West Somerset Railway Spring Steam Gala 2013

He will be running the Swanage Railway as from April; following five years as GM at Bodmin. He certainly got some interesting guest locos coming to galas at Bodmin.

I still think the offering at the WSR is worth a trip; despite the working timetable only recently being made available.

John

 

Hi Guys,

I purchased my 2-day rover ticket for this weekend last Monday morning and it still hasn't arrived, I've been away since ordered it to my home address and was hoping to find it waiting for me on my doormat when I got back home this evening. I'm leaving for Minehead in little over 5 hours, so if I take a copy of my email confirmation and some ID with me, do you reckon I can get a replacement ticket or will it be a case of "that will be £36 please sir"?

Thanks

 

You may have left home by now. I can't speak for the WSR and hold no position there at all, but I'd have thought that evidence of payment and ID, such as you suggest, should do the trick if you explain the situation at the booking office. As long as there is no possibility of someone else taking advantage of the original ticket,common sense should prevail. There's a point anyway at which they stop posting tickets, and tell you to collect at BL booking office, because there isn't enough time for the post.

Good luck

John

 

Very true. <BJ>

 

And Kieth Speller. They've lost some good blokes in the last few years.

 

My photos from the opening day of the WSR Spring Steam Gala now online at Mick Rogers | WSR Spring Steam Gala, 16th March 2013

Cheers,

 

The problem with galas now is how do you do something different the West Somerset have done some splendid galas over the years but have nearly exhausted the supply of new engines to the line, due to its length small engines are not generally hired due to their limited capacity to haul trains over the full length.

A idea may be to break the line into to halves say run Minehead to Williton and Lydeard to Williton you could then have smaller engines which have not visited before giving more of a branchline feel.Not sure how this would work from a operations point of view. I like the hourly timetable as timekeeping has improved greatly since it was introduced. Enjoy galas while you can as with ever increasing costs and declining passenger numbers there may well be less of them in the future

 

A good post Chris. Perhaps they should "split the line" in future events which will allow them to use smaller loco's more. Lets see what they do for the Autumn Gala which is a Cambrian themed event. I have read that they are changing station names like they did for their excellent Somerset & Dorset Gala's which were outstanding Steam Gala's.

 

Is the S160 really not running at all on Monday 18th? Which of the visiting locos will be running on the 18th, it's the only day that I can get down there.

 

The Gala starts again on Thursday 21 March.

The Rail Motor is running on Mon and Tue, along with 5542 with the Auto, and 4160 on a "branchline" train.

Steve

 

The smaller engines can do the whole line OK but with 4/5 coaches only. Makes no difference if the line is "split". Whether it is full line or split, it's the capacity of the trains that prevents smaller engines working during these events. I agree it is a real shame but until visitor numbers drop (!) we're stuck with the big engines.

Steve

 

6046 was failed at Bishops Lydeard this afternoon with lubrication problems. Hopefully the problem is minor and the engine will be back in service in time for its booked (non-passenger) steam enginemans courses on Tuesday.

Consequently the last four departures from Bishops Lydeard were tender first, as each arriving engine had to go straight back out with the same coaches, there being no time to turn at Norton Fitzwarren.

4160 left BL with the last train of the day. If it worked through to Minehead it will be at the wrong end of the line for tomorrow's 'branch line' diagram.

 

I really don't understand the official line on this. During GW & WR days the loco servicing facilities at Minehead were pretty poor so the mainline engines were changed at Taunton for 2-6-2T, Dukedogs etc and these engines took the excursion traffic over the branch - ten and eleven coaches with a single 2-6-2T engine seems to have been the norm. If it was done then why can't six or seven coach trains be run now with Class 3 or 4 engines? Looking at my film of the 2012 ASG the loadings don't seem to warrant six or seven coach trains.

Putting that to one side I'm looking forward to next weekend!

Regards

 

I have enjoyed a splendid day out; well done. The S160 with its chime whistle was the highlight and hopefully today's problems will not affect availability in the coming week.

John

 

I enjoyed myself as well. Well done to all who make the effort to put on a good show.

 

I am not sure where your data comes from, Orion, but they are not correct. In BR days, the maximum permitted (passenger) load for a 43xx Mogul or 5101 class large prairie from Minehead to Taunton was 310 tons or ten GWR coaches, nine of the heavier BR coaches. The load was limited by Washford bank. Slightly heavier trains could be worked east of Washford. The corresponding figure for a 45xx small prairie or 57xx pannier was 260 tons ie about 8 GWR coaches or 7 BR coaches. All these classes were rated as Class 4 by BR. In present day conditions the WSR allows 8 coaches for the 43xx & 5101 classes (inc 9351) and 7 coaches for the 45xx and 57xx. The current BR coaches with Commonwealth bogies are now even heavier. So the present day loads are quite similar to the GWR and BR days. One important issue is that there are now no facilities for routinely watering at Williton (other than from an emergency hose pipe supply) and this is a significant issue for loading of smaller tank engines of Class 3 or less - eg 5 coaches max for 64xx panniers, 3 for 14xx 0-4-2Ts. Plans are however being formulated by the Friends of West Somerset Railway to reinstate a water crane between the two running lines at Williton station.

David

 

I was just about to mention this 4090. While they're at it , why not put a water crane each end of the station?!

 

Presumably, another one of the limiting factors in loadings is the line speed. Being restricted to 25mph doesn't give much scope to have a run at the banks. I'm sure in steam days trains would be hitting the bottom of washford bank at more than 25mph meaning they had far more momentum to get over the top.

 

But Washford bank starts pretty much straight after Blue Anchor - you'd need good acceleration to hit 25 before the start...

 

Some photos of Saturday's action at the WSR Spring Gala plus some of 5542 + auto 178 and Railmotor 93 today on Spring Steam Gala 2013