West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Alex, don't make me laugh like that!!!

 

Something else that has NEVER been addressed despite near disasters!

No wonder there is a requirement for tenders

 

Have you tried again today?

 

If tender locos are overkill for the WSR, then they are, by definition, overkill for everywhere. The inevitable conclusion to that argument is that all tender locomotives should be stopped and never steamed again, other than the dozen or so on the mainline. Uh huh... Are there even enough tank engines around to replace all the tender locomotives in preservation currently in traffic? Somehow I doubt it. Nevertheless, I'm under no illusion that this argument will be possible to win, even if it's plainly obvious to every right thinking person!

 

There aren't any intermediate columns on the WSR unless you count the one laying in the four foot at Williton?

 

The positioning of railway water supply facilities in rural areas isn't quite as straight forward as it seems.
At the K&ESR we have arrangements that locos normally take water at Northiam on the outward journey to Bodiam and at Rolvenden on the return. In an ideal world we'd water at both terminuses as it would shorten the overall journey time and make timetabling both simpler and more robust.
Whilst we have full water facilities at Tenterden the water supply to the site is extremely weak and reinforcing it would involve the replacement of the water main down the road from the high street. If we water at Tenterden during the day the water pressure drops to the extent that stuff like the dishwashers and the coffee machines in the catering facilities cut out on low pressure.
Bodiam station at the current other end of the line has never had a public water main. The toilets etc currently there are fed by an arrangement with the local farmer.
We have also invested in reverse osmosis technology for the water supply at our loco works at Rolvenden and this has paid off many times over in extended boiler life but this arrangement cant be repeated at either Northiam or Bodiam as both sites lack access to mains sewerage which is the only practicable arrangement for dealing with the reject water from the ro plant.

 

Yes I recall that when trains take water at Rolvenden, passengers are "treated" to a panoramic view of the sewage works! Like the dreaded linear scrapyard, this is the sort of thing tourist railways are not as conscious about as they ought to be. Quite a few have been going for very many years.

 

And the weight of each tender if you want. But I suspect the marginal saving in coal wouldn't pay the conversion cost of converting lots of extant tender engines into currently non-existent tank engines ...

Tom

 

I dread to think what that would do for axle-loadings - I guess we better upgrade all heritage railways to GWR red route status whilst we're at it, just be be safe...

 

I suspect many older stations on heritage lines have archaic plumbing and sanitation. I am sure, eventually, H&S will catch up with it.

 

..............only those that survive Covid-19!

 

One reason why I would advocate the abolition of Dunster West siding (or at least, a change to a more 'tidy' use) as of greater urgency than shifting stuff out of Shearings Yard - but of course I realise that DW is rent-free. Sadly there are far too many journeys on heritage railways where one's view of the idyllic English countryside from the carriage window is suddenly interrupted by a rake of rusting hulks half-hidden in bramble and shredded tarpaulins :-(

 

You don't fancy recreating 685 from 592

Commuting from Berrylands always struck me as a very cruel and unusual punishment.

But I am not sure what lines can do about nearby sewage works, industrial estates, etc that they may run past.

 

Back of an envelope calculation suggests that 2000 gallons is about 9 tons - less than 1/3 of a Mk 1 - a higher proportion of a 4-wheeler, or of course but how many lines use those routinely and have the choice of using either a tender or tank engine?

 

If not on railway property it would probably be classed as fly tipping!

 

Harassment no matter who it is done by, and to whom, is wrong, and has no place on any well run business, but I guess, that the WSR, being different to anywhere else allows and encourages it.

 

Rolvendon Sewage works is certainly an eye opener, I bet your average passenger don't even know what a sewage works actually does, and are only drawn to it, when the wind is blowing in the wrong direction.

 

Surely what this discussion shows is that given the turnover times of locos in traffic (i.e. roughly decade-long timescale) and the expense of infrastructure improvements (bridge work, route availability, intermediate watering supplies would all be projects that you would expect to have 50 - 100 year lifetimes, but which would take years to come to fruition), then loco policy has to be similarly long term. A decision to use smaller locos is perfectly valid, but might have a lead time if it also means putting in intermediate watering facilities. So it requires some stability in policy. (And that policy might also interact with C&W policy. Can you make a shorter "core set" that has all the facilities needed, i.e. brake, wheelchair access, seating, buffet etc? Maybe you could make your core train five rather than six carriages, and then strengthen during peak times. But that again has a long lead time ...)

What I can't see over the last few years is any sense of a settled strategy: it seems to have swung between small locos being ideal for the line at off peak times, and then not being ideal; for a desire to work towards most locos being railway-owned and then not, and all the time in the background the issue of route availability and infrastructure. It beats me how anyone is supposed to know what the priorities for motive power are so as to plan to meet that demand at some arbitrary point in the future.

Tom

 

They can close the windows of the coach I guess as far as the Sewage Works ,