West Somerset Railway General Discussion

7828 back in action today on driver experiences

 

Latest update from the WSR. <BJ>

CANCELLATION OF AFTERNOON SERVICES - Wednesday 12th August 2026

Due to the extreme temperatures forecast for Wednesday 12th August, we have made the difficult decision to suspend all our afternoon services (where the temperature is forecast to be hottest) for the safety of our passengers, staff and volunteers.
As a result, the following services will not operate:
Minehead to Bishops Lydeard
14.30
15.25
16.30
Bishops Lydeard to Minehead
10.55
14.35
16.25

This decision has been made with passenger, staff and volunteer welfare as our highest priority. The forecast extreme heat also presents increased risks to our railway infrastructure, and we believe the risks associated with operating these services are too high.

All passengers who had pre-booked tickets for Wednesday 12th August have been contacted by email. If you have a booking for Wednesday and have not received an email from us, please contact our team at info@wsrail.net.

We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding.

 

I was rather surprised to see, given the mention of volunteer welfare, that the cancelled trains are the diesel hauled ones. The ones that are running being steam hauled.

Dave B

 

In the list of cancelled services, only the 1055 BL and 1525 MD are diesel hauled. The rest were scheduled to be steam.

 

Why was the railway running just the morning round trips rather than just cancel the day's services?

I would've thought a lot of people get off and spent part of the day in Minehead.

Is this a way of not having to provide refunds possibly or mainly to run for coach trips booked on morning/lunchtime trains?

 

Isn't the purpose of a railway to run trains? OK, it can't run in the afternoon, but at least it runs trains and people get to ride on them

 

But it was only half a day. Was a rover half price?

 

I don't know, and I'm sure those with Rover tickets can discuss, but half a day's running is better than no day's running.

 

I doubt it makes much difference to the conditions for the staff on platforms, ticket offices, signal boxes, guards vans etc, as to what is pulling the train. Not to mention the passengers

 

I admire the WSR for being bold. It would have been pretty grim in Mark I coaches this pm, aside from being in the cab of a diesel or steam loco.

Other element that occurred to me, travelling on main line train presently, I see Network Rail this pm are operating several main lines on the Western Region in Key Route Strategy - IE not swinging points unless absolutely necessary. So my train delayed presently by 5 mins by a cement train as it wasn't looped - I'm perfectly fine with that as a points failure would be more than a few minutes delay if it has gone into the loop as booked.

I would think WSR will have considered the heat affects on their infrastructure if a FPL can't insert into the lock bar or with heat, points go out of adjustment and then having to send staff to fix. I recollect getting sun stroke winding points at Newport on a Summers afternoon exactly 28 years ago - pretty grim and that was not as hot then, as now.

 

I wonder if they had pre booked parties on the steam trains so ran those

 

To me it looks like a pragmatic decision faced with difficult choices.

I suspect firstly that, mid week, there is a fair amount of coach traffic. So if you have (say) two coaches for your morning train and two for the afternoon, then agreeing with the afternoon provider to shift to the morning allows the railway to carry the pre-booked traffic rather than have the difficult conversation about letting down a customer (the coach company) - and a customer that would over the years supply a lot of revenue.

From a crew welfare point of view, you also change a duty that might have been, say, 8am - 5pm to one that is 8am - 2pm. Still not great in the current weather, but better.

I think we have to have a lot of sympathy for those in management roles on railways right now, because they are being pulled in opposite directions. On the one hand, you have the inevitable pressure that summer is the time to "make hay while the sun shines" - for many railways they may make half their money in a quarter of the year, so anything that stops them running in the summer holidays is catastrophic in a way that, perhaps, a lost day in April wouldn't be. But on the other side, they have an undoubted duty of care for the welfare of both their staff and passengers. They also have to protect the interests of their neighbouring landowners (or feel the impact in hefty insurance premiums) if they continue to run steam; and they have the safety concern of whether the track is up to it during heatwaves.

Put all that together, and these are super tough decisions, in which no answer is the right one and you will be criticised whatever you do. I think in the circumstances, those at the sharp end need our support, not constant second-guessing.

Tom