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West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by gwr4090, Nov 15, 2007.

  1. Steve

    Steve Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    I can't argue from a position of knowledge but my gut feeling is that these costs are way out. Leeds City Council built a road bridge over the Middleton Railway back in 2007 for less than 1/10 of the figures you've quoted. Inflation isn't that great.
     
  2. The Man of Kent

    The Man of Kent New Member

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    I think it is stretching a point to compare Bishops Lydeard with Pickering, a tourist destination in its own right. Without the West Somerset Railway Bishops Lydeard would be as much of a destination as Cotford St Luke. You say yourself that you have holidayed in Pickering a number of times, do you stay at Bishops Lydeard when you visit the WSR?

    I agree with your point about the WSR suffering little and this is probably the crux of the problem. Few people are arguing that the WSR heritage operation has a lot to gain from the connection, things are very comfortable as they are and ticking over quite nicely. The bigger winners would be the local population and businesses of West Somerset plus a percentage of those passengers wanting to visit the railway.
     
  3. Snifter

    Snifter Well-Known Member

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    .....and the new station could also have those bus shelter type structures to keep the rain off the passengers. :rolleyes:

    The firing squad have just asked that nobody receives a blank round.
     
  4. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    When I've stayed in West Somerset, it has been near Watchet but for reasons completely unconnected with tourism; my visits now are en route to/from family business in Barnstaple where Bishops Lydeard is a useful place for a pitstop. And though Pickering is a destination in it's own right, it also has a considerable role as a railhead on a railway that, like the WSR, clearly has a dominant destination and corresponding traffic flows.

    As for the benefits of extending, I note that you don't include my latter two paragraphs in your quote; if you ignore them, you miss the critical part of this debate. Let me extend my analogy with the NYMR. As an NYMR member, I sometimes think WIBN if the line to Rillington Junction were reopened and there were through services from York. That moment of WIBN stops abruptly when I consider how the NYMR has changed in nature from what it once was, how the closed section is the least interesting, the impact on Pickering town centre and, most importantly, how returning it to what it once was would jeopardise what it has now become. I see restoration to Taunton in similar light, but without the same potential for new traffic. When push comes to shove, Minehead is not an Exmouth, or even a Barnstaple. And I'm not sure that the people of west Somerset would really see Newquay as an example of what they would want from a branch on the national network.
     
  5. Bayard

    Bayard Well-Known Member

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    ISTR that a bridge was considered as an option back when Seaward Way was built, so someone in SCC should have some costings for this. Was the original cost study written up in the Journal at the time?
     
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  6. johnofwessex

    johnofwessex Resident of Nat Pres

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    The squad have also asked for 0.22 rifles and plan on starting at the feet & working upwards

    (The idea came from someone who had to organise one....................)
     
  7. Paul Kibbey

    Paul Kibbey Well-Known Member

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    Possibly the tax payers in the Cotswolds are somewhat richer than in West Somerset ?
     
  8. Paul Kibbey

    Paul Kibbey Well-Known Member

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    I certainly try and stay in B/L when visiting the WSR , many times I've failed to because of B/L being fully booked and not just at Gala times . The advantage of B/L is that it is possibly an a 1 hour shorter journey than travelling on to Minehead .
     
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  9. The Man of Kent

    The Man of Kent New Member

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    That's good but my contention was that Bishops Lydeard is not a destination without WSR while Pickering would still attract people without NYMR. At its simplest these are B&B maps from Booking.com bnb BL.jpg bnb Pickering.jpg
     
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  10. Steve1015

    Steve1015 Member

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    MCB-OD crossings do not have CCTV
     
  11. Paul Kibbey

    Paul Kibbey Well-Known Member

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    Yes , I take your point The Man of Kent , Pickering is a bustling market town , I don't think B/L even in our wildest dreams could said to be bustling except maybe around the Village Hall whilst WSRA , AGMs have been happening in the dark past .
     
  12. The Man of Kent

    The Man of Kent New Member

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    Whatever you think of the commentary this gives a complete tour of a 'Manually Controlled Barriers with Obstacle Detection' crossing -



    Hang on ...... did he say "that's why they're always breaking down" ????
     
