If you register, you can do a lot more. And become an active part of our growing community. You'll have access to hidden forums, and enjoy the ability of replying and starting conversations.

West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by gwr4090, Nov 15, 2007.

  1. Robin Moira White

    Robin Moira White Resident of Nat Pres

    Joined:
    Apr 27, 2014
    Messages:
    11,246
    Likes Received:
    17,946
    Gender:
    Female
    Occupation:
    Barrister
    Location:
    Stogumber
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Numbers from the ‘reworked’ prairie reworked into a suitable order. No doubt @Aberdare can elucidate.

    Robin
     
  2. Forestpines

    Forestpines Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 5, 2009
    Messages:
    1,681
    Likes Received:
    2,438
    Gender:
    Female
    Location:
    Somewhere in the UK
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    I said earlier that I expected it had been designed around a content management system. What I thought of saying, but excised but it wasn't exactly relevant, is that it's possible that they have a contract where content changes also have to go through the design/hosting company, but that any web design agency that still expects paying for content changes is effectively running a scam, given that content management systems exist!

    A bit of digging suggests that the design firm in question is a small-to-medium sized place who say they offer a "bespoke content management system", probably written in PHP with a MySQL backend database going by their job adverts. Their style of coding is not bad in some respects, and the sites certainly look effective, but under the hood it's a bit old-fashioned, the sort of coding style that was standard about ten years ago but is a bit behind the times now.* That fits with the salaries in the job adverts, to be frank. But, they're a small local agency, they've found a niche, and they are wedged firmly in that niche making the best of it, so good luck to them. Looking at the code, though, there is plenty of evidence that the agency are responsible for design and hosting but the WSR has the power to change their own content.

    * My evidence for this: they've designed a responsive layout with a fairly recent version of Twitter Bootstrap, and they're using Cloudflare as their CDN; but they clearly don't believe in front-end frameworks because the most sophisticated thing they're using there is raw JQuery with occasional ajax() calls for a handful of things; nearly everything otherwise is rendered entirely server-side. I suspect their "bespoke CMS" is an internal product they wrote circa 2005 and haven't really updated since.
     
    ghost likes this.
  3. Robin Moira White

    Robin Moira White Resident of Nat Pres

    Joined:
    Apr 27, 2014
    Messages:
    11,246
    Likes Received:
    17,946
    Gender:
    Female
    Occupation:
    Barrister
    Location:
    Stogumber
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Yep. That’s exactly how it works.

    Robin
     
    Forestpines likes this.
  4. 5944

    5944 Resident of Nat Pres

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2006
    Messages:
    8,031
    Likes Received:
    7,605
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Train Maintainer for GTR at Hornsey
    Location:
    Letchworth
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    Cut and shut 5193's old numberplate?
     
    Paul Kibbey likes this.
  5. D1002

    D1002 Resident of Nat Pres

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2011
    Messages:
    8,658
    Likes Received:
    6,415
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Enfield
    Seams feasible. Thanks.
     
  6. Forestpines

    Forestpines Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 5, 2009
    Messages:
    1,681
    Likes Received:
    2,438
    Gender:
    Female
    Location:
    Somewhere in the UK
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    It's a while since I have seen 9351, but from what I recall the numberplates are clearly "modern" because they say "WSR" where an original would have said "GWR" - which, itself, would have made a cut-and-shut a bit tricky.

    Annoyingly, although I thought I had a photo, I can't find it.
     
  7. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

    Joined:
    Sep 9, 2013
    Messages:
    10,440
    Likes Received:
    17,937
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Cheltenham
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    I think it's more a metaphorical cut and shut when it comes to the numberplate...
     
    Forestpines likes this.
  8. huochemi

    huochemi Part of the furniture

    Joined:
    May 6, 2008
    Messages:
    2,751
    Likes Received:
    1,393
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    UK
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    ? Only some of the absorbed locos and RODs had GWR on the cabside plates. Perhaps I have misunderstood your comment?
     
  9. Forestpines

    Forestpines Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 5, 2009
    Messages:
    1,681
    Likes Received:
    2,438
    Gender:
    Female
    Location:
    Somewhere in the UK
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Ah, my mistake, I am not a GWR expert. My memory though was that 9351 definitely did have WSR on hers.
     
