West Somerset Railway General Discussion

As you seem keen today on lecturing people about being sniffy - it is worth remembering that a Mark 1 carriage today is decades older than many of the grouping and pre-grouping carriages were when first used by heritage lines in the 1960s ...

Tom

 

Not to mention them being older than many passengers and staff. I for one was born some 30 years after the last Mark 1 was built!

 

Always preferred sitting in a mk1 carriage with the lower window line compared to sitting in a Bulleid coach with a slightly higher window line.

 

Indeed. But would the WSR be willing to embrace say Pacers? Cheap, plenty of spares, heritage (really any different to a Park Royal in the 1980s?)

I do recall from the debates in the 1980s that there were people who vowed to never ride on a diesel hauled service. If memory serves me right J B Snell was a strong proponent of using diesels and was involved in the debates.

My point is simply that lines in the past have reduced costs by removing loops, reducing signalling costs, reducing fuel and crewing costs by using diesel and the experiences of lines like the FR, RHDR, Eskdale might be instructive if you can find the people with the institutional memory.

The Ffestiniog etc have of course always been much less wedded to the idea of being 'authentic' so it is far easier, to make changes to save money ie oil firing etc, whereas say the WSR which is all about authenticity, it is hard to argue that a Pacer picked up cheap, is 1950s Western region. I can only imagine the howls of outrage if the new service was one steam train and Pacers the rest of the way. I am sure there are some purists who are sniffy about 33s.

 

It may seem ironic, but my first introduction to many 'dying' branch lines was in a Western Region 'bubble-car'.

Some years ago I was on the WSR for a day travelling about with Rover ticket. Owing to a traffic delay en route I missed the intended steam-hauled service and had to take the DMU instead from WN. By the time that I had travelled to MD in the front, the sights, sounds (and smells) brought back so many recollections of travelling on the line both in the last days of BR and first days of the WSR that I deliberately spent most of the rest of the day travelling in it - definitely the best way to see the line (other than from the driving end of an Auto-coach!).

Still a 'steam first and foremost' enthusiast, but alternatives do have their varying attractions for different people.

 

In these days of the internet and smartphones, the family has already found out the times of the trains to Minehead and turned up at a suitable time. After all, on the Big Railway, who turns up at a station and waits for the next train?

 

In the days when they were every 15 minutes, I did Usually then you got the late-running previous train just before the time of the one that you had intended to catch but had now been cancelled....

I recall turning up at one heritage railway a few years ago for their much-advertised 'Easter Weekend Gala', only to discover to my surprise that they were not opening on the Sat ! Likewise, if a railway runs 'daily' in the summer, you don't necessarily expect that to mean '...but not Fridays' or similar.

 

That timetable would certainly lose my custom, as I would not wish to be dumped for several hours in Minehead!

If it is judged necessary to reduce WSR train mileage, then you have identified two options, namely a sparser timetable and running on only part of the line. A third possibility is to have fewer operating days, which may have advantages in reducing demands on staff and volunteers and leaving more non-operating days free for maintenance activities. But as you also rightly identify, fewer trains will mean fewer passengers, so any cuts need to be planned to get the best available balance between costs and revenue. Some costs remain with zero trains.

Pacers could be painted in chocolate and cream , which is a historically authentic livery for Class 142s, so would fit in well with the WSR on that front. Problem is that the chocolate and cream Pacers of the 1980s did not take kindly to the sharp curves of Cornish branch lines; not sure how WSR curves compare with Cornish ones.

 

It used to be but it lost its sole when they closed the Brixham branch !

 

Speaking as the North Wales variant, you'd be surprised how many people turn up on the day at the booking office asking what is happening etc, despite the internet and everything else saying that things are "pre-book in advance".

 

I suppose that if you are in, say, Porthmadog, anyway you might wander along to the station and then enquire when the next train is. However I doubt many people drive a considerable distance on the off chance there will be a train waiting just when they get there, although I wouldn't be surprised if some do occasionally.

