West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Things were quite relaxed for me in BR days. I remember getting a free trip on the cab of a 32XX from Ross on Wye to Lydbrook Junction in the early sixties, and was offered one on a 73XX from Barnstaple Junction to Taunton, which I was unable to take up!

 

Steps to deal with the matter - such as?

Driver and Fireman made me unwelcome - what was I supposed to do - throw a hissy fit on the platform at Minehead and demand that they were replaced??

You need to get real.

 

I was wondering that. Perhaps you should have said "I think you are horrid!"

 

I would have expected you to have made an immediate complaint to the management. If you did not do so why not?

 

Speaking as a former footplate man, i would never even think of being rude to any member of the public, When we used to have footplate guests up i would often give them the do's and donts and try my best to keep them informed, i have had some very interesting people come up for a ride, the only time i would be concerned enough to warn anyone would be if they were doing something that may place them in harm, its strange that my regular driver always left me to explain " the rules" to guests, and the only thing i would say is , dont distract the driver, or myself if we are busy firing , observing signals etc, unless you see something that may give you cause for concern to stand either behind the driver, or in the corner, and dont get in the way , and i never had anyone get off without saying thank you, but i did go out of my way to make them feel welcome, and at station stops, if they wanted to i would let them have a go at using the shovel etc, and explain the art of firing .how injectors work etc.

 

About thirty years ago, I was a volunteer on the WSR and was going up to Bath by train for the night from Minehead. The last train of the day to BL was behind 53808. Thinking, "they can only say no" I walked up to the loco and asked for a footplate ride. Rather to my surprise, I was made very welcome, despite my ride being unofficial in the extreme. The crew told me where to stand where I wouldn't be in the way and there I stayed. Mind you, we were running tender first and I was pretty dirty by the time I got down, despite liberal use of the pep pipe by the fireman.

 

They probably got you carefully positioned so that you kept them nicely sheltered from any muck thrown off the tender

Tom

 

Isnt that the trainees job?

 

You might. Life is too short for most of us. Get over it and move on. It's trivial in reality.

 

Can I offer a different perspective on footplate riding?

I came to it in a different way, as a graduate management trainee on British Railways. My training year was the year of the Colwich accident (unauthorised trainee driver and suitcases in cab of one of the locos involved) and we did not receive our cab passes until half way through our year just before our footplate ‘month’. In my case that involved learning the road first to Hampton Court and subsequently Salisbury as a trainee driver would. My subsequent career meant that as a Traffic Manager I held a cab pass and managed train crew directly at Eastbourne. As part of my duties I spent substantial time ‘up front’ including running in and out of all the SR London terminii and (memorably) on the 12:00 from Kings Cross (Non-stop to York, some of which at 125mph).

When riding as such, often with a lone driver, I always (as I had been taught) was careful (1) not to distract and (2) to assist with reading of Signal aspects and the like.

I take a similar view on the WSR. Over the 35 years I have held operational qualifications on the WSR and other Railways I have ridden a good number of times on footplates / in driving cabs as pilotman, travelling Signal man and the like. I regard it as my role to keep out of the way when doing so.

Appreciating that 25mph is different from 75mph or 100mph, folk are fortunate that crews, who bear the ultimate responsibility for safety - a train can’t hit something if it isn’t moving - feel able to let extra folk on the footplate. If a crew don’t want someone there, it remains, very properly in my view, their absolute right not to have them there, and they would never be criticised by me.

That is not to say that visitors, paying or not, should not be treated with absolute courtesy.

Just saying...

Robin

 

Not trivial at all. I would expect any passenger on the WSR to be treated in a polite and reasonable manner. If not they should make a compaint to a senior member of staff. It does no good to harbour a grudge for twenty years as the OP has done.

 

I am much in agreement with a lot of the posts here re footplate riding.

When the availability sheet for a WSR gala is circulated enginemen are specifically asked whether or not they are willing to take a paying member of the public so that the roster clerk/those arranging the ride can try to prevent the situation MichaelH has described. I can't recall whether a few rides are sold at every Gala but that has certainly been the case in the recent past on selected home fleet locos.

