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West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by gwr4090, Nov 15, 2007.

  1. martin1656

    martin1656 Nat Pres stalwart Friend

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    I should imagine the problem is in being able to remove coaches from traffic to put them through the paint shop until you have a situation where you are in effect doing a one out, one in so you have to have at least two coaches overhauled even if its just a repaint and deep clean to be able to swop coaches out.
     
  2. thequantocks

    thequantocks Member

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    The Railway are to be congratulated for allowing discussion of the corporate plan. Rome wasn't built in a day.
     
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  3. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    Well repaint/re-varnish is certainly a workshop job, annual or biennial but I would have thought a deep clean was a bit more frequent than that!

    PH
     
  4. martin1656

    martin1656 Nat Pres stalwart Friend

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    by deep clean i meant full interior revamp , re varnishing interior wood work new upholstery etc where needed
     
  5. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    Not quite my understanding of the term I am afraid.

    PH
     
  6. martin1656

    martin1656 Nat Pres stalwart Friend

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    let me explain, you would not repaint a coach and not give attension to the interior at the same time, worn bare carpets, woodwork that still has Jim was ere 67 scratched into the woodwork and just send it out as it is
     
  7. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    These are items of renewal/repair. A"deep clean" is just that and done much more frequently.

    PH
     
  8. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    Actually, it should be easier to plan on a large railway (though not necessarily easier to finance). For example, suppose you reckon on needing to do a from "the ground up" overhaul on a carriage once every 30 years, and maybe 3 intermediates in between (ever 7.5 years). If the railway has an operational need for, say, 30 carriages (5 rakes of 6, or 4 rakes of 7), then basically you are probably tackling one full ground up overhaul per year, plus three intermediates. So you need something like 34+ carriages available, with four in the workshop at any time for major work. Ideally, every year you withdraw one carriage for a complete rebuild, and it is replaced by a carriage that has just been rebuilt; and during the course of the year three get withdrawn for intermediate repairs, and then returned to traffic.

    By contrast, you might have the same time intervals on a small railway but if, say, the regular traffic requirement is perhaps 10 carriages, then there will be more peaks and troughs as to when a carriage needs withdrawn, and withdrawal will have a bigger impact on your overall fleet.

    (There will be the normal routine maintenance as well - the carriage equivalent of a washout - and of course the above broad outline has to take into account the need to adjust for specific types of carriage, particularly brake vehicles, of which you may have low numbers but are operationally essential).

    Finance: it was interesting (and realistic) to see an actual figure on the requirement for locomotive overhauls (£50k per year per loco, with a minimum target of 6 locos available). This is equivalent to saying you expect to have to finance a £500k overhaul every 20 months (six overhauls in ten years, though the law of sod probably means six in nine years might be prudent). At some point, one would have to face up to an equivalent target commitment for carriages just to maintain the status quo of having sufficient operational carriages to seat the target passenger numbers.

    Tom
     
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  9. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

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    That's not deep cleaning, that's just replacing stuff! And we have been known to bring a carriage straight into the paint shop and not even open the doors, literally in just for a repaint. Equally coaches have only had their upholstery replaced, if everything else is ok for now. It means we're much more flexible in getting work done, less reliant on other jobs being finished and a more efficient use of volunteer labour.
     
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  10. 21B

    21B Part of the furniture

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    The real problems maintaining the carriage fleet, when for some reason the carriage overhaul instead of taking 12 months or whatever was planned takes much longer, or an event causes a hiatus in overhauls. We still feel the effects of the carriage shed fire in 2010 in the backlog of work, and one of the effects is that all the overhauls are taking a little longer because all the carriages got "shopped" a little later than planned. Our fleet still looks OK compared to many, but we'd like it to look better. We're looking at how we "catch up". My observation during the summer on the WSR (and I mean no offence) was that the plc have at least one whole set in service of 7 carriages that pretty much all need a very heavy overhaul in the next year or two. I noted one set of 7 where the under window rib was visible as a line of rust in the paint surfaces from one end to the other. We have had carriages like that, and it usually indicates that a very significant amount of work is required. They are the ones that when the interior and the windows are out, the tin rot is worse than first expected. I hope I am wrong, because otherwise the rate of overhauls is going to be pretty overwhelming.
     
