GWSR General Discussion and Operations

I've reported this to the Mods for action - they can't be everywhere of course

 

An interesting video reflecting on the last year, primarily for the volunteers' meeting yesterday but seeing as it was posted on youtube doesn't seem any harm sharing it here for those interested:

 

Most interesting, thanks for posting. Good to hear some very positive messages from the railway.

 

For those who missed it, here is a lengthy 'Bridges Blog' entry which describes the extensive work needed on the Gotherington skew bridge, which sadly turned out to be in somewhat worse shape than had been thought. Luckily, it has been caught in time, and hopefully will be good as new shortly.

It's good to see all the infrastructure work happening; the drainage system seems to now be in better shape than it ever was under BR! Now that the big expense of Broadway is drawing to a close, money can be re-directed towards all the other pressing needs - more bridge work is needed, too!

Noel

 

Does anyone know the cost of these repairs on the skew bridge.I've been following these blogs for years and this is the first time I've seen any imformation about whats happening.Just wondered by it has'nt appeared in the P Way blog.!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

The bridges blog has been going since 'Bridges to Broadway'. As the works are infrequent (but large) blog postings are equally infrequent. Possibly for that reason the link was dropped from the GWSR site. However, a link was posted on the PWay blog for the last update.
As I write both blogs, I will put a link on the PWay blog if something moves on the bridges.

 

Thanks for that Breva most appreciated

 

An updated report on the bridge 34 (Gotherington Skew) has just been published on the bridges blog:

http://bridgestobroadway.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/update-on-bridge-34-at-gotherington.html

Gotherington Skew is probably our biggest steel bridge, so it's an important piece of maintenance. Fortunately it is on a minor road and does not get hit.

I'm told the link to the blog has been reinstated on the company website, so do have a look from time to time. There will be another report later in the month.

 

[QUOTE=Gotherington Skew is probably our biggest steel bridge, so it's an important piece of maintenance. Fortunately it is on a minor road and does not get hit.

The kiss of death?
Maybe, maybe not!

 

I got a leaflet for the GWR in 2018 and it is very impressive that for much of the peak season they are operating 4 or 5 days a week. Is it a struggle to find crews for so many operating days particularly as there several trains operating ?

 

We'll find out soon enough! Just had a look at a roster for a week during the summer holidays last year, there are roughly rostered positions each day. On average a couple of posts are unfulfilled each day e.g. a TTI or secondman on the DMU (but neither are technically required to operate the service), maybe the catering staff are 3 instead of 4 in the cafe, or there's no station porter. On the plus side, it would be quite common to have two people rostered on one position on a training day or refresher, so maybe whilst there's no one in the Toddington station porter slot, there's someone training in the booking office as an extra body.

Typically the rosters when first released on HOPs, for Guards and TTIs at least, are I estimate maybe 80-90% full. But after that folk can have a look at any empty slots and by the time it comes to it all is fine, other than maybe the odd one or two positions as described above.

 

For those who haven't noticed it, this has now appeared.

As usual, it is incredibly detailed, and well illustrated: many thanks to John B for writing those great reports, and to Jo for posting them (along with all the images).

And especial thanks to all the workers who have persevered though cold weather, poor access, etc to do such great work on this elderly structure!

Noel

 

Very interesting blog...quite scary with some of the supporting pads being too small/ half missing! The drip plate is a great idea.

 

And another update, equally detailed and interesting as the ones before. The bridge looks fantastic now - too bad most of the beautiful work has to be hidden! Oh well - and the layer of padding to protect from damage by the ballast is a great move!

Noel

 

And a final 'round-up' posting on the work on Gotherington bridge. It should be good for quite a few years now, with all the high-quality work (no corners cut!) I especially like the drip plates - very clever!

Noel

 

I have checked the loco roster on the GWR site does anybody know when 35006 is likely to be in use again.

 

I would speculate that the week before the gala would be a reasonably good bet as it's preferred to steam it in "blocks" and it'll definitely be in steam for the gala. Looking at the calendar I'd say it's pretty likely it will be in service the weekend before the steam gala (19th/20th May) as that's 3 steam locos over the real ale weekend, and will almost certainly be the service steam loco during that week in between.

 

The GWSR makes great play of employing virtually no staff - but here is the downside of that policy. The coaches can only be cleaned on Mondays (and if I read things correctly each side only gets cleaned on alternate Mondays) because thats the only day the volunteers are available to do it.

 

Not quite. For a lot of the time, Mondays are the only day the rakes are available for cleaning. Things have changed recently again though, so to summarise; TTIs clean the inside of the train every day. On Mondays the cleaning team do a deeper clean inside and wash any outside surfaces they can at Toddington. There is also an outside gang that meet the train at Cheltenham and do what they can to the outside when it's in the station on a service day.

At some point, when the rakes are more evenly balanced and train 3 isn't the poor relation, we can have any rake on rotation stabled at Winchcombe which would make it easier to throw more volunteers at it to get it done quickly, without the commercial department being unhappy that we've replaced an RBr with an RMB which has more limited catering options for instance.

So it's more coaches we need, not more cleaners (although I'm sure more would be welcome!). All of the above applies to maintenance and maintenance volunteers too.

We think our coaches are still pretty clean inside and out, indeed we get plenty of comments telling us so all the time. Sitting in the train "incognito" it is very heartening to listen just to the passing comments passengers make let alone those made to staff or written in feedback.