Hasn't Weston-Super-Mare been, at least at one time, also a popular holiday venue for people from South Wales -- English and exotic enough to be interesting, but also comfortingly close to home: one can see Wales from Weston and vice versa, isn't that so?
Ah, Weston-on-the-Mud.
It was indeed a popular Sunday trip on the old paddle steamer across from South Wales (actually they weren't that old, some of the last ever built in the late 1940s), more than anything else because in those days the pubs in Wales were all closed on Sundays, while the ones in England ... weren't. From Taunton the bargain basement resort was Burnham-on-Sea, accessed by odd Sunday excursion trains right into the 1960s although the station closed to timetabled services in the early 1950s. It needed two shunts each way at Highbridge, about a mile short of Burnham, to get across from the GW main to the S&D branch. I believe I went on one once, but was too young to take it in.
More promiising were Minehead, or (sixpence each cheaper) Blue Anchor. Minehead beach is unfortunately nothing much, but at least you have the town (though scarcely anything open on a Sunday then). Blue Anchor had a better beach right next to the station, but zero facilities. All these resorts faced drearily north, and the Bristol Channel was freezing. Which all brings us back to Weymouth, which even then had everything. And to quite an extent still does today!
My emphasis. Just to be 100% certain. There was no possibility (either pre- or post-WW2) of going direct to Dorchester line from Yeovil Town was there? So 'right through' means a reversal at Pen Mill?
My earlier post envisaged only one reversal for my fantasy direct service from Bristol to Weymouth, at Taunton.
No, none. The link between the two lines was put in during WW2, never used apparently, taken out again, and only reactivated after Taunton to Yeovil closed. It faced the other way, allowing GWR services to the west to be diverted from Castle Cary down to Yeovil Junction and Exeter. Taunton to Weymouth needed a reverse at Pen Mill. If the Taunton-Yeovil line was closed for the night or on Sundays you could always go up to Castle Cary.
I always thought a far more useful curve, though needing more engineering, would have been a north-to-west link at Cowley Bridge, keeping sufficiently clear of river flood levels.