West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Thanks for reminding me. In other words, DSR has a steeper maximum gradient but shorter and with better alignment.

PH

 

Them's as pay the piper, I guess and for the record, I still think the D1 was important enough to be worthy in it's own right of being recreated. The 20th century class I always associate with "The Oxted Lines" is the I1x. Not possible to paint in LBSC umber and still claim any authenticity of course, but if anyone kicks up over SR greens vs SR or BR blacks (yes one did ... 32005), they can always be threatened with WD livery!

My money is still on a Billinton "K"!

 

.... on page 117.

Is there a quick way to go to a posting number?

 

Maybe they should buy some Pacers from FGW... nice and appropriate for the line.

 

I'm not sure we could persuade folk to come up with the necessary £5 each...

Or would we be paid to take them away? I believe the loco department want something to store loco parts in.

Robin

 

But generally, our passengers don't want to ride in the DMU - they want steam.

 

OK Folks, a question for you all:-

With all the rattling on about heritage on here who can tell me exactly what 'heritage' actually means in your discussions?

The Cambridge Dictionary quotes:

Heritage:-
Features belonging to the culture of a particular society, such as traditions, languages or buildings that were created in the past and still have historical importance.

EDIT, added:-And for the particular, the Oxford English Dictionary states:-
Heritage:-
Valued objects and qualities such as historic buildings and cultural traditions that have been passed down from previous generations.
End edit

From this I'd say that "heritage" covers just about anything 'old' that we consider important enough (for whatever reason) to remember.

So I ask you, which is heritage:- buildings from the 1890's or 1960's? Both are important in their own way (even if the 1960's importance is only to learn the error of our ways by not building concrete monstrosities) so both fall under the banner of "Heritage". To play devils advocate for a moment, who is to say then that a pre-cast concrete signal box from 1960 would not be appropriate on a 'heritage' railway?

Mk.1 coaches could be classed as heritage because those of us of a certain age remember them fondly, equally so, many of today's youngsters will remember them as "The Harry Potter coaches..." is this heritage?

It seems to me that too many people use the word "heritage" simply to support to support their individual opinions without really explaining what those opinions are. If you want to imitate a certain period of time then at least say what (or should that be when) it is and please don't knock others who are aiming for a different time period by using the meaningless phrase "That's no good, it's not heritage..."

Oh well, back to the fallout shelter...

 

Thank you.

 

Same applies equally to the 'main' services so maybe we should go diesel throughout. Or for ultimate convenience don't run trains at all and show the bus services in our timetable .....

 

The first excuse will be covered by "You are using the wrong dictionary"

 

Shouldn't West Somerset Wizard be breaking news stories like this?

 

Yup, I should have thought of that. Edited now though. Perhaps someone will query which edition I used as a modern one just couldn't be considered to be heritage enough for on here...

 

err ... don't you mean plc?
.org generally carry news like this once it has been issued by the company?

 

To take it further, in a few months, Pacers will become heritage.

The interesting thing is that heritage railways now have their own preservation era heritage - which to be honest they do not always take very good care of, often giving it very low value.

I've said before that I can recall travelling on the MHR in second hand MK2, the WSR in the Park Royals or the FR in the tin coaches behind Upnor Castle (coaches in all red, locos in green). Those are part of my childhood memories, but you can bet that no one is in a hurry to recreate that heritage.

Interestingly I can recall a debate in I think the FR magazine back in the 1980s wanting to reproduce the sense of decay and disrepair of the 1950s, lamenting that the railway was too clean, too modern etc, that its restoration heritage had been lost once the line had been restored to Blaenau.

As a side note - my visit to the WSR all those years ago included Geoffrey from Rainbow being there as well. It sticks in my mind because my grandmother noted that he was looking a little purple and concluded that he must be an alcoholic. Such are the memories that railways give us.

 

Going by Robin's post, the announcement was made on the 30th of Jan.
Today is the 11th of Feb.
How long should the news be kept secret for?

 

When I remember to, I put inverted commas round the word. I suspect the reason behind its adoption in regard to railway preservation was to give a supposed added gravitas to the "movement" (another expression I dislike) in the face of tabloid yah-booings about train playing. Would much prefer the Scandinavian expression, Museum Railway which, however, did not catch on.

PH

 

Well when there was a debate on here about information sources, West Somerset Wizard was held up as the go to place for everything about the WSR.

 

I had no idea! It is also corporate information. If the Plc would care to make a public announcement then I'll happily add a news item.

Steve

 

Paul,

Depending upon how you define "goods" trains the answer is very much yes, and in great quantity, if you refer to the commercial transport of materials rather than passengers. I worked such trains on the 18th January 2018 and 2nd February 2018 so the practice is very much alive.

Mineral trains have been travelling commercially over the WSR since 1997, in which year approximately 100,000 tons of rock armour was moved by train from the national network to Minehead for sea defence work. Since then similar trains have moved rock armour to various locations along the line, we have also moved materials for other projects adjacent to the railway where the road network has not been suitable. The most recent movements have been in 2011 if I remember correctly. You may suggest these were all works that were associated with the railway and we were really only moving our own materials so they do not count, but I can assure you that the railway was genuinely acting as a commercial undertaking for 3rd parties.

In addition, since around 2008/9 trains have been traversing the railway carrying ballast for re-cycling and onward use in building, road construction and other miscellaneous projects, virtually none of which has ended up being used on the WSR. I do not know the total tonnage but for some years they have been running 5 days a week for months on end, each train moving and unloading 200-800 tons of material. It would be not unreasonable to estimate that the total may be 30,000 tons a year for the 8 years. If so 1/4 million tons of material is certainly greater than "zero". There will be another train every day Mon-Fri this week as there has been every week this year so far.

If in doubt plenty of photographs exist on Steve's excellent web site wsr.org.uk
http://cgibin.wsr.org.uk/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?h=The+stone+trains+of+2010&t=stone2010pix
http://cgibin.wsr.org.uk/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?h=The+stone+trains+of+1997-1998&t=stone19971998pix
or put "HOBC" into the box on the "picture search" page.

I hope that this clarifies the situation that the WSR is not just tourists enjoying a day out.

Andy.