West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Do bunkers echo?

 

Afraid so!

It was considered too small to haul the 7 plus coaches over the hills and was not offered enough work to pay for itself so sadly it had to leave.

No doubt Premier Prairie could say more?

 

Surprise Surprise

It is a Story that just keeps giving!

 

I agree, it was an incredibly short sighted and naive decision to pull out of this partnership arrangement. Positive relationships with the colleges would have hopefully inspired the younger generation and it’s the nature of such initiatives that it would likely have opened other doors, especially with other public sector organisations who frequently hold the keys to unlocking other funding streams. It’s hard to put a figure on the value of goodwill and positive publicity that has been lost, and the exasperation felt by stakeholders. Possibly the Board(s) did need to pause and take stock of the situation they inherited at the railway, or maybe the project could still have been implemented albeit on a more gradual basis in order to gain confidence and experience. Covid would have changed the project of course but just think how different the publicity could have been with stories of WSR volunteers, college youngsters and the local community working together to bring the WSR back to life...

 

Were you making the Case for a Reopening in August then?

Surely everything you say here would have applied then as well?

but............

as I have already said it is possible that Boris could prevent any of this because of a complete lock down which makes the loss of revenue from August and this month all the more significant!

 

Unfortunately the link does not work and just says "This content isn't available at the moment"
so what am I doing wrong to access it please?

 

The link is in my post you just quoted

 

See previous amended post please Alex

The one to which you replied preceded it!

 

Hmm, ok try typing "West Somerset Railway Friends" into the search box in Facebook, it should come up.

 

I notice that Mike Lea the treasurer of the WSRA as well as no longer attending meetings now doesn't even send apologies. It will be interesting to see if he turns up at the AGM this Saturday or if someone else gives the presentation of the report. If he has left why not announce it if he is still in post then he should go to meetings.

 

Bizarre then than 4561 is now being overhauled and is being claimed as an ideal loco for the line.

As usual with the WSR probably more to it than meets the eye.

 

I would suggest that it would be unwise not to have at least a skeleton station staff (no pun intended!) at Williton. With a (half) train load of people laying over at WN, at least while the engine runs-round, even if passengers are not supposed to leave the train there is always scope for some sort of problem IMHO and it would not seem sensible to expect the signalman to deal with it all by him/herself.

 

The annual report for the 2020 AGM has him marked as "Sabbatical Feb 2020 to Sept 2020".

 

Perhaps someone has been harassing him.

 

Thanks Alex it is the same one I have been trying to access

This is what I get every time!

West Somerset Railway friends
Public group
·
62 members

What am I doing wrong please?

 

Yes, that did strike me as odd, especially since there was a lot of comment at the time of the struggle with the soon-to-be-ex 6 that it was too small tobe of any use. Perhaps the WSR is in need of another "loco ideal for the line" now that 53808 has left.

 

Curious. when I do it comes up as :-
West Somerset Railway friends
Private group
·
1.3K members

 

This is what appears for me:

West Somerset Railway friends
Group created on 7 June 2016
Members · 1.3K

 

You would think that out of the WSRA’s locomotives, 7821 is actually the one ideal for the line. However I believe that is a more difficult and expensive proposition for overhaul.