  11. Forestpines

    Forestpines Well-Known Member

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    My previous post about military reenactors "pretending" in a way that heritage railway volunteers are not probably didn't explain what I was trying to say very well, probably because I wrote it quickly on my phone. I certainly wasn't trying to be elitist, and I often do refer to what we do as "playing trains".

    What I meant to say, though, was: if you are at a wartime event and you see Churchill shuffling up and down looking cantankerous, it is clearly an actor playing Churchill (hopefully a sober version). If you see Field Marshal Montgomery, ditto. If you see a private walking round with a rifle, you can be pretty damn sure it isn't a live weapon; if you see a civilian getting shot in the back of the head for being a member of the resistance, you can be fairly sure they will get up and be walking around again shortly afterwards.

    When you look at a train approaching, though, the footplate crew are genuinely driving and firing a real locomotive, and the guard is genuinely guarding the train. They might not have as long shifts or as strenuous a life as if it was their day job (although for some of them it might be their day job, of course), but they are still doing a real job that gets people from place to place, even if the "genuine public transport service" is provided partly for tax reasons. More significantly, it is in some ways just as dangerous as the real railway, and in some ways more due to the various derogations that apply. As the old saw goes, you are just as dead if a train hits you at 25mph as at 90mph. If a driver, a signalman, or any other member of staff makes a mistake, they could be liable for manslaughter just as much as if they worked on the real railway. To my mind, the incident with the preschooler and the toilet non-floor on the South Devon was a very near miss for a corporate manslaughter case.

    When visitors come to wartime events, though, then in my experience this distinction does get blurred in their minds. As a signalman I have often shown visitors round my box when it is safe to do so. At wartime events, the proportion of those visitors who initially think that the signalbox is just another display, and do not realise that all the equipment is fully working and being used for its original purpose is much higher than on an ordinary running day. I am fairly sure that a good number of visitors subconsciously think: that gun is not real and is not going to hurt me; that train is not going to hurt me either. I realise that such events do get the visitors in, but I am always wary that it makes heritage railways riskier places to be.
     
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2018
  12. Yorkshireman

    Yorkshireman Part of the furniture

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    Today's West Somerset Free Press has almost a full broadsheet page of pictures taken at the photo shoot. No POWs in sight:(
     
  13. AnthonyTrains2017

    AnthonyTrains2017 Well-Known Member

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    Anyone wanting Taunton to Barnstaple vol one and two signed copy. I’m having to sell as need cash to pay for dentist bill. Looking for £30 for the pair.
     
  14. ikcdab

    ikcdab Member Friend

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  15. AnthonyTrains2017

    AnthonyTrains2017 Well-Known Member

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    Any special trains planned for Mothering Sunday
     
  16. Ian Monkton

    Ian Monkton Member

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    You can see what trains (including any specials) are running on any particular day by clicking on the date on the website.
     
  17. Paul Kibbey

    Paul Kibbey Well-Known Member

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    Have you not seen the oh so faded brown and cream sets ?
     
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  18. Black Jim

    Black Jim Member

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    Ha! I wondered where that coach went!
     
  19. martin1656

    martin1656 Nat Pres stalwart Friend

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    Do you want your bubble gum back? the bit you left stuck to the table underside? ;)
     
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  20. 61624

    61624 Part of the furniture

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    When was the last time anyone set out to do just a repaint on a Mk 1 without find loads more to do!!?? Virtually all "repaints" turn into overhauls to a greater or lesser degree, but a deep clean is just that - steam clean upholstery and floors, wash washable surfaces etc, remove graffiti if possible but paint and varnish brushes are not needed, it is a thorough clean, no more or less. Attention to worn upholstery, badly marked woodwork etc is carried out as part of an overhaul
     
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