West Somerset Railway General Discussion

It's staying for the steam gala at the start of May too. And it was absolutely brilliant fun today!

 

I would have thought that The Land of the Alternative Reality would not be quite your thing

 

My parents moved the family from Kent to a Somerset village near Glastonbury in 1968 when Dad and my Godfather set up their surveying practice in Wells.

In those far off days the Fish and Chip shop in Glastonbury used to have a ‘No Hippies’ sign in the window…

 

I didn't know @Victor was allowed out of Yorkshire? Has he still got a valid passport?

 

Can I just say what a truly fantastic weekend that was, big well done to the gala planning team for bringing it all together.

Victor, the recreations, always something moving, a truly fantastic way to kick off the 50th year of our wonderful railway.

So nice to see so many happy people around too, both staff and visitors alike. Here's to the next 50!

 

How was the signalman able to accept the Up train from BA if there was stock in the up platform line, as his Clearing Point would have been fouled? I'm assuming that was in the days of OES to BL, so not the same problem for the Down train.

I had a slightly different problem there once....

 

Watching the YouTube livestreams, it seems that the WSR are only using their recently overhauled blood & custard set of coaches on the second steam diagram (the one that just does the one return trip), with the mixed chocolate & cream/ maroon set doing the lion's share of the duties. It seems a strange way of allocating coaches - surely it would be better to use the nicer set of coaches on the main diagram, as those coaches have all been overhauled recently and will make a better impression on the passengers. I know that the WSR are doing/ redoing more maroon coaches (4987 redone a couple of months ago, and 4449 getting a fresh coach at the moment) so the second set of coaches will eventually look as nice as the blood & custard set. I also see that 5002 might be getting blood & custard, and as for 4260 - that one seems to have had a LOT of work done on it, but not sure what livery it will get (a bit sad that it means 4260 will have lost it's trojan moquette, but maybe it will get the red snapdragon moquette that 9380 has).

 

The 1015 off BL is the busiest outward but the 1430 off MD is the busiest back, so either way, most passengers get a trip on each. Not really sure what the WSR livery policy is to be honest! Was originally blood and custard to identify what was dual braked.

 

At the start of this season, the B&C was used as the main set. Maybe they have been swapped around to even out wear and tear?

 

We tend to swap sets over occasionally to even out wear.

The reason that Set A (Crimson and Cream) has been allocated to the lower mileage diagram this week is that there was a small fault with Buffet 4346 which meant this was better suited to the shorter turn. The sets will be swapped back over on Wednesday as part of Gala Prep.

Previously the policy was for Dual braked coaches to be Crimson and Cream but none of the Air braking gear is operational currently so this policy has been dropped.

The reason for mixed livery on Set B is that as you say the C&W team haven't managed to work through the set refreshing Maroon vehicles. Maroon Brake 35257 is due some works after the Diesel Gala so this is why it is not part of Set B.

TSO 4449 is currently in the works for a repaint into Maroon expected to run in first gloss for the Gala, returning to the works afterwards for final completion.

TSO 4260 will return to traffic at some point this year after a large amount of work which has started and stopped at various times over the last decade. This will be in Chocolate and Cream as requested by its owner.

TSO 5002 will be in Crimson and Cream meaning we can swap SK 25308 out keeping Set A as 6 vehicles but with a higher passenger capacity. Whilst nominally an SK and TSO have the same amount of seats, in reality when you get small groups taking up compartments who won't share this reduces overall capacity.

The C&W team have done a fantastic job the last couple of weeks in returning vehicles to traffic for the Gala.

Pending any hidden issues we should see BCK 21174 returning following a wheelset swap and lighting fix, SK 25323 returning with a new floor in one end and TSO 4449 following roof repairs and partly completed repaint.

On the wagon front we are hopeful for return to traffic of GW Toad 68765 with a new floor, GW Open 135744 with new axlebox crown, WD Rectank 12085 following drawgear repairs and possibly SR/WD Pillbox Brakevan 49017 after a full overhaul including new Spring hanger bolts.

