West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Scenes from the start of the WSR 2018 season.

Yesterday



Today

 

Maybe some effect, yes, but I don't think he needs to put his hands into his pockets. One of the objections to his scheme, voiced here, was that the state of the infrastructure would need to be upgraded, That, according to the announced appeal, will happen and at no cost to his Group or local authorities. It must have brought a smile to his face.

 

One thing that is often appreciated by track gangs throughout the land is for a neighbour to appear at the fence and offer a tray full of steaming mugs.
In some cases a trestle table has been set up and loaded with sandwiches and cakes. Not very often to that extent though

 

Tut tut, Robin, I seem to recall a few pages ago you were holding up the Minehead Signal Box plate as an example of how an appeal for one aim does not necessarily divert cash from an appeal for another. Why do you assume that people who would contribute money for a track upgrade in order to see Kings and Castles running on the line would instead contribute to an appeal for carriage sheds, were the first appeal not to be run? What knowledge I have of steam enthusiasts and their enthusiasm for steam locomotives, particularly large steam locomotives, over any other aspect of railway preservation leads me to suspect that such a diversion of funds is very unlikely.

 

What comes first, the king or the castle

 

The WSR plc has been very poor at fundraising in recent years. Experience suggests that it may focus an appeal on an area that doesn’t really advance the cause of the Railway because of the rather odd priorities it seems to be promoting / focussing on at the moment.

Robin

 

Yesterday Today View attachment 33793

 

Depends whether you’re at Kidderminster or not.

 

For info - from the works line drawings the maximum axle weight (converted to metric tonnes) on the various locos being discussed is: 6000 'King' class: 22.9 tonnes, 4073 'Castle' class: 19.9 tonnes, 6959 'Modified Hall' class: 19.5 tonnes, 4900 'Hall' class: 19.2 tonnes, 56xx class 19.1 tonnes. The King class will be RA9, the others RA6.

 

Interesting to see that a Hall is almost as heavy as a Castle..................

 

I Imagined you as more of a Tolstoy or Austen person

(edit) or Fleming

 

At one time Swanage shed had a special plank that was placed across the buffers for the fireman to stand on whilst emptying the smoke box but this disappeared towards the end. standing on the front holding a hot hand rail in one hand with shovel in the other leaning round with the loco over a pit trying to empty the ash in the dark and wet is certainly something I wont be missing about the loco. In retrospect we probably should have refused.

 

I thought Gide remembering Robin's French ancestry.

 

OTOH, if an appeal for an infrastructure upgrade in order to run Kings and Castles taps into funds that would not be forthcoming simply for essential infrastructure maintenance (and I very much suspect that a lot of that will have to be carried out as an essential part of the upgrade), then it would seem a good avenue to explore.

 

46229

Do you have comparable weights, preferably in GWR tons, for Scotsman & Tornado?
Since they have both run on the WSR without any obvious restrictions & axle weights appear to be very similar to a King, I wonder how much upgrading is actually left to do.

 

Maupassant?

 

My fiction selection. Make of that what you will...

Robin

 

I found Guy de Gadois quite entertaining.

 

2x Sharpe's Escape? So good you read it twice???

And it's all very well sorting out the benches on the railway but it also looks like there is one poor thing next to the croquet pitch that could do with some TLC maybe

 

A controlled crossing is one where a human will control the crossing closure process (i.e. lowering the barriers) and have to physically check the crossing is clear inside the barriers before clearing the protecting signals. If anything is trapped between the barriers, this is picked up on the check and the signals aren’t cleared.


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