  13. Steve1015

    Steve1015 Member

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    The whole idea behind OD is that there is less input from the signalman.
    With "local" signal boxes closing and the control of CCTV crossings being centralised in the new ROC's the new OD crossings require less work load on the signalman .
     
  14. Yorkshireman

    Yorkshireman Part of the furniture

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    The centralised CCTV might be appropriate on Network Rail but it is certainly not applicable as far as the WSR is concerned.
     
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  15. Faol

    Faol Member

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    Just having a quick catch up on the Seaward Way bridge idea. Can I humbly suggest, as I am not a civil engineer, that all the talk of bridges is a complete none starter. When relaying the station throat a year ago the PLC went to the trouble of having the ground investigated and it was successful for the down thrust for the railway. A bridge would be very heavy and building on what is effectively a salt marsh would need some massive foundations. As supposition, the ground drainage had been adequate for many many years and then some pretty big flats were built and the railway started to have difficulties with soft ground and pumping. Is there a correlation, not that I know of but twice a day the sea rises up towards the height of the track and the pressure from that tide must be immense. If the required foundations (either piled or raft) were installed it would likely have an adverse affect on all the building surrounding the railway. I don't know but I am sure SCC considered when planning the road.
    As to BL at one time it was a thriving conglomeration of farms and rural crafts. There were pubs everywhere, 4 or 5 in the village and one either side of the village on the A358. There was an effective water mill near the centre of the village. Farms have got much bigger and their staffs substantially reduced and BL has become, in the main, a dormitory village to Taunton and their are only 2 pubs left. I spent many months installing STD (subscriber trunk dialling) in the local telephone exchange when the bypass was first opened. There were many shops. When I moved into the village about 9 years ago there were 3 grocery shops and the post office. One grocery shop is now a chinese takeaway. In keeping with many of the villages around Taunton the demise of labour on farms has lead to wholesale building of houses for expansion of Taunton. The development of Brunswick Green beside the Station had big plans for a pub and other retail premises and none of it came about. Basically it is sleepy hollow and offers nothing for passengers and in my opinion probably never will unless the railway builds it.
    On a different note the first of the WD open wagons is under cosmetic restoration and is progressing well.
    Ken
     
  16. Ploughman

    Ploughman Part of the furniture

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    CCTV cover of an adjacent crossing is what the system was set up for.
    It can also cover more than 1 extra crossing, eg, Strensall SB on the York - Scarborough covers 5 local road crossings.between York and Strensall.
    2 of them within sight of the Signal box itself.
    Any thoughts about ROC like systems are not what is being talked about here.
    To me it is a question of economics.
    Do you set up a totally independant signal box to cover the LC with all the attendant Signalling issues, staffing costs and interlocking or do you install a CCTV system that is operated by your existing staff in an existing signal box?
     
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  17. Faol

    Faol Member

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    Here is a couple of old photos for you that have a tenuous connection with the WSR, any guesses? loco moves 2.jpg Loco moves.jpg
     
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  18. 1472

    1472 Well-Known Member

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    3205 being turned whilst working the Exmoor Ranger in Taunton shed (1965??)
    6998 & 1466 heading for Didcot (their new home) from Plymouth having been in store at Totnes Quay - Dec 1969
     
  19. Faol

    Faol Member

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    Really good, it is Burton Agnes Hall and 1466 approaching the closed Creech St Micheal station in 1967 heading to Didcott. But the shed photo is a fair bit earlier at 1962 and is Taunton's 7337 about to come off shed to replace a 2-6-2 tank, on the Minehead, that was declared a failure. These I took with my late father's brownie camera. When I collected the photos from the chemist the were all pretty well transparent but I managed to recover some images when I had use of an early Durst enlarger. Wish I could find the negatives now.
     
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  20. NOTFORME_99

    NOTFORME_99 New Member

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    Copied from http://www.wsr.org.uk/news.htm

    Clan Line to visit the Minehead Branch in May 2018

    [​IMG]
    UK Railtours has announced a tour from Paddington to Minehead on Saturday 26 May 2018 with SR 4-6-2 no 35028 Clan Line which will work the Quantock Intruder throughout and on the return only from Minehead to Bishops Lydeard where a Class 67 diesel will take over return the charter to London.

    Full details from UK Railtours.

    19 January 2018
     

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