West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Due out on 7th Dec. Not sure if the shop will have it. It will be on Lightmoor's website.

 

When I was WSRA Chairman it was clear that the QB dining train was significantly underpriced. I had to work hard to get folk to put the price up.

A member felt able to write to me to say that I was ‘on a mission to murder the Quantock Belle’. I saught him out and talked it through. We Identified that he thought the tickets should be £39.50 and I thought £42. Only a small Murder!

A small proportion of folk will always go overboard. That doesn’t mean the right reaction is to operate in secret.

Robin

 

I have posted a few comments and a question on the almost unused "Viabiity of Extending to Taunton" pages and would welcome answers to my question from people who know more about regulations than I do!

 

So that's what's causing the slips, a syrup gusher... Should it be called Golden Slipup (after a cider or two?)

 

This is an easy one to answer, there were two reasons.

• Firstly. In the carriages affected the wiring was generally in poor condition with perished insulation, stray wires and damaged components. with predominately hydraulic locomotives the investment to re-wire was not viable when carriages were overhauled.
• Secondly. Mk 1 carriage stock was built using asbestos as insulation behind the steam heating equipment, this is mostly covered by steel panels. When converted to ETH more asbestos board was used in exposed locations under and above the individual heating elements under the seats. This board will deteriorate over time even if not broken/damaged when seats have been removed and refitted. It could not be established that individual elements were not already contaminated with lose asbestos fibres and subjecting the elements to heat might cause them to be circulated within the vehicle. It has been the policy of the WSR to remove all asbestos as vehicles go through overhaul or to encapsulate it (with a sprayed coating) pending overhaul. To remove the asbestos panels the licenced contractors also had to remove the ETH equipment and the steam heat equipment, cleaning and refitting the steam heat was a simple task but to guarantee the ETH elements and switches clean was very costly and again not worth the investment. It was much cheaper and easier to instruct the contractors to treat the elements as contaminated and treat them as asbestos waste.

Yes there have been times when ETH fitted carriages would have enabled ETH fitted locomotives to be used in cold weather but the many thousands of pounds per vehicle was not justified. Keeping 30 or so vehicles in service on limited budget was always a saga of choices and the aim of re-upholstering each vehicle every 7 years considered more important to enable families to sit on clean seats than the inconvenience of having to plan to run steam rather than diesel on cold days.

Hope this explains the reasoning.

Andy.

 

I quite agree - but - sites such as this one are monitored by the powers that be (saves doing a physical inspection I suppose!) It just needs one bod near a crane to have taken his hard hat off to scratch his head when the photo is taken and, if the hard hat can't be seen in the photo, it appears as though dangerous working practices are creeping in - so out comes the ORR.

Stopping photographing is one reason why you'll see so many boarded walls around building sites.

 

I think you will find its more to do with keeping trespassers and thieves out rather than stopping people photographing.

 

I have seen, on the internet, some quite impressive building works taking place in one of England's largest cities. These were at street level where a tramway was being constructed and of redevelopments being done where photos were/are taken from taller buildings surrounding the construction site. All the work taking place is quite visible.

 

Which begs the question - what have you got to hide from the ORR? Let them come and be reassured that you are operating safely. I suspect that they will have a pretty good idea anyway of how you go about your operation.

Peter James

 

There has been a similar discussion on a discussion group elsewhere about a preserved railway of good repute, and issues have reportedly arisen as the result of photographs appearing to show violations of good practice. A level of caution does not seem ridiculous, though I suggest trying to stop pictures getting into the public domain is a tad excessive and counter productive.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Hence the advantage of the Infrastructure Manager himself actually compiling the post with photos (for others to upload if necessary). That actually gives the IM the opportunity to look at the photos himself and persue any issues which arise from doing that. If there are then NO photos suitable for public posting then the board should have serious concerns and be interesting themselves in what is going on.

Before somebody suggests that this is a significant extra task surely a good photographic record of works in progress is an important asset for a variety of reasons beyond publicity?

 

West Somerset Railway -Then and Now #146

Minehead Turntable 1998 / 2017 / 1977

After lurking at Minehead perched on a pair of coach bogies for over 20 years, the turntable obtained from Pwllheli is moved into the loco department for the start of the restoration process. Behind, the seafront development is underway. Nowadays the turntable has settled in as a feature. The 1977 photo shows the table arriving at Minehead. The word ‘join’ could still be read in 1998.

Copyright Nigel Mann / Robin White / Ron Prickett

1998


2017


1977

 

Indeed so. One line known to me has just such reports, both in the quarterly magazine and in periodic updates to the website. However it does have a unified structure (he says pointedly)

PH

 

Pictures of WSR PW work continue to be published on www.wsr.org.uk (unofficial WSR website) in almost all cases without intervention of the WSR's Infrastructure Manager. And such pictures are posted on facebook and twitter, sometimes by the Infrastructure Manager, so there's plenty to see. Only on the rare occasions that an image could be misinterpreted, or when shown to be taken from an out-of-bounds location, will I get the call to consider removal from www.wsr.org.uk and then it is my duty to inform the photographer of the decision. It's a matter of trust and responsibilities, and it works very well on the whole. I remain grateful for all website contributions.

Steve

 

Snap. I think I've had two instances in a more than a year on the SVR site.

Patrick

 

My dad worked for BR, Railtrack and some of the later contractors. There were always work photos on the digital camera from a site visit for record keeping.

 

Please excuse my ignorance but what is ETH ? Thank you .

 

Electric Train Heating (as opposed to steam heating).

Tom

 

ETH was the old name Electric Train Heat, which predates the current usage ETS which is Electrical Train Supply as it it no longer only used for heating.

 

Many thanks Tom and Wenlock , TBH I thought all the heating with diesels as well was steam . I was shown either on a Warship or a Western the boiler and had it explained by the "second man " of how it all works . This was back in the early sixties so I've been to sleep since then and might have forgotten some of it .

Paul . K