  10. Pete Thornhill

    Pete Thornhill Resident of Nat Pres Staff Member Administrator Moderator Friend

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2008
    Messages:
    7,498
    Likes Received:
    5,455
    It did indeed.
     
    Forestpines likes this.
  11. Robin

    Robin Well-Known Member Friend

    Joined:
    May 7, 2012
    Messages:
    1,393
    Likes Received:
    1,747
    Location:
    Stourbridge
    Photo from 2011:
    P1060282.jpg
    Detail at the bottom:
    P1060282 detail.jpg
     
    Forestpines, jnc and Pete Thornhill like this.
  12. Pete Thornhill

    Pete Thornhill Resident of Nat Pres Staff Member Administrator Moderator Friend

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2008
    Messages:
    7,498
    Likes Received:
    5,455
  13. GW 5972

    GW 5972 New Member

    Joined:
    Apr 26, 2015
    Messages:
    121
    Likes Received:
    90
    Gender:
    Male
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    Put simply, 9351 is a type considered by Swindon but never built. Converting a prairie tank to mogul has resulted in a 43xx lookalike but with a smaller boiler.
    Fortuitously the number 5193 produced a perfect anagram of a 93 series and 51 had not been used. Coincidentally 51 was also the class designation of the 2251 class of 0-6-0.
     
    tracker, jnc and Paul Kibbey like this.
  14. baldbazza

    baldbazza New Member

    Joined:
    Jun 29, 2014
    Messages:
    191
    Likes Received:
    538
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    IT geek
    Location:
    miles away
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    D1002 and Paul Kibbey like this.
  15. Flying Phil

    Flying Phil Part of the furniture

    Joined:
    Dec 10, 2018
    Messages:
    2,696
    Likes Received:
    5,500
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Leicestershire
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Very nice picture Robin.
    I'm sure you must get frustrated at times with all the flak that flies around and about the WSR but, hopefully, the corner is being turned and you will all be able to settle down and enjoy what you love about your Railway.
     
  16. huochemi

    huochemi Part of the furniture

    Joined:
    May 6, 2008
    Messages:
    2,751
    Likes Received:
    1,393
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    UK
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    No worries. One might also add that transforming 5193 to 9351 would involve transmuting cast iron to brass.;)
     
    Forestpines likes this.
  17. Kinghambranch

    Kinghambranch Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 20, 2006
    Messages:
    1,868
    Likes Received:
    1,588
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Retired
    Location:
    White Rose County
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    Yes, and here we have a problem with all this "new-fangled internet blog stuff!" Never had this sort of frustration when I joined the GWSR in 1981! We all get addicted to blogs because humans, by our very nature, are curious and we want to know what's going on, especially if we are supporting it (even more if we're helping to fund it) so, when a keen blogster decides, for whatever reason, to cease blogging, there's an audience that consequently feels somewhat bereft and frustrated. As a millennial, FS123 will have never known anything other that t'internet but it's integral to all our lives now (well, in the vast majority of cases anyway). Social media can be addictive and can offer instant gratification and instant depression; "how many likes have I got? Crikey, I've been unfriended!" and so on. Personally, I still believe that a good monthly blog is better than an indifferent weekly one.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2019
    Steve B, michaelh, jnc and 1 other person like this.
  18. Kinghambranch

    Kinghambranch Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 20, 2006
    Messages:
    1,868
    Likes Received:
    1,588
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Retired
    Location:
    White Rose County
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    Indeed! Thank you RW for the photo. What a beautiful locomotive! I know it's really 2-6-2T no 5193 in disguise but Mr Churchward had considered a design very like this as part of his standardisation plan. It was not proceeded with after the introduction of the 43xx class.
     
  19. Robin Moira White

    Robin Moira White Resident of Nat Pres

    Joined:
    Apr 27, 2014
    Messages:
    11,246
    Likes Received:
    17,946
    Gender:
    Female
    Occupation:
    Barrister
    Location:
    Stogumber
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Thank you for those kind words.

    And the best bit is that you will be able to come for a ride behind 9351 shortly...

    Robin
     
    Paul Kibbey likes this.
  20. Robin Moira White

    Robin Moira White Resident of Nat Pres

    Joined:
    Apr 27, 2014
    Messages:
    11,246
    Likes Received:
    17,946
    Gender:
    Female
    Occupation:
    Barrister
    Location:
    Stogumber
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Kinghambranch likes this.

Share This Page