West Somerset Railway General Discussion

It's staying for the steam gala at the start of May too. And it was absolutely brilliant fun today!

 

I would have thought that The Land of the Alternative Reality would not be quite your thing

 

My parents moved the family from Kent to a Somerset village near Glastonbury in 1968 when Dad and my Godfather set up their surveying practice in Wells.

In those far off days the Fish and Chip shop in Glastonbury used to have a ‘No Hippies’ sign in the window…

 

I didn't know @Victor was allowed out of Yorkshire? Has he still got a valid passport?

 

Can I just say what a truly fantastic weekend that was, big well done to the gala planning team for bringing it all together.

Victor, the recreations, always something moving, a truly fantastic way to kick off the 50th year of our wonderful railway.

So nice to see so many happy people around too, both staff and visitors alike. Here's to the next 50!

 

How was the signalman able to accept the Up train from BA if there was stock in the up platform line, as his Clearing Point would have been fouled? I'm assuming that was in the days of OES to BL, so not the same problem for the Down train.

I had a slightly different problem there once....

 

Watching the YouTube livestreams, it seems that the WSR are only using their recently overhauled blood & custard set of coaches on the second steam diagram (the one that just does the one return trip), with the mixed chocolate & cream/ maroon set doing the lion's share of the duties. It seems a strange way of allocating coaches - surely it would be better to use the nicer set of coaches on the main diagram, as those coaches have all been overhauled recently and will make a better impression on the passengers. I know that the WSR are doing/ redoing more maroon coaches (4987 redone a couple of months ago, and 4449 getting a fresh coach at the moment) so the second set of coaches will eventually look as nice as the blood & custard set. I also see that 5002 might be getting blood & custard, and as for 4260 - that one seems to have had a LOT of work done on it, but not sure what livery it will get (a bit sad that it means 4260 will have lost it's trojan moquette, but maybe it will get the red snapdragon moquette that 9380 has).

 

The 1015 off BL is the busiest outward but the 1430 off MD is the busiest back, so either way, most passengers get a trip on each. Not really sure what the WSR livery policy is to be honest! Was originally blood and custard to identify what was dual braked.

 

At the start of this season, the B&C was used as the main set. Maybe they have been swapped around to even out wear and tear?

 

We tend to swap sets over occasionally to even out wear.

The reason that Set A (Crimson and Cream) has been allocated to the lower mileage diagram this week is that there was a small fault with Buffet 4346 which meant this was better suited to the shorter turn. The sets will be swapped back over on Wednesday as part of Gala Prep.

Previously the policy was for Dual braked coaches to be Crimson and Cream but none of the Air braking gear is operational currently so this policy has been dropped.

The reason for mixed livery on Set B is that as you say the C&W team haven't managed to work through the set refreshing Maroon vehicles. Maroon Brake 35257 is due some works after the Diesel Gala so this is why it is not part of Set B.

TSO 4449 is currently in the works for a repaint into Maroon expected to run in first gloss for the Gala, returning to the works afterwards for final completion.

TSO 4260 will return to traffic at some point this year after a large amount of work which has started and stopped at various times over the last decade. This will be in Chocolate and Cream as requested by its owner.

TSO 5002 will be in Crimson and Cream meaning we can swap SK 25308 out keeping Set A as 6 vehicles but with a higher passenger capacity. Whilst nominally an SK and TSO have the same amount of seats, in reality when you get small groups taking up compartments who won't share this reduces overall capacity.

The C&W team have done a fantastic job the last couple of weeks in returning vehicles to traffic for the Gala.

Pending any hidden issues we should see BCK 21174 returning following a wheelset swap and lighting fix, SK 25323 returning with a new floor in one end and TSO 4449 following roof repairs and partly completed repaint.

On the wagon front we are hopeful for return to traffic of GW Toad 68765 with a new floor, GW Open 135744 with new axlebox crown, WD Rectank 12085 following drawgear repairs and possibly SR/WD Pillbox Brakevan 49017 after a full overhaul including new Spring hanger bolts.

Seb Welsh
WSR Operations Lead / Wagon Group volunteer