West Somerset Railway General Discussion

First of all - thank you for communicating this information. It is appreciated.

It is unfortunate that the crossing will not be completed in time for the summer.

 

Yeah, I did think of that after I'd pressed the 'Post Reply' button; couldn't immediately think of a good alternative, though, so I let it ride.

To avoid this being a useless post: I recalled a long-prior post which made a prediction about the date; last night I went looking for it, and here it is, from Nov 14. Clearly there are too many moving parts (in organizational terms: PLC, SCC, ORR, contractors, suppliers) to be able to make accurate predictions: we'll just have to watch, and hopefully the supply of updates will keep coming.

Noel

 

I stand corrected ! I hope the welding shop have been busy making spanners to extract 50p coins from the clutches of the passengers.

 

How do I like this twice?

 

In my experience, anything which has been subjected to an automatic checking system should subsequently be read through to ensure it still makes sense.

(I have recently been rereading some books in Alexander Kent's series about Richard Bolitho. The versions available as "iBooks" seem to contain an awful lot of simple errors. Such things as STERN being interpreted as STEM, or HAD becoming HAS for example. Some of these appear to me to have been caused by a scanner misinterpreting unclear handwriting. A quick read through involves going back over some passages to discover what was intended by the author. I have not found any similar errors in the few actual printed examples in my possession.)

 

I would also like to know. Unfortunately it appears to me that your question has got lost amongst the usual froth on this thread.

 

In brief Churchward tenders employed well tanks, Collet tanks were flat bottomed. A straight comparison of a 3500 Churchward against the tender currently paired with 7820 of the same water capacity will show the difference in height of sump/no sump.

Mike

 

I’m not going to offer a commentary as frequently as this, but just to show what we’re up against, this afternoon I heard that there is a further 18 week delay on some key parts. As they say, you couldn’t make it up...

 

However the Covid situation evolves and however potential passengers react to that and other factors, there will surely be fewer of then riding on the WSR while it is not running to Minehead than there would be if the crossing job had been completed by now. Therefore the delay in getting started on the project (whoever's fault that may have been) will have an adverse effect on the railway's finances this summer, to add to last year's damage. Can any lesson be learnt about what caused the delay?

 

I find it hard to understand why the work on the crossing hadn't been put in hand at the start of the first lockdown, so that the work could have been done while trains weren't running instead of wasting months of summer season revenue when the Railway could have been running trains into Minehead. This saga does not indicate a competent management. I'm sure somebody will come up with some excuse!

 

It takes me half that time to negotiate with Highways England and install a utilities duct under a dual carriageway A road in one of the largest cities in the UK.

I agree, you couldn't make it up.

 

Wells were common but not universal elsewhere. For example, RCTS survey of GNR tenders notes that Stirling and Ivatt standard tenders came in both well-tank and flat-bottom variants. The final Ivatt standards held 3000 gallons in flat-bottom version and 3500 gallons in well-tank version.

 

We've beat them over the head so thoroughly about all this before, I'm not sure there's any point to doing it any more.

Noel

 

Sorry to hear that. To the extent the WSR is putting together a 'temporary' timetable/arrangements around not being able to run into Minehead, that extra time during which it will be in effect will make it worth putting good effort into making that 'temporary' system as good as it can be done. (Lemons->lemonade.)

Noel

 

I find it hard to understand how work on the crossing could have been carried out at the start of the first lockdown without people leaving their homes which they were forbidden to do because there was a lockdown.

 

Many infrastructure programmes accelerated due to reduced notice periods being negotiated while road traffic was lighter. I managed that in Edinburgh which is a notoriously difficult place in which to operate.

Lemons and lemonade as has been said earlier.

 

People soon forget these things. Initially all unessential work had to stop and, at that time, this would be classed as unessential.

 

The real issue is that it is a job that should have been done some while ago, so it isnt only the current management that are in the dock over it.

 

Blue Anchor is no bad destination; Dunster with a connecting bus is not bad either. While not running into Minehead is unfortunate, and we can argue forever about why that is so, we have to make the best of what is available!