West Somerset Railway General Discussion

I can add a similar tale from the South Western. A few Eastleigh drivers used to refer to turning off the timetable onto the calender if they had to work trains to Didcot or Banbury. Trips to Westbury were treated with equal suspicion, but that was only a few miles beyond the regional boundary and it was easy to escape back up Dilton Marsh bank......

Cheers, Neil

 

Excuse me for wondering, but what has all this to do with WSR Operations?

 

Keep up tracker - MRLG want the line through to Taunton electrified on the third rail. EPBs are the answer to how we can do this and still be a heritage railway......

 

Now that's not a bad idea with all that juice you got from that nuclear place just along the coast.

 

I seem to remember at least one author making some points about the old WR attitude to timekeeping, timetabling etc as being lax to say the least

 

The PDG minuets for 29/01/2018 are available on the WSR.ORG site http://wsr.org.uk/pdgminutes290118.pdf and has some interesting information such as a S/H carriage shed which could be of use at Norton also about the Minehead group as well as quite a bit about the heritage and BL development which looks like going back to the drawing board.

 

Oh No! not a case of thinking Lower Clapton (Hackney) but ending up in Clapton (Somerset) was it?

 

Gorblimey, yer' not a Robin, yer'a sparrer

 

Cockney sparrows are getting quite rare in the Smoke, sadly.
Still get a few here in Enfield.

 

Not me. I was born in West Hill Hospital, Dartford. But the 9 previous generations of Whites were Cockneys.

Robin

 

PDG did meet on 29 January and the minutes are now published and are already on the WSR.ORG and WSRA websites. Requests have been made to other sites. There have been many reasons for the long delay in not holding a meeting since March 2017, some of them very personal. I have not been on this site for a long while but my attention was drawn by others to some unnecessary posts. To save any more unnecessary sarcastic posts on this site about the delays in holding a meeting being repeated - the next meeting will be held at BL on Thursday 5 April. The posted minutes are DRAFT.
Mel Hillman, Secretary to PDG

 

There may well have been good reason but after such a long time without expanation people are bound to be suspicious. It is very disappointing that nobody from WSDC and TDBC attended. What concl;usion, if any, should be drawn from that?

 

You'll have to ask them - they sent apologies. As for reasons I'm happy to disclose them privately but they surmounted the needs of WSR - but just remember all the positive activity along the whole railway in 2017.....more important events taking place with collective engagement plus changes to leadership in some organisations. One meeting was planned for June 2017 but cancelled as no items of business were put forward by ANY group - no point in meeting for the sake of it (a point made several times in other unrelated posts!)

 

Re the Southern , WR tales. I read somewhere that a couple of WR drivers transferred to the southern & were route learning, walking the rails at Clapham Junction with a southern man (I think). Amidst the bustle a 33 on the rear of a push pull set came roaring past & one man turned to the other & said" blimey mate look at that bloke go, they even do shunting here at 60 mile an hour!

 

We read about the various initiatives, policies, and working groups here. However, reading the most recent comments here I realise that one policy is lacking. Communication to supporters. The only policy I know of is one effectively baring comment on social media.

Surely keeping the railway's supporters as a whole up to date on the various happenings is important. The amount of goodwill generated is from communication is immeasurable.

It's also important it shouldn't shouldn't be PR satanised good news which just increases suspicion.

 

I agree. Communication to supporters is very important. Here are five news items from yesterday:

The latest draft minutes from the Partnership Development Group
WSR Chairman's latest blog post considers 'what is heritage'
Enjoy the BBC Antiques Roadshow 'Beatles at Minehead' clip
An update from the Steam and Vintage Rally team
SR WD Brake Van Working Party from 2 to 4 February

I think communication to supporters is doing pretty well. What's missing?

Steve

 

In general I agree but there is still room for improvement. For example the PDG by not meeting for so long with no announcement gave the impression of being moribund. If it is to play a useful part in the success of the railway then it needs to be more proactive. The non attendance of two local authority members or their substitutes does not, IMHO, suggest they are very committed to the PDG. There is also the "Heritage Committee" that has, and please orrect me if I am wrong. never met.

 

Well, we were discussing communication rather than lack of meetings/non-attendance at meetings.

I did follow up the lack of PDG meetings back in the summer of last year by asking why they hadn't met. And came back the reply with the reasons. As with many things, simple things are often more complex than we think. We are most of us volunteers and some times things crop up that mean the volunteer work goes quite rightly to the bottom of the pile. Anyway, later in the year I asked again and was informed the PDG would convene early in 2018 which it did. I guess the secret is to ask - I usually go off on a tangent and add two and two and get five - so I must remember to ask.

I did ask for two items to be discussed - one was discussed (thanks PDG) and the other item sought a view from WSC on a particular topic so I think I can work out why it wasn't discussed! I must remember to ask the PDG chair to ensure it remains an agenda item for the next PDG meeting when, like you Peter, I sincerely hope reps from both local authorities attend.

I see Item 06/18 informs us about progress with the Heritage Committee with an action for the Steam Trust the product of which I'm sure interested folks will eagerly await.

Steve

 

Thankfully, I don't think that we've had any satanised news stories since the departure of the X6 and the end of their feud with the Plc.

 

Can I just mention that I am a member of at least 5 Facebook groups dedicated to various aspects of the railway. Some of these are more special interest than others.
We are fortunate that we have Steve's excellent web site with all the news items pertaining to the railway.
Contact information about all groups that comprise the railway family is freely available.
If there is something that we are missing I'd be grateful to know what it is?