West Somerset Railway General Discussion

well well, here we are at the start of a new year and the sniping has already started,, for goodness sake give it a rest, my wife and i have travelled many times on the wsr and have not had any trouble, we have had more problems when on gwr.

 

Not at all.

 

Understatement of the year so far.

 

Thats the point you don't need to use them all the time,

SDR for example use it sparingly and use it when issues arise.

all it needs to be used for is eg "we are approaching Washford if you are alighting here please use the doors on the righthand side"

It really is pretty simple if you think about the positive reasons for it, rather then as i've said every excuse under the sun against it.

 

All in all, we could see it was a very good volunteer team effort to overcome the problems & a long day for some !

 

I was thinking the same thing too......

 

would seem so ! .............

 

Well thanks guys, makes me so glad I worked though the night on 28th December booked on around 17.00, booked off on the 29th at 06.30.
Spent the night steam heating stock and trying to clean the contamination out of the tender and clean the fire.
Nice to know that my colleagues and I failed so spectacularly in the opinion of some who post here.
I'll not comment on the utter BS posted about how a heritage railway, largely volunteer run, can just magic up assisting engines and the crews to man them at short notice. It seems we on the WSR must aspire to a standard that the national network gets nowhere near.

I'll say this again - if you think you have something to contribute then turn up and volunteer. Spend time sitting in cold portacabins in meetings to move he railway forward, volunteer on the track gangs, or in a booking office or in a safety critical role if you are up to it and can pass the exams required.

 

Mike, sadly there are people who, for their own enjoyment, just enjoy having a go at others. Sadly they are the reason that deters others who work and volunteer in the industry from regularly commenting on these forums. The forums are poorer for this. The WSR does have its problems but more factual information and constructive comments will go a long way to giving a balanced view of the state of the WSR. So please continue to provide us with news and views from the coal face (or is that tender).

 

That glass has been specified at the wrong size for the intended contents. Use a smaller glass to fit the drink.

 

Mike, ignore the keyboard warriors the best you can ? I try to.....but failing. keep up the good work.

 

On the MHR today only .about a third of the drivers are trained on the diesels. In addition not all of them sign all the types. Most are also steam drivers. There is not always a diesel driver/traction available combination on every day we run, though there would be for all special events. I suspect the issue for the WSR might be even more difficult because of the variety of types and owners.

Also our locos are kept roughly in the centre of the line and we are half the length of the WSR, and our stations are more evenly spaced. It doesnt matter how snappy the WSR ops team is they are never going to be able to as responsive as the MHR can be....and we certainly dont always get it right.


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Didn't take long for the if you can do better you volunteer and the woe is me I did x,y,z without payment posts to start.

Have you not thought that maybe some of us are put off offering services to the WSR because of how toxic the place is.

I wouldn't want to give up my free time to work with the toxic lot.

 

But its quite simply not toxic and the bile generated on here by some bears no resemblance to the day to day reality & friendliness on the railway. I have worked on several lines and at steam centres for well over 40 years now & find the WSR to be by far the most friendly line amongst the volunteers. Yes it is not perfect - nowhere is. What it needs is greater practical support and more volunteers. Yes it has shortcomings and many of those would be quickly overcome by more support but that is true on most lines.

Choosing not to volunteer is your loss unfortunately.

 

Toxic? You've been reading (and believing) too much wibble on Nat Pres mate. I'm sure that there are hundreds of volunteers on the WSR who have a sense of purpose and enjoy every day that they are there. I'll bet that what they read on here - if they read it at all - bears no resemblance to their experience of the railway at grass roots level. That said many of the issues reported on the WSR are common to all heritage railway operations and most volunteers from other railways will recognise them. We all still gladly volunteer our services and our lives would be the poorer if we didn't.

Peter

 

It's often struck me that most of the "toxic" stuff hasn't come from volunteers either from the WSR or other lines or contribute here, but to people who don't volunteer but have an axe to grind.

 

Do you have personal first-hand experience, preferably gained by actually being a working volunteer on the WSR, of this "toxic" atmosphere of which you speak?

 

I'm glad there is an ignore function. Some folk seem to join Nat Pres with the sole purpose of trying to troll, sow discord and generally criticise anything.

Quite sad really.

 

The 15 month accounts showing the £800k loss have now been published at Companies House. Available for download from https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/01010188/filing-history

 

For someone who has been a member of National-Preservation for less than four weeks that's a really nasty and shameful comment. You give the impression that you've a huge chip on your shoulder and have joined N-P simply to vent your anger on the railway, possibly as an ex volunteer. If that is the case perhaps the railway is happy to be rid of you. As it stands you don't have to be part of the 'toxic lot' and the WSR doesn't have to put up with you. That's what I call an all win situation. <BJ>