West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Its about time there was a decent social media policy, Shame it was left this open to abuse until now.
Shame that some people connected to the railway saw fit to use social media to abuse people and spread miss truths,
The worst thing was when I mentioned it to the railway I was told there was nothing they could do.
Seems like now they are taking it more seriously.

The WSR has the potental to be a very good railway, its the fighting and other BS that ruins it.

The staying away tatic is working out great, other more welcoming and deserving railways get more custom, get to sit and laugh at the infighting from a far and its less stressful having not to deal with the abuse you get for daring not to toe the WSR party line.

 

As far as the seats are concerned these were advertised as first come first served and that is what happened. To be fair to Barrie he has tried to introduce a booking system. AIUI the problem is that the WSR Commercial Department cant get a grip on the reality of the situation. It would have been quite feasible operationally to add the first class coach that would have allowed extra meals to be served, but AIUI the OD decreed otherwise. They need to get real and recognise the real world both with time tabling and consist makeup. It can be done with a bit more forethought and liaison. It really can be done if the will is there. Mr Chairman please note. Thank you.

 

Am I right in thinking you are back with us after a lengthy ban from Nat Pres?

Robin

 

If you want to have ETH back into the coaches put your hand deep into your pocket (also other members who want ETH back in to help pay as well) and come out with the money to pay for new Blue asbestos free ETH heating back, in as the blue asbestos was the reason it was removed from the coaches as there was no guaranty the old ones were free of this killer.

 

Thank you for cheering me up with a healthy dose of common sense. (Starting to surface from a dose of flu which started on Tuesday afternoon.) As for standard hour operations, the LSWR adopted that 102 years ago and some people still think it's clever to b#$$*r about with standard hour departure times.
( People get imprisoned for less than that in Switzerland!)

Cheers, Neil

PS Rules of the Route was planned blocking the railway (engineering works) and Rules of the Plan was how to make it run - which came from the Train Planning Compendium which was spawned by BS5750 applied to train planning on the Southern in the mid 1990's. ( I still bear the mental scars ....)

 

See @Aberdare posting #9185

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.

 

The seating for the QB was perfectly handled this morning! As it is a "first come first served" service and we had passengers queuing in the rain at 0745, the QB manager handed out seat reservations to them and all who arrived subsequently until all 31 seats were allocated. I'm afraid 0855 is far too late to hope for a seat for a QB breakfast. Early birds and worms and all that!

 

Quite right - Rules of the Plan.

I would be interested to see the present version. The approach control installed at Williton as part of the recent resignalling makes little sense at 25mph (with 10mph pointwork) to many of we hoary old Operators and must be adding to the BA to WN and CH to WN section times.

Time to strap it out of use and post a few Rule 39A exemptions, methinks.

Robin

 

If you are the Cook then very well done for preparing what I understand was an excellent breakfast! I wish I had been able to enjoy it.

However,as someone who visits the railway only once a year at most I struggle to understand your reasoning. It should be normal customer care to communicate with your potential customers effectively and a simple message on the website saying something like "demand for breakfast is likely to be very high and reservation tickets will be issued on the platform in order of arrival" or something like that would have avoided some ill-feeling. It was particularly annoying that the station announcer embarked on a lengthy "plug" for the breakfast service just as the train pulled in, surely someone could have told him all the seats had gone long ago? It seems to me somewhat bizarre that passengers should be expected to arrive the best part of 2 hours before departure in order to get a seat? You may think things were "perfectly handled" but in my coach alone there were at least 6 potential breakfasters, 2 of whom were very annoyed and giving the TTI some grief over what had happened. The WSR really can't afford to upset customers like that, and let us hope that lessons will be learned for future operations so that the FO is diagrammed to satisfy the demand that is obviously there.

I realise you are not working on the commercial side but presumably you would agree that it's far from "perfect" that the WSR lost several hundred pounds in revenue due to being unable to satisfy the demand?

 

It is unreasonable to blame the cook who was not in anyway responsible for the problem. You should direct your justified complaint to the Commercial department at Minehead or to the WSR PLC Chairman. They need to get the message. The QB team are well aware of the problem but the solution is not in their hands.

 

Of course I understand that Yorkshireman, and I am sorry if it came across that I was " blaming" the QB Cook, that was not my intention - I merely sought to reply to her post saying that the situation had been "perfectly handled".

As I said before, the main thing is that lessons are learnt and this sort of thing doesnt happen again!

