West Somerset Railway General Discussion

This has been in the schedule since at least 14th August, was not put on cause of the HSTs.

 

Mike,
Happy to apologise if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that it’s the set based at Minehead that will be running next weekend. I believe it will take the first service out of MD to BL on the Saturday then return, and do a second circular trip later in the day, finishing at MD. Same again on Sunday 24th. The set stabled at BL doesn’t move until both sets return to the big railway a few days later.
That’s the plan as I’ve been told it; if I’m wrong I apologise.

 

Indeed, more the other way round I suspect. Maybe the Board arranged for the HST to run that weekend to enable shareholders and others attending the meetings at BL to experience a trip on the HST.

 

I haven't posted an update here for a long time, but for the benefit of non Facebook users, here's an recent update on the WSR Wagon Division's activities. Our small group have been working hard on our biggest, most expensive and most time consuming project to date since our forming in August 2021 - the restoration of Fruit C no.2823. This vehicle holds a great historical significance to the preserved WSR, being the first rail vehicle purchased by the PLC in the early 1970s, also being included in the formation of the first train in 1975. It was well overdue some attention, we believe it was last outshopped in 2006, and this was little more than a repaint with a spot replank. Our work has been a little bit more involved than that shall we say!

We started with the below in May.



An almost full strip later and it looked like this -


Thanks to a WSRA grant we have been able to replace much more than initially planned, a thorough job now will pay dividends in the long run.

We are currently at the test fitting stage as seen below. Hopefully another 6-8 weeks or so should see the vehicle done and outshopped.





If you are a Facebook user we do post more regular and detailed updates there.

 

As I said, it was meant to be DEPG 50th weekend.

 

Hearing rumours of major flooding at the WSR today, after torrential rain - can anyone tell us more?

 

BBC News reporting a lot of flooding in Somerset at Somerset travel warning as heavy rain causes flooding. This mentions flooding in Minehead and specifically for the WSR "Blue Anchor Station on the heritage West Somerset Railway flooded, damaging a signal box and all services are suspended on the route for the rest of the day."

 

There was a screen cap I saw from the Blue Anchor webcam taken late morning that showed water above rail top level (ie rails submerged) between the platforms.

From their Facebook, sounds like services were suspended and then one train ran back from BL to Minehead to scoop up anyone at intermediate stations.

Tom

 

Sleepers covered by water in BL from the webcam as well.

 

Photos don't seem to show damage to the signalbox. But there is a small landslip that has covered the track and the signal wire runs so the signalling at BA is out of action.
Ian C

 

There are some photos on the WSR Facebook that show a small landslip blocking the down line at the up end of Blue Anchor. Also a photo on WSR.org.uk showing water streaming across the middle of the down platform onto the tracks.

Tom

 

A quick screen cap from a video one of my friends in Somerset posted earlier today

 

Would that be where the previous incident happened which was allegedly due to a farmer doing something to his field drainage?

 

After such instances of flooding the gate mechanisms at Blue Anchor, set in the road, tend to fill with sediment carried by the floodwater, making the gates very difficult to work. This has to be scraped out by hand.

 

No, this is elsewhere.

 

Indeed, as I know from personal experience years ago - horrible muck, a mixture of rainwater, seawater, general dirt and oil :-(

There were also instances in the past where water got into the locking room, as its floor is below road level - I wonder if that still happens on occasions?

 

Steve Edge has posted several good images showing the flooding at Blue Anchor station on wsr.org.

 

Interesting colour runoff - what's the local geology?

 

Very red! There's a lot of iron in the local geology (hence mining at the top of the Brendon Hills), and the soils remind me a lot of parts of south Devon.

Near Watchet the cliffs are receding rapidly, comprising a mixture of mudstones. Geologists get very excited about the geological boundaries exposed in the area (mapping the rock platform is a common undergraduate project), which is one of the key sites where one such was first exposed. There is also a big transverse recurrent fault running through the harbour and inland through the old paper mill towards Washford.

My now wife was one such student, and generated some odd looks walking on the beach with boots, helmet and geological hammer. One American tourist was curious, and asked her some questions. When she mentioned the fault, he was unwise enough to say "what's that". She answered "it's like the San Andreas".

After he'd got his breath back, he was mildly relieved to know it hadn't moved in tens of millions of years!

 

I assumed iron, but also thought of bauxite...