St. Blazey Turntable

St Blazey isn't a GWR structure. It was built by/for the Cornwall Mineral Railway and is utterly unlike any GWR design. I don't know if there's anything like it elsewhere in the UK, but there was certainly nothing remotely resembling it on the GWR system.

 

St Blazey Roundhouse is unique in the UK, which is why it's Grade II* listed. There are archaeological remains roundhouses and semi-roundhouses served by an external turntable, but nothing else standing. Barrow Hill is of course a full covered roundhouse.

 

Have you driven a vehicle of such poor performance? It is miserable quite frankly dangerous in my opinion as keeping up with traffic over any kind of gradient is going to be very difficult indeed.

As for being able to get a 16k second hand electric vehicle that is true, you can. But with that kind for money you can also get a very nice petrol or diesel car that will walk over a comparable EV of the same money? When you compare what say £10,000 gets you in the EV and what the same money gets you in the petrol or diesel world there is a clear winner.

I just don't see the benefit, or rather I do but given that for every bit of good we do there are countries in the world doing twice as much bad I don't see what were expecting to achieve here?

Okay, and I take your point on that first bit, however what are we going to do about China, Russia and India etc. building new coal power stations and not investing in 'green' infrastructure? I hate to say it but for whatever we do that is good those other nations are doing twice as much bad.

So are you saying that because I like to have a nice car that isn't slow as anything that automatically means I don't care about the environment? What car do you drive if you don't mind me asking RAB3L as you can tell a lot about a person by their car.

 

More reason why it would make a fitting museum,

 

I have just noticed your age in your profile...then I had a chuckle. Yes I have driven a car of that 'poor' performance, any of us over the age of 40 have and probably consider the 0-60 time of the Dacia as not bad!!
Don't conflate speed with torque, no EV has trouble getting over hills.
Most EVs have parity on price with their fossil fuel counterpart in the second hand market, so not sure what you mean by 'clear winner'.
I have addressed many of your other points in PM, but to add India and China in particular are currently leading the world in renewables investment - none of us aspire to be like Russia.

Mr Smythe I strongly suggest you take an EV for a test drive. If you are ever in wildest Mid-Wales you can gladly take mine out for a spin, I can guarantee you will change your mind

To desperately try and keep on track. St Blazey museum fantastic idea, but link in with the Bodmin & Wenford .

Yeovil Jnc is the blueprint.

 

that’s only true in the most technical sense surely? It was built in 1874 by a company that was owned by a man who clearly (by laying lots of broad gauge) had half an eye on selling to the GWR from the start, and was a GWR shed from three years after completion (1877).

If we’re going to say it was ‘nothing remotely resembling it on the GWR system’ then we can only mean ‘for three whole years before it was basically on the GWR system’

 

It is a CMR structure and wasn’t designed by the GWR, absolutely true. But who was running it -between three years after completion, and nationalisation 70 years later?

 

I'd differ - it was unique (my copy of Biddle reminds me that it was Peto's last throw of the dice) and owed nothing to standard GW practice nor, from what I can see, did it contribute anything to future GWR practice.

 

True, but it was on the GW within three years.

Is the Severn Valley a GWR line full of GW structures, or just marketed as such because it would be too complicated to say it’s really a private venture that got taken over in turn by the WMR then the GWR.

You may as well say Bridgnorth is not a GW station on the same terms?

 

Its easily forgotten that a very large chunk of the GWR was originally built by different companies, which is why there was such variation in the main station buildings. But over the decades ancillary buildings were added to standard designs, fixtures and fittings replaced with standard components, and even wholesale replacement at some sites. By 1948 relatively few larger running sheds predated Churchward for instance. Many sites that wouldn't have looked very GWR in 1890 did so in 1947.

 

Is there any other site in Cornwall or in the next county, that the T/Table and Roundhouse could be relocated to.
Grade 2 listing does not mean it cannot be moved or changed.

 

It's a massive brick building, relocation would cost tens of millions and would require complete dismantling first, very different from a timber-framed signal box or a a sectional footbridge. The buildings are in productive use for light industry; it'd be better as a museum but at least they have a a use. But perhaps most relevant is that the roundhouse is not up for sale, it's the rail yard.

 

Orchards scrapyard ( they cut the CDAs ) and there are plenty of holes around St Austell that need filling!