West Somerset Railway General Discussion

The music doesn't do this video any favours. What better accompaniment than the sounds of the locos pictured?

To me any appeal with intrusive music is telling me that it's trying to appeal to a different demographic from the one of which I am a member so I take my donations elsewhere.

 

Those can just as easily be black smoke as white.

 

Insufficient top air ....

Tom

 

Trustee meeting not until later. Fire not yet lit!

 

Overheated the oil? (A reference to the Wallsend Oil Fuel Syatem)

 

Turn the atomiser up or turn the fuel down.

 

Wasn't that exactly what several of them did between closure by BR and re-opening in preservation? There would be major difficulties, but surely no worse than when they had a few hundred yards of track on an otherwise bare trackbed and nothing better than an industrial shunter or a diesel shunter to pull trains.

 

A single line of rusty metals, the remains of a signalling system, limited equipment mostly recently overhauled by BR ( rolling stock at least) a very light touch regulatory regime, and totally different customer and volunteer expectations mean that the comparison is not valid in my opinion.

Longer lockdown = greater difficulty in reopening. Do not underestimate how challenging that is now, let alone in two years from now. As I said before few could withstand the challenge.



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I'm puzzled by this, are you suggesting that things just get overgrown until in 2023 volunteers come to pull up the weeds and restart? Are you expecting a Barry scrapyard mk.2 to put all the engines in before we buy them back and start again?

We are not talking about 'railway lines' but going concerns here, businesses with supporter bases, paid staff, assets etc

 

Taking one aspect....

When the WSR opened it had two fairly basic signalling installations at BA and WN. Now it has 5 working signal-boxes with a considerable numbers of track circuits, 3 automatic level-crossings, 6 pairs of key-token instruments plus a couple of intermediates etc etc. All that equipment and circuitry will probably have to be thoroughly re-tested to ensure that it has not suffered during lock-down, whether from lack of use, mis-use, lack of maintenance etc etc. You can't just 'switch on' on Day 1 and assume that everything will work just as it did when you last ran trains.

 

All I am saying is that the WSR and other railways started with very little and managed to build up over a period. Re-starting this time will be from a different base and with different issues, but surely overall it can't be be harder than it was then. I agree that just picking up where everyone left off looks implausible. The railways may not be going concerns again for quite a while.

 

Swanage did take on the message about music on videos and produced one without. Link below.

 

Those of you referencing what happened in the 1970's are probably more likely to be wrong. Those of you referencing what preservation is like in the 21st century are probably more likely to be right.
The movement is facing a crisis.
Of course I may be a pessimist, any small expertise and insight I might have can probably be safely ignored.

Trustee nominations for WSRA are open currently.

 

To pull you up on a bit on some of your points, yes many railways did start of with very little but they have taken a hell of a long time to build up their things like reputation, infrastructure and brand.

Other things may be open by 2021 but you have to keep knocking at the door regarding the public to keep your brand in the public eye, remind them your still here, and be savvy about it, an advert in the back of Railway Mag or something on Facebook or Insta?
Seriously to say it can't be harder than then really forgets the current 'right now' generation.

 

It's a bit like those people who say "well we survived the war" (who were usually born afterwards). Yes, we did, but only just, it was bloody awful, and took ages and ages to rebuild.

 

Lets not forget the boring but necessary paperwork etc... To compare the two eras isn't very clever

 

The problem isn't that heritage rail will somehow be forgotten by shallow public interest, it is that lines will go bust, plain and simple, through lack of income!

Shall we move coronavirus chat back to the proper thread ?

 

I’m doing a little research for the WSRA on work being carried out during lockdown elsewhere on heritage railways.

What I really need is a photo or two, like the one below taken by Alan Crotty of the K&ESR weedkilling operation in early May. I am well dialled into what the K&ESR are doing as a K&ESR Director.

If you can help, don’t fill up this thread but PM me please.

Thank you in advance.

Robin. WSRA Trustee.

 

It will be harder if they no longer can pay for staff to do the vital day-to-day running of the business!