West Somerset Railway heritage coach plan

Not to decry the excellent work done by the paid staff at Kidderminster, but the SVR's GWR carriages are largely owned/restored by the GW(SVR)A at Bewdley.
http://www.gw-svr-a.org.uk/stock_list.html

 

Slight correction: only one has been completed, the sleeper isn't part of the project as its a museum exhibition.
Ian said that funding is available for the shed, he didn't mention funding for restoration of the carriages-could you clarify please @ikcdab and also say if the proposed shed will cover all 10 carriages.
As I said, we don't know what would've happened if they'd remained at their previous homes-maybe those railways would've restored them and they'd be their pride and joy.

It might be harsh but it's true.
My point is that it's all very well collecting the carriages, but where is the plan for their restoration, where is the fundraising efforts? The Trust runs 2 small museums-so they don't have many other distractions.
Maybe this would have been better as a WSRA project.

 

Think that the BCK brought back from the USA is very nearly finished but afaik the next in line (a toplight TK) is at a very early stage.

I've said before and I'll say it again, the key is funding. A group of volunteers can restore a coach from departmental ("henhut") condition but typically it is 15yr project and not one that can be iterated many times. The real formula for success is a mixture of contract labour and volunteers working together, but that relies on the bills for the contractors being paid. Not only that, but materials are becoming increasingly expensive, and several (most?) of the vehicles that have been collected will need substantial proportions of their interiors constructed from scratch, which is another time consuming process. Then, most of the vehicles are involved are quite old and may well need underframe and bogie repairs to corrosion damage not to mention replacement electrical systems. The WSR group were very late on the scene and had relatively little opportunity to even acquire MK 1 items when they were relatively plentiful.

IMHO, as a coach restorer myself, they face a long and uphill struggle, although I hope they will eventually succeed.

 

I thought at least one of the carriages were repatriated from the USA? If so, it is hard to imagine that for those at least that they had a more secure future there than on the WSR.

It's easy to get didactic about projects like this. "They must have a carriage shed" or "you must have paid staff working on them to maintain sufficient pace". Both of those would be good. Take the carriage shed - the 20,000ft view says that that would probably save a lot of money in the long run. But you might be looking at a £500k project (and an ongoing cost - on the balance sheet at least - of perhaps £10k per year in depreciation, based on a 50 year life) so any putative donor has to be confident that such a building wouldn't become a white elephant. So sadly, probably the best way to demonstrate that is to get a couple of carriage restored (and in regular use, hint) to show intent, even if doing so then means they will be stored outside. The "in use" part is critical: no point restoring carriages then tucking them away: out of sight, out of mind as far as enthusing donors to contribute to further projects.

Even on railways that have a long track record of restoring wooden carriages, carriage sheds have come late. On the Bluebell we have a carriage works, a works extension, an operational shed that houses about 17 full-length vehicles, and a storage shed for unrestored carriages that houses around 20 at full length (plus an under cover maintenance road and a range of buildings containing meeting rooms, pattern store, trim store, trim shop etc) But that is the result of the best part of 30 years effort and several million pounds investment just in facilities. Even the saintly Isle of Wight - in many ways the sine qua non of operating heritage carriages - only opened "Train Story", it's combined storage and operational shed / museum in 2014: before that the unrestored bodies sat in a field at Havenstreet and the operational carriages spent the winter months under tarpaulins. Those are railways that, to be frank, have a better longer track record than the WSR of both carriage restoration and major capital fund raising.

I hope the WSR are successful in getting some of these carriages into regular operation. But it will be a hard slog, and one that everyone on the railway will need to fall in behind as "our" project: waiting for a white knight funder (HLF or anyone else) is I think a risk. It has the potential to make the WSR stand out from many other heritage railways - but needs the whole railway to buy in.

Tom

 

I am not 10% certain, I think the yard is and will be leased. I am sure that the those in the know how putting a shed on the land will be aware of the this.

 

If there is positive news of funding for a carriage shed to store the unrestored carriages that is a virtually unprecedented development and one to be greatly welcomed - I can't think of a railway offhand where such a building has been erected ahead of one for the line's operational stock. It will also be interesting to see where the funding will come from - the HLF no longer seems to be interested in funding such developments without them meeting a host of other criteria that make the original purpose of the application pale virtually into insignificance! I wonder if this development involves the soon to be emptied "cuckoo's nest"?

