West Somerset Railway General Discussion

I suspect for many among the non-gricing population, more than usually, the bottom line yes/no is "can we afford it"? Not having any handle on how many visitors to the WSR are visiting for more than a day (or in the case of the lesser spotted gricer, a gala weekend) I'd not care to speculate on how often the average family spending a summer's week might opt to travel (and yes, I realise the weather plays it's part).

Fungibility is a bit of an odd one too. Just because 80% of us are steam nuts, it doesn't follow the percentage among the unifected populace will be the same. For many now, any train journey is out of the ordinary and they'd be too busy trying to work out how the hell to open the door at the end of the outward journey to even notice what's at the front of the train!

Edited due to sausage fingers.

 

They may have believed that. The experiment should have demonstrated that theory or not.

 

We are talking about a line which cannot pay its way in 100% of what it takes. The only way this works is to keep the maximum number of passengers and cut costs by more than the amount you give up by cutting services or length of run. It is why I said that I wasn't sure cutting the length of the line permanently was the answer. I think there probably has to be trains from both ends, but few of them going the whole line.

Anyway, we are pontificating because we lack all the facts. What we can see from this pontificating though is that there is no clear answer.

 

I was pondering the same solution. The thing I neglected to ask concerned ease of parking at the various stations for those arriving by car, which I'm guessing will be the overwhelming majority.

Can only agree with your last there .... and we can trust the line's management have shedloads more to work with!

 

I think that was a very different situation. Essentially they ran 90% of the line to a station a long way from its village; as such a connection to Minehead was probably essentially. Running 90% of the route (particularly because they in any case had to top-and-tail part of the way) wasn't a reduction in operating cost; it was just forced by (temporary) circumstance.

That's a very different situation from what I was suggesting, which was to make the primary service Williton - Minehad (with only occasional, probably "value add", services on the other half of the line); on the grounds of significantly reduced operating costs while still providing the core amenity of "steam train to Minehead" and a fairly small increase in journey time for anyone coming by road from the M5 / A303 direction.

Tom

 

Presumably you visited Minehead because you'd already "done" Watchet. However someone staying in Minehead could easily be looking for somewhere else to visit after a few days. A useful poll to take would be to ask passengers who buy tickets to Minehead whether they were going to Minehead because it was the end of the line/"the seaside", or whether they wanted to visit Minehead specifically.

That only tells them where their revenue comes from with the line as it is now. It doesn't give any idea of how reducing services or shortening the operating line would affect that revenue. That has to be as much of a guess as what is being posted here.

 

To a degree, yes we had "done" Watchet - my now wife was geologically mapping the foreshore and cliffs, and we were looking for a cheap day out.

However, the reality was that Watchet now had much less to offer a casual visitor than Minehead did then. It is significantly smaller, the beach is not a good kids and sand beach, and there are fewer and smaller attractions of most kinds.

Nothing that I'm aware of has changed the fundamental relationship between the two places as destinations. And, if I wanted a minor piece of evidence, I'd look at road signage and the numbers of hotel rooms.

That doesn't mean that more traffic can't be drawn to Watchet, but simply that the idea that Watchet could replace Minehead misunderstands the nature of the area and demand.

 

Sounds like a cue to reinstate the West Somerset Mineral Railway to me. Slap down a new junction at Washford ....

...... I'll just get my coat .....

 

Gravity rides down the Incline to Comberow a la FR ???

 

Given a nudge from the top of the incline, I wonder how far into the Bristol Channel a slightly updated standard gauge edition of Mr. Spooner's "Boat" would make it? Roller bearings, of course. Could be done like a larger version of that boat ride alongside Scarborough's North Bay Railway, which got dragged back up to it's dtarting point by rope. What with inevitable (and lucrative) underwear sales to disembarking passengers, the line ought to be on to a winner.

 

Not sure I fancy the tight right hander at Comberow...

 

Just get the super-elevation right - no problem. They manage it at Alton Towers. Looping the loop might be interesting in a Mk1. I wonder how fast you'd need to go to keep the scones on the table?

Steve B

 

Dare I suggest that if the present company are unable to make the finances work, the best use for the Minehead branch would be a public railway to Minehead? (Runs for cover)

 

One could make a compelling argument for that position. The DfT wouldn't touch it with a barge pole though.

 

The only way that might happen, is if the WSR PLC were to become insolvent, and unable to trade, and the line was in danger of closure, in such a scenario, it might be taken back into the network, because of the public transport element of railways, of course, then what happens to all the stock, as i would imagine privately owned engines and coaches would have to move elsewhere.

 

Not going to happen. There’s no business case for public subsidy when there are already subsidised buses along the route.

Worst case scenario - if the PLC went bust, the railway-owned assets would be sold to recover as much for the administrator as possible; the station sites would be sold for housing and the trackbed would become a long-distance path or cycle track, probably with options to declare it “suitable alternative natural green space” to take pressure off visiting nearby SSSIs - the latter assuming a change in the local developmemt framework first to re designate the station sites as suitable for housing.

Tom

 

Even if there was a business case, there is no money or indeed interest at a political level currently.

 

If they can get the connecting service from Taunton to BL running regularly, that should improve the finances a bit by bringing in some more people who want the steam train ride for its own sake. It might bring in a few using it as an alternative to the bus for getting from Taunton to Minehead, but only a very few. There should be some amount of custom from people from further away on the Network wishing to get to Minehead (or Watchet), similarly to the hoped-for flow from the Network via Wareham to Swanage. But I can't see any of those flows making a dramatic difference to the fare-box revenue.

And we're still entirely lacking any trustworthy information on how much expenditure the infrastructure actually needs, on what timescale.

 

Sorry, but I'm reading that as a call for NR/TOC to run a service for no better reason than to benefit a heritage line.

If there were scope to employ BL as a railhead for the district, there may a business case to be made, but is there (a) sufficient demand and (b) capacity for car parking ?

Let's just say, I have my doubts.

 

I'm not calling for anything; just speculating on the possible effects of a service that (according to earlier discussions on here) may be operated. Presumably GWR will operate it only if they expect it to be profitable for them. The benefit to the WSR will be incidental as far as GWR are concerned.