West Somerset Railway General Discussion

There is certainly a suggestion that track works were not completed

 

Please. Do the right thing. They are asking for your input. Now's your chance. Just fill it in, be positive, give helpful answers. J!DI. Thanks.

Steve

 

There is plenty of learning now about how to ‘do’ social distancing on platforms, trains and safety measures for staff.

A clear unknown is how great the demand will be for the kind of ‘round trip’ journey most railways have settled on for July and August. But that will be clear in the next few weeks.

Whether there is much point continuing (or starting) those operations in September is another unknown.

Brave new world.

Robin

 

Come on everyone, not only is one shop opening but it will be open for a whole 5 hours on one day. That's nearly an afternoon. Can anyone name one other business that is running a poll to check if they should take money ? What the *^&* are they playing at ?

I can't think of an amateur with such a low level of ambition.

 

I think they're good questions to want to understand, but I wouldn't ask them directly. Perhaps "if you were travelling, which station would you like to join at/go to" and "how important to your trip is being hauled by a steam locomotive" on a scale of 1-5 might elicit more useful information.

Having looked at the survey, it reeks of being posed by someone who has already decided what they want to do, and is only considering testing those assumptions. So many of the questions and answers are almost reasonable and, if reframed slightly, would offer really good understanding of the market.

However, the real question is why this research is being done so incredibly late in the day.

2/10

 

I have. What value it will have given the low quality of it, is another question entirely.

 

The begging bowl for poor lawyers and solicitors is being passed around again?

 

I think it's already becoming clear, SVR and NNR seem to have discovered the demand is there. GWSR was supposed to have opened ticket bookings today too, until the site crashed - bother!

Likewise, I have also filled in the survey genuinely (along with a subtle mention for a visit to Washford). But I did have to "force" some answers into text boxes which the question perhaps didn't quite cover to even be vaguely useful.

 

A significant relay was not finished when the staff were furloughed, hence the ‘stop’ Board clearly visible to the east of Seaward Way level crossing. This was One of the items of work for which we had some valuable help from Network Rail staff and there are pictures on Steve Edge’s website.

I was due to be Responsible Officer for the opening weekend In March and was in close touch with the work to have the Railway open as there would have been some operational constraints such as speed restrictions over newly-relaid sections.

What the state of those unfinished works are now, I cannot say, but they undoubtedly now amount to an significant number of man-days work.

No doubt the WSR plc will have a clear picture.

Robin

 

Ah, does this clear up the apparent discrepancy between the 4-5 weeks' work required quoted by @malcolm imps before trains could run and the planned re-opening date back in March? Whilst there might be 4-5 weeks' worth of work left, only a small portion of that work is actually required to be completed to allow trains to run, under TSRs and the like?

 

Thank you for that

 

It would be wrong of me to speculate. Whilst I was in close touch with the position in March, I have no clear idea how things now stand.

But it is plainly a different matter finishing off works where you are returning to work left from yesterday as opposed to picking up the threads 16 weeks later.

Robin

 

Can anyone think of any legal reason why it might be necessary to open the shop for a short period of time to keep something ticking over? It just reminded me of that thing where some footpaths get closed on Christmas day to prevent them becoming permanent rights of way.

 

The last sentence identifies the key issue.

It's not just a case of switching the railway back on. Just think for a moment what has to be done, the resources required and, above all, whether having done it you can generate a surplus. ( Obvious really but that's not the same income. Running at an operating loss may make everyone feel better because at least something's happening on the railway but how could you justify it?)

So there's the track work to complete and , most critically finding someone qualified to certify it. There appears to be differing views of how long that would take but around four weeks seems to be the consensus. At the same time you have to develop a return to service plan that complies with the Coronavirus legislation and the advice from the ORR. Don't underestimate the scale of that task and the time required. A suitably experienced team would probably need two to three weeks at least to develop all the risk assessments required, the detailed plans for moving people around with social distancing etc. You also have to decide if you need to pull staff off furlough to do it . Then you've got to decide which of your staff to bring back and which volunteers you'll need. They may need certifications updating after a long lay off which also needs careful planning. Finally you need to operate for a while without passengers and ticket revenue to re-certify the selected staff and volunteers and check systems are all functioning safely. All that suggests service resumption before September would be unrealistic.
After all that can you handle on line advance booking? Have you got the IT systems to handle it? Finally what does your forecast of likely passenger uptake suggest? How many socially distanced passengers can you carry, what capacity utilisation do you expect and what fares must you charge to give a reasonable expectation of an operating surplus? Sad to say but you also need to consider what if there was a local lockdown? All that effort ( and cost) could be wasted.

Understandably members and volunteers are desperate to see services resume. That's actually a very good reason for doing so. Maintaining morale is critical but it has to be with your eyes open as the cost/ benefit/risk equation.

In some ways furlough has made re -opening less attractive. For some railways it's financially safer to rely on Government support.

The point is that re-opening post Covid -19 is not an easy or obvious decision. If only it was !

 

While all of the above is undoubtedly a consideration, those factors apply equally to all major railways, and in particular those with large paid workforces (where the economics of furlough are somewhat different to a primarily volunteer-only line).

Given that, it is notable that the WSR has taken a different path to most other comparable lines.

The other point is that if re-opening (with all the attendant issues of competency, certification of equipment etc) is hard after a four month closure, how much harder will it be in perhaps March 2021? By that point, the railway might not have operated any services for fifteen months.

Who has got it right? I guess we’ll find out for sure around Easter 2021.

Tom

 

I find that middle paragraph very depressing.

It might all be true, but the issues, other than perhaps the track work, have been faced by all lines, many of which are now open or about to open.

It's always far easier to find reasons to not do something than it is to confront the challenges and overcome them.

Edit: I see far a far wiser head than mine has beaten me to that point..

 

I've just heard on our local TV news that the SVR have just been awarded £250,000 from the National Lottery to help them deal with the Corona Virus consequenses.

So has the WSR been exploring similar avenues?

I think I already know the answer.