important freight route.

It continued in GWR and then BR hands, until 1963 when passenger services were withdrawn. Freight traffic was also reduced and the line cutback. Bitumen trains continued to Cranmore until 1985 and stone trains still use the branch as far as Merehead Quarry.

The two-and-a-half mile heritage railway has ambitious plans to run the entire length of the old line by extending into Shepton Mallet. But it will have to find a new station site. The old station site is being redeveloped and earlier this year the long-disused building was carefully dismantled by volunteers and transported to Cranmore where it will be installed at some future date on the steam-hauled line.