 

Noted. However if you really want to get the message across write to the Chairman at Minehead. Nothing like a few letters to get action. I remember hearing the head of a large organisation with 35,000 members saying that if he got five letters on the same subject he took notice, and 20 letters meant a crisis.

 

Quote "From what you have said the KWVR 'automatic' set up looks like an excellent idea."

Just for info, if an automatic steam generator system is considered. The KWVR one was supplied AFAIK from Byworth Boilers of Keighley.

 

It seems to me somewhat bizarre that passengers should be expected to arrive the best part of 2 hours before departure in order to get a seat?

Do you not understand the concept of "First come, First Served" ?

 

Quantock Belle operation today

The QB had not previously operated during our annual Winter Steam Festival event. We therefore had nothing to go on when it came to forecasting demand, although personally I anticipated a significant take up. Our preferred contingency is to take the 42 seat First Open coach with us and use a section of it as restaurant overflow seating. My request for the FO was declined because of a perceived fear of potential overcrowding. A 64 seat TSO in place of the FO gave the train a 22 seat additional seating capacity. The Special Traffic Notice showed we were due to be coupled to TSO 4909, so I had hoped to lay up some tables in that vehicle as a contingency. This morning though I found we were actually coupled to an SK compartment coach, so that anticipated option had been negated.

We advertised the breakfast service as 'first come, first served' and a significant number of folk arrived surprisingly early to bag seats. We had to shunt the train before boarding passengers, so I took the decision to issue 'boarding cards' allocating seats to those people, enabling them to board in an ordered fashion once the train returned to platform. These reservations were ONLY issued to those persons present this morning. Unfortunately we had to shunt before the station announcer arrived, so I had no opportunity to brief him accordingly. The same procedure will apply tomorrow morning but I will stay on the station while the train is shunted, to ensure accurate and up to date information is available to would be patrons.

Everybody that wanted breakfast this morning had the opportunity to enjoy one. Several people waited patiently for second sitting and considered the wait worthwhile. We even had several empty breakfast seats on departure from Minehead at 11.30. I sincerely apologise to anyone that could not/would not wait to be served.

If you were affected, then please write to Head of Commercial Services and/or Gala Planning Team at Minehead and ask them to consider providing QB with additional seating capacity at future special events.

I have already asked that breakfast seats be offered on a pre-booked, pre-paid basis during the 2018 Spring Steam Gala, with a view to making such an arrangement the norm. This would necessarily involve early internal agreement as to planned train consist, otherwise it would be impossible to know how many seats were available for pre-booking.

At least we managed to avoid the traditional boarding scrum this morning. Previously, bagging a seat very much depended on where the carriage door happened to stop on the platform. Older and more vulnerable folk were at a considerable disadvantage in these circumstances.

Thank you for all the kind comments received from many passengers today. We value every comment and endeavour to improve every aspect of our operation, whenever the opportunity arises.

I must take this opportunity to thank our Ops staff and duty fitter at BL this afternoon for arranging a very slick and efficient replenishment of propane gas bottles on the kitchen car. QB Cook had been playing fast and loose with the gas supply and caused considerable concern by announcing it had run out at the end of breakfast service. We 'phoned ahead and requested assistance. An additional shunt was required to access the (platform side) gas boxes as well as several valuable minutes to effect a bottle exchange. Despite this unexpected operating complication, we departed right time.

We'll do it all again but with plenty of gas on board tomorrow. See you bright and early!

Barrie

 

Barrie well done to you and all the team today. I travelled back on the 1530 ex Minehead and thoroughly enjoyed the cheesecake. My sweetoothed friend chose the chocolate gateaux. Both of us enjoyed the convivial and friendly atmosphere of the QB which was very welcome after a draughty Minehead station! Well done for a great day.
Ian Coleby

 

This seems like the best option, personally I have never liked the risk of a first come first served breakfast - what if I wasn't first!? :O So hopefully something can be worked out. The train consists for our Race trains in March are already known so seats can be sold (including a coach that is currently in the workshop with few seats, few doors and half in undercoat still!) so it can be done!

 

It is a testament to the quality, value, and the experience that the QB breakfast is so well regarded. It would probably have been possible to do twice the covers given another dining car.
I've very much enjoyed the QB breakfast at least three times since it was re-introduced. Since the QB breakfast set has been included in Gala formations, it has been obvious that it is very well supported. However, I would not want to turn up at 0745 just to guarantee a nosebag! I'd have to make a decision to eat at my B&B or postpone breakfast until arrival at Minehead.
Robin L.

 

But unlike Mr Dylan, we will not be going electric !

 

Quite right too, there's no ETH.