West Somerset Railway General Discussion

I think they are embracing George Tryon approach.

 

I have always maintained and still maintain that the WSR has a Wonderful Potential if only it were developed properly!

 

What putting a looking glass to a blind eye?

 

I hope so Ian. Unfortunately I am not liable to be travelling that far west in the near future, but as an active volunteer on one railway, I wish those on the WSR well.

 

I hope that those last two words aren't taken the wrong way by anybody

 

I have received a G-Line Coach Touring catalogue this week and note 2 tours in October that offer a visit to the West Somerset Railway. Given comments on this thread re the possible re-opening of the line in 2020 is there any indication asto what service will be on offer to clients on either of the tours ?

 

I would imagine the catalogues would have been printed last year, pre covid,

 

The holiday is also advertised on t'internet. <BJ>

Come with G-Line to explore part of Somerset.
http://bookings.g-lineholidays.co.uk/Tour/Railways_and_Waterways_of_Devon_and_Somerset

Railways and Waterways of Devon and Somerset
West Somerset Railway - Take in the glorious and varied countryside on board the West Somerset Railway. Our unforgettable journey takes us past unspoilt villages and farm, Dunster Castle and the cliffs and coast of the Bristol Channel, with distant views of South Wales!

 

I guess they are in for a disappointment, as of the three railways mentioned only the Dartmouth line is running.
Maybe they can look in the open shops but I doubt that will satisfy many as shops and other attractions are ten a penny in tourist places.
I wonder if those disappointed can get refunds?

 

Agreed - My choice of words was unfortunate to say the least!

 

There was a similar one recently in our Swindon Advertiser for Barnes Coaches but it has now been deleted

Left hand and right hands?

 

And again earlier this year (presuming you actually mean 4612 - mind you, they do all look alike!) - I drove it on the freight driving experience There will likely be another one while we've got it here again...

 

The WSR still isn't open?

 

I was out again last Thursday as conductor driver on the HOBC train so I attempted to take some photos of the process after unloading. Unfortunately without venturing onto the reprocessing area of the site its difficult to get photographs which convey the scale of the operation.

At present I would guess that there are several thousand tonnes of stone on site, half of which is awaiting processing and half which has been graded for resale. The unloaded stone is graded over a series of screens that sort it into a range of usable sizes or reject material which is either non-stone, too large or too small. The non-stone will be composed of bits of railway equipment such as rail clips, rubber base plate pads, bricks etc. The too large can be anything from large stones, bricks, parts of broken concrete sleeper to bits of wood. The too small is mostly composed of soil, dust and fine stones. The reusable stone is graded from about 10mm to 50mm in several sizes for use in construction and road building industries.

Below are a few photographs taken from the perimeter of the processing site showing the unprocessed stone pile, and piles of finished graded stone.

I've also included 3 photos, one of the hopper wagon conveyor unloading onto the trackside pile and one of a hopper to hopper conveyor. Each hopper wagon has two conveyors, one at the base of the hopper which moves the load to the end of the wagon where it drops onto the second conveyor. The second conveyor raises the stone up to either fall into the next hopper wagon or it is swung sideways to unload trackside.

Stone from the hopper wagon at one end of the train will be transferred from hopper to hooper until it reaches the last hopper to be unloaded. This is quicker than going to the effort of swinging every conveyor sideways to unload directly. It takes about 5 minutes to unload each hopper so my 7 hopper train took about 35 minutes in total to unload. When the first hopper is empty the second starts transferring and so on until all 14 conveyors are busy transferring the last hopper's stone down the length of the train. To avoid one big 300 tonne pile on the ground the train moves slowly forward at the slowest possible preset speed, which on the class 66 is 0.14 mph or 12 feet per minute. The stone comes off the conveyor at around 1 tonne every 5 seconds.

Andy.

 

Thanks for these pictures, Andy, most interesting.
Just a thought, but as I recall the Norton triangle area is occasionally subject to flooding. Would it be possible to use all or some of the reject material to raise the level of the land sufficiently to avoid this and thus make it useful for things like carriage storage sheds ? If the contractors currently have to pay to remove the rejects then they might even be able to pay something towards the WSR keeping them !

 

From information read here some while ago I believe the WSRA are be liable for a large clean-up bill when the site is no longer required for ballast cleaning due to the contaminated ground. So covering it over with spent ballast may not be an answer.

 

Interesting photos , but unlikely to qualify for visits by paying tourists.

 

Recycling of spent ballast has certainly moved on. Back in the late '70s early '80s when I was Hoo Jn based, the spoil arrived in ex-traffic fleet HIFIT, MEDFIT etc., which were unloaded by one man and his 360 excavator. (Much damage to the wooden boards of the wagons of course, wagons eventually replaced by downgraded GRAMPUS)

 

IIRC when the triangle 'chords' were built on new embankments a 'compensation pond' has to be built to accommodate potential displaced flood water. I suspect that if you wanted to raise the level of more of the land you would have to enlarge the pond as well.

 

Update on S&DJR 2-8-0 No 53808 on Monday August 17th 2020.

Its rather wet in Minehead, but not too wet for the team working on 53808 to shunt it outside Minehead shed and put in a warming fire, ready for short test runs up and down the yard tomorrow.

Work undertaken has included a valve and piston exam during which various bushes have been replaced along with a valve rebore, new valve heads and rings. Tomorrow's test running will help to bed in the new valve rings.

Thought you would all like to know.

Andy.