Seb Welsh
WSR Operations Lead / Wagon Group volunteer

 

When we read of the list of vehicles under repair and overhaul, it brings it home what a time consuming and expensive job it is to keep a heritage railway operating. [BJ]

 

The original list didn't include TSO 4911 which has just gone to Cranmore for a contract overhaul.

With over 30 MK1s on the line our C&W team are kept very busy.

 

Lots of very useful information - thank you!

I know what you mean about people not wanting to share a compartment in SKs - a few years ago I had a whole compartment in SK 24985 (the compartment that has the blind that some spotter back in 1982 decided to write their locomotive moves all over it) to myself. I had no problem with people sharing the compartment, but they all chose not to. As you say - the C&W team do a good job - 30 odd MK1s take a lot of time, resources and money to keep running!

 

I have not long come back from a trip to Minehead having also been fortunate to catch the back end of the anniversary gala on Monday.

I had planned for a journey on either the Weds or the Thurs having heard of 3850 running on both days which, in the end, didn't happen due to timing but in part I felt that the timetable from the Minehead end was difficult to work with.

I last visited two years ago and a couple of weeks later in May and had a really good day out distinctively remembering setting off around 12 and getting back around 17:30ish visiting Blue Anchor, Watchet and Bishops L. However the difference this time around seems to be that everything is off BL. As such the earliest service you can get is the 12:20 from MH. Once you get this service if you want to break the journey you then can't complete a full round trip. You're also back by 16:00 if you do this which doesn't really fill the day.

The orange timetable that seems to run for the next couple of weeks has another steam turn but the same essential issue off the MH end.

This is absolutely not meant as a complaint or moan - just an observation, as in the end would have liked to have travelled with the family but just felt a bit limited in what you could do and wonder how many others from the MH end have encountered the same. There's not a great deal for non railway people in BL and stopping at either BA or WA would have left a much shorter journey on the train and arguably a bit too much time in either place.

 

I suspect it is basically "The Whitby Issue" a mainly one way flow.
Not enough to fill an early train from Minehead say at 10:20 which means it would either be very close to the the exiting 12:25 going back or spend ages sitting around burning coal.
You could make the early Minehead train diesel (with the arguments of it should be steam") but then at the end of the day you have a full length ECS to get the loco back to the next day's starting point.
There appears to be no easy solution, and watching the webcam on Wednesday even the 16:30 back from MD looked sparsely populated, and BA appeared to have no pax for it and only two who got off.

 

I have to agree Trevor. Until a couple of years ago I had a caravan at Blue Anchor which I regularly used to visit the Railway. I always found that the first train from Minehead was later than I wanted and invariably jumped on a down train to grab a coffee at Minehead before starting my travels towards BL on the first up train. (I should add that this wasn’t such a problem at Galas when the timetables were often more flexible).
I know that a greater number of passengers commence their day at Lydeard than at Minehead and I fully understand the points made by @Gladiator 5076 above, but those of us at Blue Anchor always felt like poor relations.

 

Is there an explanation of that? It seems surprising, when there are holidaymakers already in Minehead ready to start their day, whereas almost all those starting at Lydeard have had to travel from elsewhere to reach the railway.

 

I don’t know what evidence there is to support this, except train loadings, bit I know that it’s always been accepted as fact.
Maybe Seb can offer some explanation.

 

Cast your minds back a couple of years ago when the future of the railway looked bleak. The new management introduced the policy of running trains when there is a passenger demand and of reducing the number of operating days. The main tourist destination in Minehead is Butlins, the majority of whose patrons are not of the profile that use heritage railways. A very long train ride to nowhere in particular is unlikely to appeal to young families. My sources at the railway tell me that staff morale is much improved and that things are going in the right direction. What has not gone away, or doesn't seem to be talked about as much, was the backlog of maintenance costs for the infrastructure. At least they don't have any crumbling masonry bridges!

 

To me it’s really simple. Minehead is “somewhere” so many holidaymakers, once there, won’t wish to travel. Especially not to “nowhere”.
On the other hand, day trippers will wish to go “somewhere” and a steam train to a destination worth a few hours will be worthwhile. Some of those day trippers will be holiday makers in the general area, others will be on days out from home.

See also Whitby/NYMT