West Somerset Railway General Discussion

You might, but the Manor is nicer. Or a Hall. I am not hugely fussy!

 

The fence it should be noted is temporary and only there when the carriage shed is open to the public. Sometimes it has been a more "heritage" rope, but bizarrely people tend to duck under that!!

 

Obviously not fussy if you prefer Manors and Halls.

 

Ok, you can be the one to get between the frames to sort out the valve gear.

 

Happily. Infinitely nicer than crawling into the "bath" of an unrebuilt.

 

In my defence the comparison is between an unrebuilt Bulleid and the aforementioned GWR types.

 

Everyone's colour vision is different. But having been a member of a local camera club for some years, I can claim to have viewed the best and worst of Photoshopped colour images in the regular monthly competitions, and have been roundly criticised by numerous independent judges for my own efforts (in a constructive manner, of course), I hope I might suggest, without giving offence, that all these three images are a little, well, overcooked?

Or do others see them as a fair reflection of natural colours? If that is the case, I'm due for new glasses at the very least. Probably dark ones.

 

In my experience, folks can't take the hint of a mere rope. We have to physically lock, where possible, exhibits we can't allow public access to. Signage helps but only for literate Vistors who seem to be few & far between.

 

Personally I find a well trained, and motivated, dog works best. Rent-a whippet have a good selection for hire.

 

There I can agree with you, getting at the other end under the smokebox isn't much better. Still, you can deal with the multiplicity of GWR eccentrics whilst I deal with the outside valve gear locos.

 

One and the same aren't they?

 

A relief that sense has prevailed.

Hopefully, one trusts, there will be some proper market testing before committing to the loco hire.

Robin

 

Definitely overcooked

 

I suppose there are two ways of looking at this. One is that there have been two very successful events centred around Bulleid pacifics recently at Swanage and Mid-Hants, which ought to go some way to suggest that such an event is popular. The other is that we've had two very successful events centred around Bulleid pacifics and fans of them will have had their "fix" of lots of Bulleids in one place so won't bother coming again. Moving this event further into the future can only negate the second viewpoint without affecting the first.

Also worth pointing out that after the NYMR got a similar taste of pre-booked premium trains with Flying Scotsman they decided to try and repeat it with Royal Scot and that, AFAIK, was successful, so shows that sort of thing can be done with locos other than Flying Scotsman.

 

Personally I don't think many people will bother turning up to see a ACE on the Minehead branch, the success of the ACE at the Mid-Hants and Swanage I would think are down to fact they were Southern station with southern colours, I would have thought a better solution for the West Somerset would be to hire in a Castle Class locomotive and revive the Devonian named express.

 

duplicated

 

duplicated

 

Just some observations from a small shed at Bishops Lydeard... The target for the ACE event is quite different from the traditional gala and "Flying Scotsman" (the contributor to this forum, not the engine) makes a good point about the success of the NYMR Royal Scot visit. To answer Robin's point, yes of course there had been significant market testing and the reason we postponed it was because we could not give our corporate customers precision on locomotive names, which is what they needed to sell the tickets on to their customers. They are happy with the action we have taken.
Frank

 

Rather than Orange, Net fencing on the big railway has to be Blue, so as not to be confused with HI Viz.


Would a multi strand rope barrier work better?
By which I mean possibly a top rope, middle rope and bottom rope.

 

I don't know if this event is going to be run at the standard fare or not.