A mention in the press

I'm sure the increase in page loads for www.wsr.org.uk yesterday concided with an article in the Independent newspaper. http://travel.independent.co.uk/uk/article2103683.ece It was all about a trip on the Santa Express on the West Somerset Railway and it ended with a link to the website. The odd thing was that the usual hit counter did not show an increase but the page reloader did. So were folks opening the front page, and then reloading it for a living? Not that I'm worried. A new viewer of the website is a potential passenger.

Communications

Ah, that word again. Communications. Here I sit with an interesting puzzle. Having prepared some weeks ago some new pages for the West Somerset Steam Railway Trust website www.wssrt.co.uk and faithfully waiting for the publication of the latest WSR Journal (an excellent A5 magazine sent out quarterly to members of the WSR Association) before uploading to the world wide web, I now find I am hearing of some Journals landing on doormats but not others. I am in the latter class. So some folks know about the subject matter of the new web pages by virtue of reading the printed page whereas others, who are perhaps nowadays more used to getting the latest from the internet, are still in blissful ignorance. So, the printed page and snail-mail has beaten the e-world, this time! Back to my puzzle, do I now wait until the Journal lands on my doormat, or do I publish on the web and be damned?

"Go mbeidh síochán ar fud an domhain"

"Go mbeidh síochán ar fud an domhain" as they might say in Gaelic Irish. It's supposed to mean "May peace prevail in the world". I can pronounce it. Along with a few other words and phrases of the Irish language. And I'm trying really hard to learn it, but, it's not something that comes easy to me.

Is it not to much to ask - "Go mbeidh síochán ar fud an domhain" - is it? After all, just about every war and conflict ends in a handshake at some point. Just need that handshake before things get out of hand.

So tonight, as Father Christmas goes about his wonderful task, I replace the train/railway picture on the front of www.wsr.org.uk with the picture above, and the heading is a "seasonal" one. And why not!

And, do you know, when driving my youngest daughter to a friend's house way out in the country, we both saw Santa shining bright, large as life, in an otherwise darkened garden. "There he goes!", said I. "Yes, Dad", said my daughter, shaking her head from side to side in an understanding kind of way.

Undies

Not no those kind of undies. Or maybe it is? Here is a pic by Pat L of Auto Coach no 178 at Minehead being prepared for a repaint and seen in undercoat. Now to me it just looks like it is stripped to vest and long-johns. Just made me chuckle...

Beatles again...

It seems folks can't stop making the connection between the Beatles and the West Somerset Railway. And this despite the Railway Company consistently failing to make the most of the historic visit of the Fab Four to the Minehead Branch in 1964 when the "train scenes" were filmed on location. Recently, Richard Lester who directed "A Hard Days Night" returned to Somerset to retrace his steps as part of a forthcoming BBC series "Comedy Map" due to be screened in February 2007. This has created a small wave of nostalgia - even the local BBC folks have published a piece complete with audio clips of interviews with Richard and with Mary Noble, who in 1964, was one of hoardes of screaming local teenage girls keen to get sight of the Liverpool Lads. The BBC webpage on the recent visit is at http://www.bbc.co.uk/somerset/content/articles/2006/12/12/richard_lester_minehead_feature.shtml

whilst the unofficial WSR website has some more stuff at http://www.wsr.org.uk/beatles.htm Now if only the Railway itself could make more of this...

Rubble

A recent story related to me by a local railway worker tells of an incident which left a gaping hole in the parapet of Watchet Bridge. Those of you familiar with the topography will know the Bridge takes the main Watchet street over the Railway via sharp bends in either direction. The story goes that a car was driven away from the Harbour area at high speed and the driver failed to negotiate the sharp left hand bend over the Bridge and crashed into the stone built parapet. Bits of the car fell down the steep embankment onto the Railway track along with much of the stonework. The car itself did not follow. Police were called and it seems the driver detained. What is extraordinary is that, despite the obvious missing stonework, no-one thought to contact the Railway, or at least, that is how it would seem. For the following morning, a diesel locomotive on a training run came across the rubble strewn across the rails. The driver made an emergency brake application and prevented a nasty accident. The remains of the wall were removed by the crew and other Railway workers. I'm sure the incident is being investigated along with a review of procedures by the relevant authorities so I'll not say any more about it here. Just food for thought, eh?

On film

A good chum recently sent me some words and pictures about the BBC series "Shoestring". Some of the scenes were shot on the West Somerset Railway. The unlikely private detective, Eddie Shoestring, is seen at Williton, Stogumber and Bishops Lydeard Stations, and also some on-train pieces too. Over the years, quite a few TV and film shots took place on the line. The most notable is surely the Beatles visit during the filming of "A Hard Days Night" when Ringo famously rode that bike along the down platform at Crowcombe. But returning to Shoestring, I wonder if Trevor Eve remembers his trips down to West Somerset in the days when the Railway really did need every penny it could earn from such commissions.

Quantock Coal

One of the nice things about an interest in the geographies of railways is to be able to imagine what might have been. One suggested route from Watchet to Bridgwater followed roughly the existing West Somerset Railway alignment from Watchet to Roebuck. From there the line would continued to follow the Doniford Brook, striking eastwards to Triscombe and the Quantock Hills. Then a mile-long tunnel under the lofty hills to bring the line out into Cockercombe and thence down to Plainsfield and away to Bridgwater. What a line that would have been! The fun bit is reading about the suggestion that there might be "coal under the Quantocks". This idea stems from the similar geology on the other side of the Bristol Channel which gave rise to the great Welsh coal industry. Whether there is coal under the Quantocks, I'm not sure anyone has actually had a look down a borehole or trial adit but there are several examples of both on each side of the hills. I guess the hope was that the railway tunnelling would have struck coal seams and proved the guess. Thanks to www.npemaps.org.uk for the out-of-copyright map.

Battles with webcams

Rodders continues to do battle with technology and has now installed a new, dedicated PC to handle the stream from the webcam on platform one on Bishops Lydeard station. It looks really good - I checked it today and saw lots of people on the platforms waiting to catch the Santa Express and Santa Special. Whether I will see the Christmas Murder Mystery special return to BL remains to be seen. Hats off to Rodders for allowing the world to see the goings-on at Bishops Lydeard. The URL is www.wsr.org.uk/webstream1.htm for those who'd like to have a look-see.