West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Thanks Pete, I thought the tours locos normally got turned, or at least did when I did a few trips.

 

There is now a train stopped away from the platform at Wiliton (on the webcam) that doesn't appear to have moved for a while

Edit: now moving

 

The delays are due to a points failure at Minehead, at the station throat. One of the Manors was stuck between the points and the level crossing. The charter left at 15:05 and got to Bishops Lydeard at 16:05.

 

Correct.

 

More on the points failure at Minehead, it seems that one of the Manors derailed, and a Hymek went 'walkabout'

 

Reported in the West Somerset Free Press

 

@johnofwessex your images are not showing

 

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I'm not sure it is a great look to issue a statement that just goes straight on the attack of the local paper, particularly because reading the two side-by-side, I can't immediately see where the inaccuracies are in the WSFP piece except in the cost of damage. In fact the WSR statement goes rather further in some areas; compare for example the WSFP saying [passive voice] "the points were released before the train had gone fully over the pointwork" whereas the WSR statement says [active voice] "the immediate cause was human error by the signalman on duty".

It's also a bit odd in the WSR statement for JJP to say "I don't know who you chose to receive information from" when the WSFP story makes that clear: Frank Courtney is extensively quoted in their article! Last time I checked, he was a WSR plc director ...

Any incident is difficult, and to have two in quick succession doubly so (though they are so different in scope that I am not sure you can draw any lessons from the proximity as indicating a wider underlying issue, at least not before any investigation). But had I been writing a statement for the press, I'd have gone along the lines:

• As reported recently in the local press, the WSR suffered two operational incidents in recent weeks
• Brief overview of each - what, where and when
  
• Both occurred at low speed; neither directly involved passenger trains. There were no injuries and at no point was there any risk of injury either to our passengers or staff and volunteers, though there was some [quantified where possible] damage to equipment, estimated at £xxx.
• Following normal procedures, the railway promptly discussed each incident with the railway's regulator, the ORR. This resulted in a formal notification of the incident at Williton sent to the RAIB. No formal notification was required for the incident at Minehead.
• The incident at Minehead occurred to one of the locomotives due to haul the return working of an inbound charter train to Minehead that had carried xxx passengers to the town. [i.e. play up the economic benefit of the railway to the town] Following quick re-planning by the WSR staff on duty, the return working occurred on time with no adverse impact to those visitors.
• The railway will conduct an internal investigation of the circumstances around each incident. Where there are learning points for either the WSR, or the wider railway industry, these will be communicated via appropriate channels, including sending a copy of the WSR's internal investigation report to the ORR.
• We'd like to thank our staff on duty on each day for ensuring that each incident was handled safely following our documented operational safety procedures and with minimal impact to our passengers.
• The incident at Minehead will result in some minor changes to our timetable for the foreseeable future that will allow two trains to pass at Blue Anchor rather than Minehead. Full details of the revised timetables will be available on our website.

Or you could shoot from the hip and pick a fight with the local paper that appears just to have extensively quoted one of your own directors!

Tom

 

Picking a fight with a paper is either very brave or very foolish. As for the paper constantly attacking the WSR, it doesn't take much effort to find the same paper being supportive.

Steam train chartered to bring London passengers to ride on WSR steam train | wsfp.co.uk

Rain fails to stop West Somerset Railway's 1960s weekend fun | wsfp.co.uk

West Somerset Railway looking for new directors to help run country's longest heritage line | wsfp.co.uk

Weather worries for annual West Somerset Railway Association steam and vintage rally this weekend | wsfp.co.uk

Perhaps a cooler head needs to be allocated to media duties.

 

I wonder if the advert for the director of external relations includes : "must have experience of working with one hand tied behind your back" ?

 

Well Tom the comment about Bahamas being in Minehead was a blatant lie, or to be kind very poor journalism. Unless of course Frank did tell them that.
A points failure (I wonder how many NR have going on at this very moment) is hardly news worthy especially as the return of the train was not delayed. The only impact being the two Manors ran T/F again so "newsworthy" they did not even report it.
I have been very unhappy about much what has been reported as happening at the WSR but in this instance, and I may be in a minority of one I cannot get too exercised by what JJP is doing.
For years when I was at BA and we had bilge reporting like this we the staff tried to get the management to respond in tones like this. The answer was always "we do not reply". Many of us felt that wrong and I still do.
I am sure JJP does this sort of thing with his own business enterprises, and it is a sort of Michael O'Leary style of management, but really for once I am sort of on his side.
Most of the WSR market will not be in the distribution area of this paper and other than the enthusiast world how many will actually see his response anyway?

 

I'm not sure that Michael O'Leary has ever been sanctioned by a regulator or has claimed that his girlfriend is entitled to fly in the cockpit.

 

https://www.caa.co.uk/newsroom/news/update-on-ryanair-enforcement-action/

Depends on your definitions I suppose.

 

BA’s PR team were right; dignified silence or simple low profile repudiation of duff reporting is far better than flaming like this. Especially when it takes very little to join the dots between the person flaming and the person quoted.

I know someone who puts a lot of press out to the local paper. They are under-resourced and always willing to correct errors if pointed out quietly.


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