 

I would imagine any decision would also be an on the spur decision, " It going to be wet today, Lets get the train instead", Not everyone works out the day, or several days before what they are doing on their vacation, , Often its made over breakfast,
There is no easy option, to this, the WSR needs to cut overheads, the bulk of the operating staff will be Volunteer's, so no way to make savings there, run less days, but again, they need to attract passenger numbers, the only saving is to run DMU only from BL connecting with a steam shuttle at say Willington , cutting back the steam mileage, and needing only one engine in steam, but that will mean extra diesel fuel costs for the DMU, But at least a service can be maintained, and the option is always there for shorter steam diagrams from Minehead, Will it be enough, to stave off future losses, NO, such is the magnitude of the mis management, not just recently, but historically, that all it might do is to buy time, in the hope that the difficult decisions, and upheaval that must happen to save the line can be done without bringing it to the brink of closure nothing short of total change of the way the railway is set up can IMHO set it on the road to recovery, it needs a total reorganisation, A new single, supporting charity, that has an majority shareholding over a reformed PLC, Joint boards, and a new inclusive way of doing things. none of this can happen whilst you have factions who to retain power for themselves.

 

The suggestion I posited some while ago up thread was to have a morning departure from BL to Minehead. The same loco and carriages then does an advertised Minehead - Watchet return (with the loco and train going on to Williton to run round and lay over for a short time); finally, on arrival back at Minehead, the train forms a return working to BL.

That gives you essentially two bites at the cherry of filling a train: a BL - Minehead excursion that would give half a day on the beach; a Minehead - Watchet excursion that would allow an hour or so for a coffee or just a leg stretch for those in Minehead just wanting a short excursion; all done within a single daily diagram of about 60 miles for the loco, carriages and crew.

Tom

 

I agree with you that the plan to buy up the line cheap and turn it into Dartmouth North is a non-starter and that wouldn't work but....

I would just urge caution against 'but he volunteers so he must have the best interests of the line at heart, so this can't be the aim' argument. History is littered with people who have used their good works ie charity as a veneer to hide much more malign intent. For example, Lance Armstrong was notorious in his use of his 'cancer shield' to stop difficult questions being asked 'but he had cancer and almost died, no way would he dope, and look at his charity and all the millions of people has has saved' was a common refrain from Armstrong's PR and supporters. There is (as there was with critics of the likes of Armstrong and any other case you can think of where people were raising concerns) a tendency to dismiss those people as conspiracy theorists, haters, cranks etc. When the stakes are high people should be more sceptical, critical and raise questions about what is going on and not just assume the best because the person 'does a lot of good work for charidy'.

A stronger argument against the idea that there is a grand plan is simply i) a long track record of incompetence by the board and ii) the plan if it does exist is completely non-viable and has more holes in it than Eliza's bucket.

I am struggling to think of any examples ever where someone has actually ever managed to run a company down so they could buy it cheap and then successfully enriched themselves by running it properly.

I remember them. A friend of mine lived in Exeter and her house backed onto the railway line so I saw them quite a bit when they were introduced. (Not my photo - a random one from the internet - there are remarkably few photos of them in this guise)



It'd look quite the part at Minehead.

 

Not a Pacer in those days - a Skipper, IIRC.

John

 

My greater concern in this scenario - and I do think it unlikely - is if the motives are actually not about future profit. We assume that because someone is a businessman, they must therefore be interested in the profit they can make. That's a good starting point, but it ignores motivations like power or pride. Given the last couple of years, I'd not be inclined to bet against either of those being a factor.

 

A business being ruined by someone's Ego, and inability to admit they were wrong, yeap that sums it up , and it's nothing new, history is littered with failed businesses that fell because people in charge did not listen , or thought only they had the answers .

 

Sounds dreadfully familiar!

 

That is plausible for someone who has been known to refer to "my railway" and owns a locomotive. (I think it was two but he sold one of them: is that right or were there more?) He must enjoy his involvement in the WSR, he seems to enjoy being in charge and he evidently doesn't take kindly to conflicting opinions. But the WSR as currently constituted makes heavy losses, despite using largely volunteer labour. Some time ago we were told it needed half a million pounds a year to improve the track; and double that figure is now being quoted for keeping the railway viable. A privately run WSR would probably be less attractive for volunteers and therefore require even more subsidy from somewhere, while appealing even less to potential donors. That model seems even less plausible that a WSR restored to the national network.