West Somerset Railway General Discussion

If you were walking by a building site and you saw something that you thought was unsafe practice, would you go and "challenge" the offender?

 

That is what a health and safety positive culture promotes, so yes I would.

 

The answer to every question on the Site Safety exam is (d) Report it to your supervisor.
That being the case, going to the site office and speaking to the site agent is the only safe course of action. Entering a work site without relevant PPE would put you in the wrong too.

 

..and risk the chance of a sound thrashing by some irate brickies yeah right!! Discretion is the better part of valour. Call the contractors office and speak to the responsible person.

 

Most likely.

 

The difficulties with checking safety equipment. At SU (of carbs fame) we had a boiler house chimney that was a good 60ft above roof level. Whilst it was being repainted by a chap slung off a bosun's chair right at the top, the site safety manager shouted up to confirm the correct harnesses and equipment was in use. The reply from up above came back.. Why don't you beeping come up and check it yourself!
Still makes me smile and was a source of fun when Vic and I met after SU closed.

 

Really!
On the basis that the builders down the road will not even move their vehicles that totally block the service road when asked, and my wife (72) nearly ended up in a fight with one over it there is no way I would suggest any of the many H& S violations I see every time I drive bay if I value the few teeth I have remaining.

 

Congratulations to the railway on what appeared to be an absolutely rammed first train from BL today, I did notice at least two coaches visible in the car park at BL so that may be the reason. Only watching the cam as my dad may have gone for the 28 and some disaster normally befalls services he is riding on (e.g. the blown cylinder on the Manor.)

 

Maybe I took the walking past a building site situ too seriously.

I meant more about if I was in work/ volunteering somewhere. If somebody kicked off then you raise a grievance.

If I was walking down a street, and random builder Dave, aged 59, wants to give himself life changing injuries on a private building site, that is nothing to do with me.

 

290 passengers on board on departure from Watchet when I got round to doing a count! 3 coach parties on first train, 1 on the last train.

2857 has been performing well and is a credit to the owning group and home railway. In my view a perfect engine for the line, makes incredibly light work of a 6 coach train whilst getting up to linespeed nice and quickly which we Guards like

 

....... and the other two!

 

Would one of those machines you mention possibly be a 2-8-0 that was built in Newcastle in 1925?

 

No, there were two more ex-Barry 28XX there at one time. The "cuckoo in the nest" made for a fourth 2-8-0.

 

And a fifth in that case that briefly broke the record for most amount of carriages hauled in preservation.

 

The argument for getting rid of the 28XXs was that they damaged the track on tight curves but I have a suspicion that it was a track-related problem rather than the fault of the locos. Water under the bridge now, it's doubtful any of them will return there as home-based engines, I suspect.

 

It would have been fun to see if 88 could take the record for hauling the longest train in preservation. An opportunity that was let slip through our fingers.

 

What is the record