West Somerset Railway General Discussion

For 4 years I comuted from Moreton in Marsh to Reading and we broke the rule by miles - The coach D group had a dozen floating members who not only talked to each other but had nibble and bucks fiz breakfasts for special occasion. Mind I do remember one christmas when I hung a large pair of lamela lanterns from the luggage rack, HST. They wobbled about as the train rolled. There were however passengers who were not amused

 

I believe that at one time the Gunnislake Branch train had a full set of Christmas Decorations

 

When I used to commute from Bracknell to Victoria (changing at Clapham Jc in the rush hour, twice a day, was certainly one of those 'life experiences' I could have done without), the 07:16 ex-Reading frequently managed to turn up very late .... so we formed a 'complaing club'. Armed with the name of the poor bloke at Waterloo, the SP was to phone at 10 min intervals each time the train was late .... it didn't take too long to get the matter of crew rostering on the table (our little club icluded several 1st class types - no inverted snobbery there!).

Come the new timetable, a couple of months later, the truly outstanding classic announcement at Bracknell had to be: "Attention please, passengers on platform 1 awaiting the seven-sixteen service to London Waterloo" (cue long faces and muttering) "This train is running .... on time" Nearly everyone on the platform dissolved into uncontrollable laughter when the announcement continued "British Rail would like to apologise for any inconvenience this may cause!"

 

1515 Minehead-Bishops Lydeard DMU vice steam.

 

The timetable for 24th July shows that the DMU is correct.

 

My mistake, all other Tuesdays this summer have been the green timetable. Wonder why today being during the school holidays is a blue one?

 

Whether or not it's the school holidays depends on where you live! In Somerset today is the last day of term, that's why the yellow timetable starts tomorrow, but I will agree that it's strange that today wasn't a 'green' day.

 

I live in Somerset and my children broke up on Friday, yesterday & today were 'in service' days

 

Since the new o2 mast went live at Crowcombe, there is now mobile coverage on o2 all along the line. Full 4g signal at CH station and even down at Roebuck crossing! Faster internet than a landline.

 

The school party had 122 in total. Our time at the Blue Anchor stop was one second over two minutes and we
would have been away sooner if a passenger at the front of the train had not left a door on the latch.

School parties are an important part of our role as a Heritage Railway. Thanks to the teachers/
TAs/helpers who lead such parties they are a pleasure to have 'on board'.

I think the key to a rapid, efficient and safe 'disembarkation' ( I think that may not be the correct word ?) is to
discuss with the party leaders ahead of time as we did on this occasion,

Michael Rowe

 

British tradition? - only in the home counties.

 

I was watching the webcam at this time, and saw that, after the train had departed, it took at least another 5 minutes to get the children organised to leave the station, which they did with the help of the signalman closing the gates to road traffic so they could safely cross the road outside!

 

A Buffet Car is where Passengers can go to take on water themselves, you can't miss them, they say 'Buffet' on the side.

 

It even caught Steve out. His excellent website .org had 53808 as BL1 and 7820 as BL2.

 

I can confirm this.

I'm with Tesco Mobile which uses o2 masts and I get a good signal along every inch of the line.

Stef.

 

A bit of a mess-up with the loco roster sheet, probably my poor transposing the details from Excel to HTML Perhaps I need to book my next visit to Specsavers

Steve

 

I see the visiting charter this Saturday, The West Somerset Steam Express, is due to leave Minehead (according to RTC) at 16.15, the same time as a scheduled WSR train. Is the timetable being amended or the special leaving Minehead at a different time?

 

WSR service trains are now due to depart Minehead at 16.50 (steam) and 17.40 (diesel loco) on Saturday.

 

Many thanks.

 

You can't be serious ???