West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Naah. They would never have got through Customs.

 

Hi Nick,
I'm hoping that some info will appear in the next edition of the WSR Journal if it has not already appeared on one or more of the web sites by then.
The WSRA will assist in collating members comments and feeding then back to the Station Farm (Southern Gateway) project. Given what happened to our own inspection saloon your comment about covered storage is very pertinent and is a part of the plan.

 

I always find it amusing when people divide the criminological world into "real crimes" and "fake crimes" because the latter is usually code for "crimes I should be allowed to commit myself".

Not that it shouldn't be investigated, but I suspect improving road safety in LLangollen is probably more beneficial to the folk of North Wales than investigating misappropriation of shares.

 

I think the original comment refereed to North Wales Police's reputation for dealing with motoring offenses.
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&r...pepbJp3MsaGpwg&bvm=bv.144686652,d.ZGg&cad=rja

 

It is probably not helpful to continue this aspect of the discussion. All the relevant authorities are aware of the circumstances related to the 4160 shares and will play their part at the appropriate time.

Robin

 

.... and on Companies House there is only the one person with significant control .....

 

Will the rails at minehead need tampering after the works

 

So some the Shareholders have an idea , but no one else.........and there is a hope in the next WSRA Journal, oh dear!

 

We all need somewhere to park . So outside the Railway Museum is as good as any and whilst we're here ....

Paul . K

 

No, but tamping might be a good idea....

Robin

 

I don't understand the Oh Dear comment. The Project has only just entered the consultation phase which will be open until the end of April.
Formal consultation meetings will be held with interested local bodies, the staff and volunteers. There will be a feedback mechanism. All of the feedback will be used to amend the current ideas.
If you could PM or e-mail me the basis of any ongoing concerns you might have I'll look into them for you.

 

Regarding the consultation process being open until the end of April, will the WSRA membership via the New Look WSR journal have ample opportunity to read about the proposals then either attend the consultation meetings or make representations by other means before the close of the consultation process.

It would be a shame if the New look journal with details of this key WSR development appeared after the last consultation meeting (are dates/venues of these know yet) with little time form WSRA members to make comments ( or maybe send a donation in support of the project)

This project will tick the box of some WSRA members.

Jeff Price
Looking forward to a Greater West Somerset Railway

 

Difficult to judge the effectiveness of this as a consultation period but likely to be far too short, given that we are now almost at the end of January and there has been no effective communication of the present proposals.

I actually attended the WSR stakeholder meeting at which the plans were set out but then attendees were asked not to communicate them more widely.

There is much to be learned from the fiasco of the original plans for Bridgnorth which were produced in virtual secrecy by a small group with little effective communication / consultation and then had to be scrapped. I was even consulted about an injunction by some SVR members. Fortunately sense prevailed.

I await sight of the plans put out for consultation, but those I saw in October gave me cause for concern in a number of respects. The most significant issue would be about the respect being paid to the original buildings and their setting. The combination of the Station Masters House, Goods Shed, Station Building, down platform and workers cottages are an important architectural group. If the plan which emerges still has an extended down platform which closes off the Goods Shed rail access and extends the down platform southwards past the SM's House, it won't have my support.

Making the down platform the principal departure platform would also be operationally inconvenient given how narrow it is (and would have to be if extended past the SM's House).

We would all like to see better terminal facilities at Bishops Lydeard but I am not sure the plan I saw is the blueprint for them.

Much to engage with in the consultation.

Robin

 

Jeff,
I am only a (new) member of the project board. For clarity this is a WSR plc lead project which has been in development for some considerable time. A fact I am sure you will be aware of.
The journal editor can only publish the information that is released to him and the next edition is being prepared for press as I write.
My understanding is that the full consultation document will be published on the WSR plc site soon and we will also publish it on the WSRA web site. The WSRA will invite members both via the journal and the WSRA web site to respond to the consultation. The WSRA will collate all WSRA members responses and submit that document to the project board.
As I mentioned in a previous post it is intended to consult widely and this includes all staff and volunteers. I do not think there have been dates set yet for all of these consultations.

I hope that helps. If you have remaining concerns they should be addressed directly to the appropriate plc director and project lead who is not a Nat Pres contributor.
I am sure Robin will not be the only WSRA member with concerns that they wish to express. I would urge all WSRA members to actively respond to the consultation as soon as it is published.

 

Humm... Not sure if it's wise to use words like "executed" when referring to 4160 shares, People might get the wrong idea!

 

Quick question - who owns the land at Station Farm - is the freehold held within the "railway family", or is it leased? The conditions of an HLF grant are, for completely understandable reasons, rather more exacting for a project being built on leased land than on land which is owned freehold by the applicant, or by one of the partners in a joint application. Not impossible, just more exacting.

The other issue to consider is how you would meet the HLF outcomes for an HLF-supported project: the likelihood is that meeting those requirements would increase the cost of the project over and above a bare minimum storage facility. Not necessarily a bad thing, provided you go in with eyes open, and their outcomes match objectives you wish to deliver anyway. But it can be a double-edged sword if you end up building a more-expensive project that is not quite what you want just to try to tap into the source of funding.

Tom

 

The land is owned by the PLC.

 

Thanks - that simplifies things somewhat!

Tom

 

Good to see further progress on the re-lay. I'm not going to repost the pics from Steve's site here. Much better luck with the weather this year so far.

 

The picture of the 33s and 35 at wiliton is great, can't wait for some diesel haulage on the WSR this year.