West Somerset Railway General Discussion

I would expect the necessary changes to the track layout and signalling to allow regular services to and from Bishops Lydeard to be the main contribution to the cost. Other costs should be modest, but I have no idea whether the quoted £6 million is a reasonable estimate for the total.
A regular Bishops Lydeard – Taunton – points beyond service would have some value even when the WSR is not running and providing a connection to and from Minehead. Presumably GWR (or its GBR successor) would determine what frequency of service is viable.

 

The question is whether subsidy for the services to BL and the WSR services onwards. If not, I suspect they will not be viable. The further question is what infrastructure changes will be needed in the WSR. I’m struggling to believe that they will find many takers for the signalling turns in the depth of winter, and presumably the travelling signalman approach would be undesirable as anything more than an occasional thing as it is now. I’m not criticising, just interested in how this might work and what the benefit will be for the WSR.

 

Any notion of year-round operation of the WSR seems unrealistic.
Whenever the WSR is running, through services between the outside world and BL would obviously bring in some extra custom, as well as allowing some who would be visiting anyway to arrive by train instead of car or bus. The extra custom might not be much but the costs to the WSR would be minimal.
Whenever the WSR is not running, the only impact on the WSR of through services to/from the outside world would be a need to staff BL station, which the TOC (GWR/GBR/whoever) would presumably have to pay for.

 

The report is an update of this, which gives a little more detail of the proposal:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cv2g02deedpo

 

I think the whole idea is utterly ridiculous. The only one that vaguely makes any sense is extending services that terminate at Taunton to BL. Even that's going to require extra crews and units, as it's an hour round trip.

Extending to Minehead is a non-starter, especially on non-operating data. I'm assuming Williton and Blue Anchor boxes will need to be manned for the crossings. CH can be switched out - what about BL and Minehead? If not, how many volunteers or paid staff are going to be required? It's not like an engineers train where a travelling signalman can operate the boxes - if you want to make it into a service it needs to be seamless sand not stopping every 5 minutes. Even then, it'll still take longer than the bus between Taunton and Minehead, and the vast majority of the stations aren't that close to the places they serve.

Terminating at BL adds extra complexity for the WSR as well. You've still got to fit it in with WSR services and the loco running round. Even terminating in the bay doesn't alleviate the conflicting movements.

And on top of all this, how many people would actually use the service? Even on galas I don't recall seeing the buses unloading more than 30-40 people. And most of them were travelling for free, so would probably use the bus rather than pay for the train anyway! Changing on to a bus at Taunton isn't that much of a hardship if you're keen to get to the railway.

From the last serious trial in 2019, it was reported over 1000 passengers travelled over three weekends, 5 return trips per day.

https://www.somerset-chamber.co.uk/...shuttle-service-proves-a-hit-with-passengers/

Whether those sort of numbers could be sustained long term, I very much doubt it. The initial Swanage shuttles were popular when it was loco and stock but numbers rapidly dwindled when it became a DMU.

Heritage lines and regular network passenger services don't mix. No one has managed to make it work in the past, it's completely incompatible.

The line closed for a reason - it wasn't well used! Massive peaks in the summer and dead in the winter.

 

I suspect that from Somerset Council's point of view this may be more about opening up land for residential development around Norton Fitzwarren and Bishop's Lydeard. And why not?

 

That is before you consider the commercial implications of running at heritage railway speeds (the more so bearing in mind how far round the railway goes compared to the road), or the practical implications of upgrading the railway to work at main line speeds.

 

Since when have planners worried about transport connections?
There is already the 28 bus which runs regularly throughout the day, and whilst traffic in Taunton is not great a bus will serve many more points than just Taunton and BL stations.

 

I think any prospect of services along the whole line while also maintaining it a as heritage operation is just a non-starter - the slow speed and heritage signalling. You could have an elongated siding with a couple of loops broadly similar to the Barnstaple line; or you could have a heritage operation with 25mph line speed and manual signalling practice; but you can't have both.

As a big vision, housing development at Norton Fitzwarren with a reinstated station there might be a possibility in which case you could extend to Bishops Lydeard for probably minimal additional operating cost. But is housing viable there - I thought it was susceptible to flooding? (Not that that seems to be a deterrent in housing policy ...)

Tom

 

There's quite a large housing allocation around Norton Fitzwarren. Areas TAU4 and TAU8 are housing, while the pink speckly bit is employment land. This is an extract from the current local plan.

 

Taunton has enough capacity for reversals not to be a problem. It's the crossing from one side of the line all the way to the other to access the WSR that will cause problems. The reversal at Taunton also allows crews to have their break there. Running to BL means they'll have to take their break at another time.

Sheringham is completely incomparable. It's two separate lines. Same as East Grinstead, Alresford, Eridge. Mixing heritage and mainline services at BL means any delays on the big railway can stuff up the WSR timetable, and vice versa. Look at the Moors, how many times are their services to and from Whitby delayed because Northern have had problems elsewhere on the network. I'm sure I've heard of problems in Carlisle causing delays to NYMR services due to how the unit and crew diagrams work.

The other thing to consider is why would anyone want to go to BL except for the WSR? Most of the large village is on the other side of a main road, and the station is next to an industrial estate. I really can't see the line attracting that many passengers to make the service that worthwhile. The WSR is the only destination there, and unless it gains a bigger car park then it'll be useless as a park and ride for Taunton.

 

At present, only CH box can be switched out. All the other boxes need to be operational as they are at the token exchange points. MD also needs to be open to operate the level crossing, like WN and BA.

 

Isn't this now effectively prevented as Flood Re will only cover properties completed before January 2009?

 

BL used to be home to 67s/57s+Mk2s which were used for FGW on a daily basis in the early 2010s!!! Search class 57 on the photo search on wsr dot org!!!!!

Even now Saphos Welsh Marches Express require movements off BL at 06xx!

 

There's a subway under the road, I've used it plenty of times to go get the bus back to Taunton.

The industrial estate is home to Quantock Brewery, a train would be handy for many people who would like to frequent there I am sure. A direct service from BL to Cardiff, as mentioned earlier in this thread, would suit me down to a tee for this purpose!!!

The big point of this is to move people off the roads. If BL was turned into a park and ride, it would help traffic in and around Taunton, no question about that.

 

With due respect there are only a small number of Welsh Marches tours that operate per year. That's a far cry from manning a daily rail service from BL. [BJ]

 

Daily, presumably hourly or some such interval trains with the need to cycle them reliably is not the same.

 

You said turns in the depth of winter...... happened 15 years ago! Don't change the goalposts.