West Somerset Railway General Discussion

In what way? Either SCC are responsible as landowner, or they are responsible as the local authority.

 

To be honest, there are many issues that has lead the WSR to the place it now finds it's self in, the questions are many, structure, supporting groups, and personalities, just to deal with the main ones, but hopefully one day it will find a way out of the mess. when it does, serious thought has to be given to what distance do they operate, for example clearly there are issues with the permanent way and on controlling costs, it may be worth considering abandoning the Taunton end of the line mothballing it, to regular traffic and only operating a shorter line until the finances allow an staged extension , as the track is repaired and maintaince made good, who ever runs the line, will have to make this decision, if the railway can not afford to run over the full length, then run it over what it can afford, ,

 

Simples, ....ask the company infrastructure board .....

 

If you mothball the Taunton/ BL end, goodbye to through excursions and may lose the income from servicing main line steam.

 

The WSR, in the past, hoped to increase excursion/charter traffic as it was seen as lucrative. I doubt they would want to mothball the main line connections end despite the high maintenance costs entailed.

 

I suspect that may be the tail that wags the dog financially speaking. However, it may also affect how people access the railway and the 20 minute drive up the A358 deter them from joining further up the line.

 

There have been many voices shouting the warning for some time now, but sadly many deaf ears.

 

Never understood why people think this was something Rumsfeld dreamt up. We were taught it on my MBA course many years before and it wasn't new then. It's always been the case that what you don't know you don't know may prove fatal.

 

The question would remain - which end - It is the Minehead end that requires the work, does it not?

 

I don't believe we have made sufficient use of our Main Line connection and that is down to selling the Railway to make it attractive for trains to come.

I must say I am very surprised that with the turntable and facilities available that there has not been more activity - so why not?

There could be a mini Torbay Express from Bristol for example or a Minehead Express from Birmingham - an untapped market!

 

However much Minehead is regarded as the jewel in the crown it is a slog from the M5 and therefore I would favour a staged reopening from the Lydeard end even if it only went to Crowcombe initially a reversal of what was achieved from 1976

 

I would not be surprised in the Birmingham trips have been discussed already given the Birmingham connections with the PLC

 

Surely it's a bit of an illusion that there is lots of money to be made from incoming charters.

A typical train has maybe 400 passengers at most. Given the normal sort of ticket price for mainline charters (starting at ca. £100) that means at most the gross income from a train might be of the order of £50 - £60k, and that has to pay everything - all the mainline costs, loco costs, Network Rail fees, the business overheads of the charter operator and so on. So the amount available to a railway hosting an inbound charter is only going to be a small fraction of that. Even if you could get 20 trains in a season (and historically the WSR has actually been very successful at attracting incoming trains), the total revenue generated is going to amount to no more than a five figure sum over a whole season. Which is good to have, but it is peanuts relative to the £3m+ that the railway needs to generate each year. (And without a large catering outlet at Minehead and the town so close, most of the arriving passengers are likely to head straight into town, minimising any secondary spend on the railway).

It's icing on the cake - which is tasty, but certainly not a substitute for the cake. Better to carry 400 passengers on your own train paying potentially up to £28 each than 400 of someone else's paying a fraction of that.

Tom

 

In what ever way the WSR re opens, assuming it does, the reality of the situation will mean some very hard decisions having to be taken, either running over a shorter distance, whilst the track that needs attention is brought up to standard , either that or once again putting it of for another day, until you can't run anything.
If DMU's are kinder to track that needs attention, then perhaps split the operation to one of a DMU shuttle BL-WT, changing over to steam.at WL meaning less steam mileage,
As regards mainline use, mainline engines could still turn at NF , and be serviced either there, or BL.

 

It may not be a money maker for the WSR but it is a moneymaker for Minehead and I think that that can be no bad thing

 

Even if it benefits the local area,

Said monies, wouldn't go directly into the railway.

So they don't seem interested, in helping the local area outside of the boundary fence so to speak.

 

I think you only have to look at say the SVR, it uses its mainline connection for the odd charter but Bridgnorth and Bewdley aren't exactly regular destinations, it's things like Tampers coming in for training, Network Rail and LSL using it for loco trials/running in, diesel groups taking advantage of using the facilities at Kiddy TRSMD, basically what I'd call commercial work, that day to day is possibly more valuable than the occasional charter.
How often is the connection used for the ballest work at Norton Fitzwarren?

 

Astoishing. How can you give your support to a Chairman who felt it appropriate to tell the Chairman of the WSRA to Foxtrot Oscar (I have never seen any denial of this story, so assume that it is accurate)? That is totally unacceptable behaviour not matter how you look at it and it should not have been @Paul Whitehouse who resigned from his post as a result. I cannot imagine that this would have been tolerated on any other railway and have no idea why it is tolerated on the WSR.

 

How often do tampers go anywhere by rail?