West Somerset Railway General Discussion

"there are not many anthropological studies of the English" - Is there no wonder? How on earth would an anthropologist go about that little challenge without a tardis?
I know Minehead pretty well but I don't think there are any tribes still living in HopCot woods or on the wilder side of North Hill?

Would we also think that the future generations that will keep preserved railways alive will concern themselves with lack of clicketty-clack?

 

That sounds like a lot. With 60ft rails there should be about 88 joints per mile, or 176 pairs of fishplates.

 

For anyone that is interested the Minehead Hobby Horse (which influenced some of the Whicker Man film) has been written about by anthropologists and folklorists interested in folk practices/festivities. But not as much as other hobby horses in the West Country. I tend to feel NP is an ideal place to discuss hobby horses as some posters have many.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minehead_Hobby_Horse

 

Grinding (Or any other method) a groove in the rail top is an absolute NO NO
It acts as a stress raiser and leads to rail breaks.

 

Thanks, you beat me to posting a comment to that effect.
The national network spends a great deal of time, money and effort in grinding or milling railheads to remove tiny cracks which can eventually expand into larger cracks or even broken rails.
Remember Hatfield?

Cheers, Neil

 

Only too well.
All regular jobs cancelled and panic installation of new rail all over the country.
One week I was stressing near Stevenage, then up to Ferryhill, then Wakefield and then back down to the Offords.

One of our supervisors got fed up of the TV News clips all showing him threading new rail in with a Road Railer and thimble.

 

The most well known 'Osses and my favourites are of course the ones at Padstow. A pity the Bodmin & Wenford doesn't go there.

 

Thanks Shirley for making your thoughts much clearer. I agree heritage railways should try to have a coherent vision for presenting their heritage, after all that is why a significant number of visitors and (of critical importance) volunteers come. It definitely affects the bottom line if the line is not interesting enough to attract enough volunteers and donors. And I’ll try to find out more about Kate Fox - it’s an interesting time to be English.

 

With 7822 out of action along with 6046 (and 53808 undergoing routine maintenance), the diagrams BL2 and BL3 will be each be worked by the 33 diesels D6566 and D6575 on Weds 30 May. No word about Thursday yet. My thanks to WSR Plc for the update.

Steve

 

Cromptons crossing at Blue Anchor at 12:45 today.

Robin

 

There has seemingly been one assumption through this thread that CWR is not heritage. Well CWR use dates back to late 30s and 40s so predates many of the locos running on our heritage railway

 

Whoops, I usually follow this thread carefully but I must have missed that bit 350 pages ago in this 645 page thread!

 

History is about forgetting as much as remembering.

I imagine that the authenticity fundamentalists would claim "well there wasn't CWR on lines like the SVR or WSR in the 1940s, I remember travelling on (insert name of branchline here) in (insert year here) and it was all jointed"

 

how many off these are likely to be out greasing fish plates and replacing wooden sleepers.

 

I see Dave Horton has resigned. I liked his enthusiasm.
http://www.wsr.org.uk/news.htm

 

Seems to have been an awful lot of resignations at the WSR in the past year. Rather worrying. I'm still convinced there's something in the water down there...

 

Ah, sorry, it was "Ruston 906"
The work I referenced was published in 2004. Do expand about Mass Observation. What conclusions does it come to that are pertinent to this debate? Does it contradict Ms Fox?

 

Yes, that did occur to me. Perhaps pennies are the answer.

 

It seems that 6046 hasn't been the most reliable of locomotives. In it's time on hire to the NYMR it suffered frequent failures and didn't get anywhere near its planned mileage.