The suggestion of a rider to accompany the passenger can be OTT particularly on some of the more cramped footplates.

If anybody rides I take the time to explain that we prefer not to engage in long conversations whilst the train is in motion but will gladly answer questions etc at station stops.
Most folk appreciate the reasons for that and respect it. Just occasionally however a fp passenger can turn up who has no concept of what is happening, does not keep to the requested position and can become a nuisance. Fortunately that is rare.

I am reminded of reading a passage from the old days where the Southern Region General Manager was refused access to the footplate by a steam driver - who was of course well within his rights to do so!

 

I wonder how quickly he rose up the links...

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

 

Looong time ago I used to 'spot' regularly at Didcot (3d [less than 1.5 p] for a platform ticket) and occasionally got a FP ride to Reading (Strangely enough never the other way to Swindon) Great fun - so long as I could get another ride back again! Can't see many 10 year olds doing that these days

 

Now I come to think of it, they probably did. Still it was worth it anyway, even if there wasn't any hot water on the HST to Bath.

 

Readers of NatPres sometimes appear to take an intense interest in the challenges faced by the railway. It seems we have a new one - we all know that volunteers are becoming increasingly hard to find in some fields. I learnt this afternoon that there appears to be a shortage of elves for the Santa trains. My suggestion that perhaps we substitute goblins if we could find any in the woods around the Quantocks was not seen to be helpful. The shortage appears to be particularly acute on those days when Santa trains run on school days. (The subsidiary question that only occurred to me on the way home was: does that mean that these Santa trains are for grown ups?? No, don't go there.)

Frank

 

Do come to help if you can.

However, I don’t ‘know’ that volunteers are becoming increasingly hard to find. Partly to explore this, as part of the Operations Development role I undertook for the WSR (and partly just because it was a good idea) we held an Operation staff recruitment / experience day in November 2016 focussed particularly on the core operational roles of signalman and guard. With very little effort - mostly posts on the relevant websites - 27 potential volunteers came along and we filled up the relevant training courses with good candidates. I note that it was not felt necessary to carry out a similar exercise this year. Presumably we have all the Operations volunteers we need?

The WSR may have over 1,000 active volunteers but that is still very low penetration in the 5M or so folk who live in Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire, Bristol, Gloucestershire and near South Wales (one in 5,000) and even lower if one adds in the enthusiast population of the UK, recognising that we have regular volunteers who come from much further afield, for example a small conurbation on a minor river crossing of the Thames.

So I challenge the received wisdom about volunteers. It is more about the effectiveness of recruitment.

Another recent example is the recent lamp post works at Stogumber. Some more ‘muscle’ Was required than is usually available from the Station volunteers. A timely request brought forward a happy band, tempted by no more that the prospect of the warm glow of a job well done and perhaps the sniff of a bacon roll. One even came for Hertfordshire for the experience.

My conclusion is the ‘increasingly hard to find’ thing may be a myth, code for ‘we haven’t tried very hard’ and can only be shown once proper recruitment efforts have been made.

Frsnk’s obviously well-meaning request is a case in point. This is a request on 19 December (with an impending minor ex-pagan festival occupying some folk in the next week or so) for help in the next few days.

Elf recruitment should be much earlier in the year. Training, on important matters such as how to correctly select presents, how to be comfortable in green and red clothing in a safety-critical environment, how to grow ones ears, how to slip Santa something restorative without being spotted and the like, should have been in November.

It has to be mentioned that the WSR’s very own James Mills made an exceptionally fine Elf last Sunday.

I am a poor imitation, but with a particularly silly hat. That’s me on the left. Not sure if that is Frank C on the right...!

Robin

 

New WSR plc Chairman and Vice Chairman.

I see that it has been announced that Ian Coleby and Frank Courtney are now WSR plc Chairman and Vice Chairman.

Robin

 

Sorry robin but you look more like noddy with that hat

 

Or an 'elf and safety risk...