West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Exactly, so why waste money and time by throwing out an agreed design for a level crossing because it didn't have a semaphore? No one cares that it is a modern design. It's a stupid issue for the WSR management to get hung up about and it has ended up costing the WSR two summers of running into Minehead with the associated traffic and secondary spend that the line needs.

 

Thanks. F

 

I think that most of us are of the opinion that the debacle over Seaward way crossing is a most unfortunate affair, and I and another have previously posted the link to Somerset Council documents on all this.

I also have to be very careful on this, but I think it is generally known that the current WSR plc chairman, perhaps influenced by his father, prevaricated, over an issue that I think that was of very minor importance in the overall scheme of things, and the end result is trains not running to Minehead this season.

That is an appalling state of affairs.

I regard Frank Courtney's posts as an attempt at a very poor PR damage limitation exercise for the WSR plc board.

 

Maybe it's to do with the cost of upkeep of the signal? Or possibly requirements for it's operation. I assume a colour light signal costs several thousand pounds per annum to keep live. Extra training is required etc to be competent to repair/inspect it etc. Why have a dual system when it is not required.

 

But has there not always* been a colour light signal on the approach to Minehead, just prior to the crossing?

So expertise is already needed.

As to the cost of keeping it live, I doubt even in Somerset the cost of electricity is hundreds of times dearer than everywhere else. And should the replacement be an LED head, the cost will be negligible.

*For a good while in the preservation era

 

I'm not an S&T man, but I think you'll struggle to argue that a colour light signal requires more resources than a semaphore.

 

Electric costs money, so naturally there will be cost to it, obv I'm not privy to the figures, but with it being on constantly 365 days a year it won't be pennies, plus upkeep on replacing bulbs. While replacing jobs I doubt are a regular job, that will requiring training and a safe system of work etc. The current signal isn't suitable I imagine for the new crossing as it is operating in a different way, so it's not the case of leaving the existing signal in situ I doubt.

 

But don't semaphore signals need an electricity supply for the signal lamp? I doubt many rely on oil in this H&S aware environment.

 

Why won't the existing colour light signal be suitable? Yes, there will have to be modifications as the barriers will have had to be lowered before the signal is cleared.
I'm sure the modifications required have been included in the master plan!
All of the semaphores signals including shunting dummies on the Swanage railway are electrically lit and have been since day one of installation.

 

Lets sense check this electrical consumption question.

Say it's a 240v 100w bulb (I think railway signals tend to be low voltage, or possibly 110v, but lets go worst case scenario).

A 100w bulb will use 0.1kWh of electricity per hour, or 0.1 x 24 x 365 = 876kWh per year.

I pay 12p per kWh, so I would pay just over £105 per year. Not thousands, and my figures are probably OTT anyway. And from this, take the cost of keeping several signal lamps lit on the complex semaphore which would be needed in place of one colour light signal...

 

ALL signals at MD - including semaphores - have been electrically lit for over 25 years.

Robin

 

Hello Robin,

Are you able/permitted to volunteer currently on the WSR?

Cheers,
Julian

 

I suggest you are not going to win with that argument and that it might be best to let it lie.

Perhaps you might like to suggest a reason why it is more important to the welfare of the railway to give a historically correct visual impression than it is to actually run paying passenger trains past that point? A cost/benefit analysis of the two options would be most interesting to see, if one is available.

 

Why is it anachronous for 5199 to be repainted in GWR livery? Its a GWR locomotive, built 1934, so aside from the "its their engine and they can paint it whatever colour they like" answer, how is it inauthentic?

 

Hey, at least he's posting here, and providing some definite info on the state of the work, something that's very welcome.

Noel

 

The point is that authenticity is really weak argument to justify the decision to throw out the agreed design of the crossing, especially given all the other compromises to authenticity that already exist on the railway. If the crossing matters so much and you are going to be so hardline about it, then why not apply that to everywhere? The reality is that you can't and you shouldn't and that the crossing was the wrong issue for the WSR management to choose to make authenticity an issue. It was much more about vanity and ego from the PLC board than authenticity.

The WSR claims to be striving to recreate the 1950s and rejects a perfectly good crossing design because it is inauthentic for the 1950s vibe (even though no visitor will register the crossing), then a loco in a 1930s paint scheme is also inauthentic for the 1950s (unless you are planning to weather it as if it hasn't been painted since 1938). Nor is 5193 authentic. If authenticity is such a deal breaker over the crossing, and if the claim is true the S&DRT and 53808 not being authentic for the WSR either, then why not for a GWR liveried 5199, unless authenticity only matters when you choose it to. And if you choose to only apply it to the crossing etc,or the S&DRT then those are really poor decisions to make and bad management especially in the light of the cost to the railway.

As has been pointed out 5199 is owned by an outside group and so they can paint it whatever colours they like. Co-incidentally, it is interesting that the WSR PLC is welcoming the outside owned 5199 to the line, especially when it had 4110 at Minehead and a group of volunteers wanting to purchase it and restore it and the PLC refused to sell it to them saying here

Once again the PLC's Humpty Dumpty-esque approach shines through - words mean whatever they choose them to mean. We want to control our own fleet and not have other groups owning locos or hire in locos, except when we hire in locos from outside groups.

 

What the hell are you on about. Frank Courtney has volunteered to keep us briefly updated on progress on the crossing as it happens, He is not in any way obliged to and stupid comments like this are the last thing we need! It has nothing whatsoever to do with Public relations.