West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Is that renewal of Rail only or a full job, Rail, Sleepers and Ballast?

 

For comparison, the latest SVR News has a comment in the GM's notes "Maintaining a safe infrastructure, including annual rail replacement, costs alone circa £600,000 per annum."

 

In the 3 main elements of track, the main components wear out in the wrong order.
Ballast 30 - 40 years
Sleepers - 40 - 50 years
Rail - 70 plus

All dependant on ground conditions, maintenance and loadings.
Going by the above and assuming your mileage of 25 miles and a 35 year life, you need to reballast 1 1/4 miles per year to stand still

You cannot hope that the track will last by just changing the rails you need to have an ongoing programme of full renewal as well.
Some rerailing will get you by for a while but it will catch up on you.

Take a look at what is being done on the Bluebell as an example of what is needed.
https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/ext/inf_news.html

Or what we do on the NYMR.
https://www.nymr.co.uk/blog/civil-engineering-diary-27-march-2019
Other pages are available.

 

After what seems an eternity stock has been despatched to Bishops Lydeard station for the relaunch service train tomorrow. <BJ>
http://www.wsr.org.uk/r-cam-bl2.htm

 

It would have been a brave volunteer who attempted to ask her between 03:52 when she arrived and 09:30 when she departed...

Robin

 

Somewhere, buried in this thread or one of its fore-runners, is an excellent description of the overall track refurbishment plan, at least as it was then.
My recollection is that a mile a year was the 'plan', but I may be wrong.
If you can find the thread, it may be a good 'read'.

 

By contrast - the WSR (according to comments from the Chairman) has apparently been able to resolve the infrastructure issues which concerned the ORR by expenditure of £140k. This is surprising - you don't get much for £140k these days.

 

I suspect that was the minimum expenditure needed to reopen. A more comparable figure going forward would be that mentioned in the notes on the pre-season WSR stakeholders meeting on 4 March. "All 4,000 WSR plc shareholders will also be contacted shortly to seek further necessary investment which is expected to be at least £500,000 a year."

http://www.wsr.org.uk/news.htm#1706

The SVR has more viaducts and more problems with unstable ground, but the WSR has a longer line, more stations and a backlog of work to address. On that basis the £500k should not really come as a surprise.

 

I will make allowances that the WSR has been rather pre-occupied with things of late which may suggest no one knew beforehand of the visit.

 

But, given that they were technically insolvent last December and considering Voluntary Liquidation - where is that £500k p.a going to come from?

 

Easy, just get the WSRA to reprise its "Let me through, I'm an expert fund raiser!" routine which was deployed to such good effect re 4110.

 

Barbara Pym wrote in one of her books describing a Blood Donor session a character shouting "Let me through - I'm A Rhesus Negative" and the queues miraculously parted, - as I am an A Rhesus Negative Blood Donor, I have been often tempted to shout that out to see if I get rushed to the head of the queue but sadly I have never had the courage to try it out!

 

And I thought antagonism was all in the past , must pay a visit sometime soon .

 

I think the sign we had on our office wall is probably appropriate:

"Get it right and no one will remember.
Get it wrong and no one will forget."

 

If you would like an easy way to support the railway, see:
http://www.wssrt.co.uk/2019/03/29/tales-of-the-west-somerset-railway/

A bargain at £8.99 or £9.99 delivered by post to your door!

Ian Coleby

 

How heavy is a Hall class when it's ready for a train?

I only ask as 46010 has had its invitation to attend the diesel gala as the WSR have decided the track is a bit poorly and may not cope, it's ok as I'll just take my money to the Swanage or SVR instead. But I wonder whether the steam visitors to their gala will be subject to the same weight limits, dont worry it's a rhetorical question as we all know the answer already

 

the hall would be about 15 tons lighter than the peak

 

Did you mean to say that it has had its invitation cancelled?

 

It's not just the weight but the axle load which is important. A 28xx is a 'Blue Route' whereas the Hall is 'Red' as the weight of the former is spread across 4 driving axles but only 3 on the latter even though both classes are almost the same weight.
Ray.

 

Confusing post, and why the "mad" emoji?