 

The M&GN soc recently received bequest funding that they used/are using to buy and contract restore at least one Gresley. If you have the carriages and the bequests come in, you can do that. If the carriages have been scrapped becaue nobody wanted them, that becomes much more difficult

 

Quite

Quite so, and its a point I have made before when there have been posts about clearing away linear scrapyards, but it's also necessary to consider that not all carriage bodies age equally well. Those of us restoring LNER carriages are fortunate that they are built largely of teak which is very resistant to rot. The GWR , whilst it did use some teak, made far greater use of oak and steel, which are far less durable and as a generalisation it seems that the older a coach body is, the better the quality of timber used in its construction. Where coaches of non-teak construction are concerned , conservation prior to restoration commencing assumes a greater degree of importance.

 

Taking comparisons from a groups closer to my home. The GW-SVRA have had 50+ years of restoring derelict/ chicken shed coaches to their very best condition. They are a group of around 30 active volunteers with a wide range of skills, which depending on the projects/ vehicles at the time can take from 5 years - 20 years to achieve the same result.
I am reminded of a phone call once taken in our mess room from a gentleman, (I cant remember last week let alone a name on a phone call from many years ago) starting the conversation on the lines of "I believe you might have a couple of GWR coaches"? At that point we had 18 available for traffic of all the various types we have.
The LMS/BR coach fund took 8 years, £75k, 55 volunteers with working parties on 3 days a week to restore LMS 7511. LNER SVR coach fund took 7 years, £160k and 1000s of hours to restore 2701.


6705 has been nearly finished for how long now?

My problem with the long term project and if I were an investor I would want to see a result of the work. IE a finished vehicle to a high standard. That is not to say the work being undertaken is not at a high standard, but there hasnt been a finished carriage to prove/ show what could be achieved.
I would pick the best of the lot they currently have stored at Williton, finish it to show what can be done. Not pick the worst of the bunch and take 10 years where people will lose interest or forget about the project.

Im not saying it cant be done but in the current climate, age demographic of volunteers, demands on railways in other departments. Is a 3 coach set more achievable by using the best bits from all the vehicles? I for one would like to see the Tri composite running as it is unique (I believe).

 

Who are the coaches owned by, If its the WSRA, the might be better getting an large empty warehouse away from the railway, and move the coaches there, then once undercover, set up their own workshop and forget supporting the WSR, and instead just raise funds for the vehicles, once they get a vehicle restored, hire it out, there must be plenty of lines that would see a need for a GW coach, possibly 2, if you include the Hawksworth saloon, until you can be sure the WSR is on a firm footing and not likily to be insolvent, it would not make sence to base anything you own there, certainly not until there is a new board that has total transparency with the financial viability of the railway.

 

It not unique, I am restoring the only other survivor which is of identical design. (diagram E83). There were originally 15 of them, all built in 1907, but the other 13 were scrapped long ago.
I have posted plenty of pictures of it on this thread Rolling stock, restoration and new build projects | Page 6 | National Preservation (national-preservation.com). Will have to post some more recent ones as it has progressed a bit further since the pictures above. Am fitting the corridor connections at the moment, corridor panelling nearly done and the glass all down the corridor screen also done. We will be fitting the sliding doors soonish too as we have all the bits now. Seats are also steadily progressing.

The one at the WSR I have been inside, one end has the remains of the compartments, the guards end though is stripped and the roof leaking so the floor bit too rotten to walk on.

 

My apologies. I had a gut feeling there was a 2nd tri compo.

O how I do not enjoy fitting sliding doors. Would I be right in guessing you have maybe 3 different sizes of glass in the bodyside? When we overhauled GWR 9055 a few years ago, it has 4 different sizes of pane with 3 on the corridor side alone.

 

The first half of Swithland shed was built by and for RVP's collection of carriages, mainly the Gresleys, mainly unrestored and in the queue. Obviously the hope is that the balance will tip more towards operational carriages as restorations progress.
The subsequent extension doubled the size of the shed and what the GCR keeps in the other half I'm not entirely sure. I know there is a scrap class 37 in there and it has been used to store steam loco frames (70013 was in there for a bit), carriage-wise I assume mainly vehicles not in regular traffic though I haven't been in there so not entirely sure.
The shed is in the wrong place to be used for the 'running fleet' without incurring lots of ECS mileage. So the 'running fleet' stands outside at Loughborough, barring the odd trip to Rothley for exams.