West Somerset Railway General Discussion

I suppose with pre-booking, the effect of the weather can be discounted, except to the extent that, if I was staying in Minehead for the weekend and the only time the sun shone was when I was riding on the WSR, I'd be pretty pissed off, but not with the railway company.

 

In your posts you are critical of those who are not supportive of the WSR management. Many of the WSR supporters accuse Nat Pres readers and contributors of being biased against the railway, or want to see it fail. I do not want to see it fail. I am a member of both the the supporting groups, but I am critical of the management.
Without wanting to rake up the embers of past acrimony, I have to ask- Can you really not see how the eviction of the S&DRT, the lies, misrepresentations, false claims et al, has diminished the WSR in enthusiasts eyes?
To me, it is the biggest piece of malicious bastardy I have seen in nearly 50 years of steam railway enthusiasm. It was appalling at the time, and I'm still disgusted a year and a half later.
The subsequent fandango regarding the Steam trust AGM, and the way those holding positions of authority chose to speak and act was another spectacular PR disaster. It merely made the whole of the power structure of the WSR appear as a brood of vipers, intent on holding on to whatever power they could, and to hell with the railway, its supporters, customers, and any volunteers who dared speak out of turn.
How we can be expected to forgive and forget, pretend it never really happened, I don't know.
Its entirely possible that there have been worse acts and worse motives on other railways that have passed me by. In the pre-digital age, information was easier to control. That was a different time though. Facts, stories and information spread faster today than ever before, but managing a public image is also easier than ever before. Bitching that "my secret got out, and no-one believes my version of the story" and retreating to a nice safe echo chamber is not the way to remedy the situation.

I felt I was too late to comment positively about the latest news from the WSR, but for balance, I was mightily impressed at the turn out of 9351 and rolling stock. The locomotive appeared A1, and I've never seen the WSR's Mk1's looking so well. The whole turnout was a credit to the talented and hardworking staff and volunteers

 

I like the WSR & want it to prosper.

What seems to be fairly clear however is that the railway has not been well managed for some time, resulting in the infrastructure maintenance backlog that is now being addressed.

Sadly however while the current management of the wider WSR family may well be tackling the maintenance backlog they have managed to shoot themselves in the foot over a number of other issues.

This behaviour raises some genuine questions about their ability to keep the railway running.

 

"There's none so blind as them what don't want to see" - old Somerset saying. It's so much easier to write off all criticism as motivated by malice than to acknowledge there is a problem and have to think about how to address it.

 

Would have, Pete.

 

Why do people actually do this? Does it make them feel clever or something?

 

I tend to restrain myself but I must admit it does grate on me.

 

That's excellent news and the summer season will provide much needed revenues. What's the date for resuming services to Minehead ? As nice as Watchet is, there's no shop and hence no means to separate customers from their cash (in the nicest possible way of course).

 

I do. Not enough to bring it up, but now you mention it....

 

I see so many, I just have to grit my teeth and bear it. Every time I read of someone 'towing' a line (that one shows up quite often on news sites, which I find fairly appalling), or taking a different 'tact', I just have to role (sic) my eyes. Two (sic) much; a lot of people who must not have read much.

Noel

 

Automatic spell checkers can be a pain though. Especially with railway terminology.

 

Having had the misfortune to choose Watchet for a weekend break in Somerset (not railway related) some years back, nice is not a word that springs to mind. Locals told us it was where all the undesirable youth from Minehead go to cause trouble, and it did seem an unpleasant environment on the Saturday evening.

 

I've heard similar charges levelled at a certain portion of the local population in Port Erin and if the depressing litany of vandalism reported on this forum is anything to go by, not as uncommon as one might hope virtually anywhere.

 

I do believe in correct English. There are too many examples of bad grammar and spelling, up with which I will not put!

Back on topic, I am booked for 7th July, and have yesterday learned that my train will only go to Blue Anchor, but i can rebook to 16th July, when it should get to Minehead.

 

Interesting as RTC have a tour to Minehead on July 24.