West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Sat at MH awaiting the departure of the 1540 QB to BL. I had an excellent Quality Breakfast on the 0905 service to Minehead and a. equally good lunch on the 1345 service to Minehead. There were extra, new, volunteers on the QB who provided a very good service that was much quicker than the Autumn Gala. Well done to all the crew. Interesting to see Mark Hill serving coffee and seeing what happens at the coal face. Well done him. An excellent day out and the weather was mainly fine though cloudy.

 

Do I need a gala ticke5 to travel on steam bus or can I buy a ticket just for that. Thxs

 

Excellent breakfast on the QB for three of us this morning - they are a great team running the show and congratulations and thanks to them all.

 

Steam bus is separate form the trains - so you pay separately.

 

Did anyone find 6046's missing drain cock? I have been keeping an eye out for it but no success.

 

I understand that both were recovered from the lineside.

Robin

 

My footage of the Gala on Thursday featuring 6046 struggling up Crowcombe Bank with a broken drain cock with steam escaping from the side of the locomotive's cylinders as well as some spirited runs up Washford Bank. Enjoy.

 

Really good video - wish I was there!

 

Today, I made a completely unplanned visit to the Spring Steam Gala. It was a very enjoyable day, the highlight of which was getting to Norton Fitzwarren in the delightful autocoach behind a beautifully turned out 1450 (both of which are a tribute to the SVR). I have to say all the staff I met and chatted with were friendly and engaging. As well as 1450, I managed a ride behind visiting 6990 and 7714; an excellent day out. However, I do have a couple of observsations which I hope will be taken on board by those able to do something about it.

1) The presentation of the public timetables must be improved. In particular, it should be shown clearly where passenger trains cross; it took me a good 15 minutes examining the timetable to figure out where and when services crossed. This made planning my trip unexpectedly difficult and slightly stressful. In addition, there are a number of annotations on the timetable that are not explained... For example, what does "x" in a train time denote? What does "CHS" denote? "QB" means "Quantock Belle" but what does "DQB" mean? I appreciate working timetables can be purchased separately but crossing places is basic information that a timetable should provided clearly and concisely, and explaining all annotations in the key is really such a simple thing to get right that I shouldn't need to point it out!

2) I was somewhat disappointed that the tender engines worked a number of trains in reverse. Whilst I fully appreciate that turning locomotives on a normal service day is not possible, the WSR is blessed in what I believe is unique amongst preserved railways, in that it has turning facilities at both ends... Surely, with so many guest engines, it should be possible to schedule all tender locomotives to turn at each end? This, IMHO, really should be feature of a WSR gala, as it is something that the WSR is uniquely able to provide (a USP in modern palance) and tender locomotives really do look better going forwards.

I hope the above provides some food for thought. It was a great day and I would certainly visit again, but it could have been even better...

 

To run this service and turn all locos so that they always run chimney first requires 8 locos in service. The budget provided for 6.

Robin

 

That indeed is the appearance. The reality is that the distance between BL and NF is such that additional locos or fewer services than were featured at the gala are required to achieve this aim, as Robin points out, both of which would lead to less financial viability.

 

I must respect your preference but I'd just like to point out I love to see tender locos going in reverse and photos of them doing this are often more interesting - it's a shame so few photographers seem to agree with me but I'm surely not alone in this view.

 

I think there was some discrepancies between the timetable and the footnotes!
Actually, the 'x' indicates that trains cross - so this is the info you looked for 15 mins to find.
I think that CHS means the Hawksworth (its HS in the footnote)
DQB means Dining QB - the footnotes attempted to differentiate between breakfast, lunch and teas but this didn't make it through to the times.
I'm not entirely sure what "//" means - i guess its a train passing and not stopping, perhaps only pausing to change tokens.
I guess that "aj" means Allerford Junction.
Notwithstanding that, i think the souvenir brochure is excellent this year. Thinking of my work as Journal editor, I know how much work there is in these type of publications and the difficulty in getting it all consistent.
Another excellent day out today. We had our normal board meeting in the morning and Frank and I followed this with a lunch on the QB - first rate again. I shall be around again tomorrow with the dog, so please say hello.
Ian Coleby

 

I quite like seeing small or large Prairies or pannier tanks running in reverse, but not so keen on tender locos running in reverse.
A few years ago, I had a driving turn on 34070 Manston on the Swanage Railway.... running tender first. I can confirm that the view to the rear from the footplate is just as bad as the view to the front!
RobinL

 

I wouldn't know if you're alone in that view. Personally I find the back of a tender rather uninteresting when compared with the front of an engine.
At other galas I spent a long time planning my photographic times & locations so that I get the loco running smokebox first.

 

In my experience of WTTs elsewhere, " // " between times means a light loco movement. Whereas a single " / " means a passing time only. Possibly some of the symbols or notes from a WTT had been transferred across to the public TT but without the necessary key or legend?

 

We had a whole thread about tender-first running in pre-preservation times, but to whet your appetite, a couple of examples from the 1960s - entirely prototypical to have large tender engines running in reverse with short trains on single track lines ...



https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/tender-first-running-original-pictures-debate.853076/

Tom

 

Sorry Tom but this is getting rather too close to "he would say that wouldn't he"

Paul H

 

Almost, Ian.

CHS is set C plus the Hawksworth Saloon.

DQB is set D plus the QB.

And yes ‘//‘ is a passing train. Standard railway notation.

The Operators wouldn’t want to share ALL their mysteries...

Robin

 

Photo shop help.

I have a couple of shots from the weekend which would be useful for WSR publicity purposes but need a little ‘photoshop’ help.

If anyone has skills in this area, perhaps you could PM me?

Robin