West Somerset Railway General Discussion

What is a buffet car (he says pointedly)? Taking water is an operation which attracts considerable attention. Take water in one direction at station A. Take it in the other direction at station B.

PH

 

Taking water as a spectacle requires it to be in a position where this can happen. It also then requires all those watching to get back on the train. As an idea it sounds good but lacks the thought process.

 

It wasn't for the want of trying. Objections by the Admiralty to a low level bridge down river and objections by the landowner at Greenway for access to high level bridge saw the terminus at being at Kingswear. However, the various Ferry crossings - which had existed some centuries before the railway - was better than a long walk. The old railway station at Dartmouth (said to be the only station in England or maybe the UK without rails) is still there - used as a restaurant for many years.
Those with long memories might remember The Mew.
The present passenger ferry is part of Dart Valley PLC and is included in the ticket so continuing the previous practices.
As a previous post mentioned, people in the past thought little of walking miles to towns, whereas many today find a few yards a hardship!

 

AFAIK the intermediate stations don't have facilities though - certainly not Blue Anchor or Crowcombe. Installation would be an infrastructure project of considerable complexity (built a water tower, significant trenches to be dug to lay pipes to each end of the station, with corresponding disturbance of track work or platforms etc. etc.) So in the absence of doing a seriously expensive infrastructure project in at least two stations, it is all a bit of a moot point.

At which point, you discover that there isn't a pannier tank to be had to make use of said facilities anyway...

Tom

 

It would be nice to have 'optimal' dwell time at a station, but having worked as a TTI and on Minehead and Blue Anchor stations for the last fourteen years I know it can almost never happen. Among the things that do happen - wheelchairs and/or pushchairs at the wrong place on the platform because you've told them where the brake should be but for some reason it's now almost at one end of the train - getting wheelchairs or pushchairs off the train - at BA a continuous stream of road traffic prevents the signalman shutting the gates - passengers not realising that they've arrived at their destination and opening doors just as you're about to dispatch the train. Tomorrow will be interesting at BA; we have a train with a party of 140 children and 10 teachers arriving at 10:30, and I'll time how long it takes to safely offload them and marshal them away from the platform edge. While this is exceptional, groups of 60 or so children or OAPs are quite frequent on the WSR - wouldn't it be nice to run a railway without passengers!

 

That's a question for our Signalmen

Steve

 

I'm mystified by the nature of issues at BL. Surely, the layout either suits present day WSR operations or it doesn't .... ??

 

Indeed, the "optimal" times I gave are the minimum feasible with typical heritage signalling: you can lengthen them, but not reliably shorten them. Operational experience at a particular station may well suggest you need to allow longer for train despatch due to the normal volumes of passenger traffic.

You can also put recovery time hidden in the timetable. For example, if you generally need 13 minutes to go from A to B, timetabling it for, say, 16 gives you a bit of recovery time; and also means that an unexpected TSR (such as occur in hot weather) doesn't immediately throw the timetable into disarray. But once again, by doing so you lengthen the journey, not shorten it.

Ultimately, it's a balancing act between lots of factors, one of which is how resilient you want the timetable. Personally, I would prioritise resilience over speed, i.e. the trains reliably run when you say they will and you run the service you say you will run, even if the journey is a bit longer as a consequence. But that is an operational decision about priorities at a management level.

Tom

 

The "long" walk is generally done by the enginemen which clearly saves time & if the walk is timed right the signalman is nearly ready to issue the new token as the engineman arrives at the box. The time taken to return to the loco must be less than a minute once the token is issued and is therefore not particularly significant. The only ways of speeding things up are for both arrivals to be prompt and timed to best suit the position of the signalboxes & for station duties to be performed as quickly as is reasonably possible. Both Crowcombe & Williton able to accept simultaneous arrivals unlike many other heritage line crossing places.

 

But there are several of both sizes of 2-6-2T. One of the intermediate stations had watering facilities which were taken out for some reason.

PH

 

Actually, at the moment, and probably for several years to come, they have neither (apart from hired-in examples)!

 

There was originally a water tower and 2 water cranes at Williton which were removed in the 1960s during BR days, (presumably when steam finished). I had a trip along the line recently and stopped in the cafe at the station and got chatting to one of the station volunteers and asked about the water tower as there is a black and white picture of it on the wall of the cafe.

I asked if they might rebuild it someday as you can still see the foundations of where it was as you go past on the train. I was told probably not as there is no real need for it, however, they did say that one of the original water cranes they still have and you can see it lying between the tracks at the Minehead end of the platforms. They were originally in the loop between the tracks so they could be swung over either track. He said they may decide to erect it in the original location again one day but as a non working one, however you never know, they might do the full job some day as the site it still there.

Apparently they are a bit behind with general painting etc of the station as when the loop was extended they couldn't get much access to paint stuff. Was good to see that both the loop has been extended and the footbridge erected again.

You can see a picture of the tower and water crane here. (Photo taken in 1961)

 

Steve,

A system that would make a big difference could be "tokenless block" on the single line from Williton (WN) to Blue Anchor (BA).

Advantages:-
A down train at Williton would only need to give up the token it had carried from Crowcombe (CH) as it passed the signal box on entering the platform. Once the up train arrives the down train would be able to leave without the fireman having to walk back to the box to collect a WN-BA token.
The signaller need only cross over to the up platform once at each crossing move as he would not have to collect a WN-BA token from the up train if it is first in.
The same would apply to the process at BA.
The possibility of building an unmanned automatic crossing loop at Kentsford to split the long WN - BA section then becomes an option ( I believe I am correct on this but professional signal engineers may correct me).

Disadvantages:-
None really except for the enormous cost involved in track circuiting the entire 6 1/2 mile section, this would probably involve changing most, if not all, of the sleepers. Axle counters may not be an acceptable alternative.

The same between WN and CH would create the possibility of another automatic loop at Leigh. With all this in place the timetable could be speeded up and allow the running of extra trains. Full manned signal boxes at Kentsford and Leigh would be preferable but maybe not practical, even Robin cannot work 7 boxes at once!

Andy.

 

I'm open to correction, but I am not aware of anywhere on a standard gauge railway in the UK with an automatic crossing loop. You may be thinking of crossing loops that are remotely operated under Track Circuit Block regulations. The Ffestiniog Railway has semi-automatic loops with traincrew-operated token instruments and similarly on Network Rail I understand there are remotely-monitored crossing loops with traincrew-operated token instruments worked under the No Signalman Key Token regulations.

In my personal opinion (as a signalman elsewhere) I wouldn't hold a train outside for more than a couple of minutes, unless it was booked nonstop or was too long for my loop. If the difference in arrival times is more than a couple of minutes, letting the more awkward one in first is probably quickest overall.

I've never noticed locos taking water to be a hit with visitors, I have to say. A loco sitting still is always a draw for people to take a photo; but taking on water doesn't particularly attract people over and above that in my experience (and there's a frequently used water column right outside one of the signalboxes I sign)

 

As I have said before though IMHO all Williton needs for watering is the ability to 'top up' a small tank loco rather than the full monty.

 

Something that mobile wifi might solve?

 

A few years ago I travelled Cross Country to York. Hardly anyone, other than my wife and I, looked out of the windows admiring the countryside and what it contained. Most others seemed glued to tablets, mobiles and other wifi paraphernalia.

 

I do believe that was in pre WSR days .

 

God forbid !

 

What about the facility to send a telegram from the train?