January 10

WsMRS Meeting – January 5th 2010

The advertised Speaker was Peter Triggs from Taunton but unfortunately he had succumbed to the ‘flu, which, coupled with the very inclement weather made getting a replacement Speaker at barely 24 hours notice almost impossible.

In order not to disappoint the members who did brave the weather, Chairman Lionel Jones and Communications Officer Ian Chancellor collaborated to put on a ‘show of two halves’.

Lionel’s part was a show of just under an hour that he gives to Groups around the town such as WI and Probus. Titled a History of the West Somerset Railway, it neatly followed on from Ian Coleby’s presentation in December. Starting as Ian did with the first advert in the Taunton Courier it went beyond the closure of the line in 1971 to the birth and growth of the Preserved or Heritage Line that we know today. Lionel’s show concluded with a brief look at the family tree of the descendants of first Chairman, Sir Peregrine Acland, to his Great Granddaughter who is the current President of the West Somerset Steam Railway Trust and Her Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant for Somerset – Lady Elizabeth Gass.

For the second half of the evening, Ian Chancellor provided selection of images in the digital format – a fairly new medium for one of his presentations. Most of the images were taken within the last year at locations in the Bristol/Somerset areas. Shots of the new-build A1 Steam Locomotive ‘Tornado’ taken on the WSR together with others taken during last year’s Galas featured although the majority were of modern traction classes including the latest addition to the Railway scene, Class 70’s taken at Bristol Parkway last month. Our thanks to Lionel and Ian for ‘filling the gap’ at such short notice

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February 10

February 2nd 2010 – Ian Chancellor
In his usual February slot and under the title 'Arrivals and Departures' Ian gave a slide presentation largely covering the last 30 years around these islands.

In line with the recent winter weather Ian began by showing  scenes from previous snowy interludes over the last thirty years, but mostly from the winter of 1981/2.  Apart from the inevitable delays both then and now the most noticeable change was that of the liveries and the infrastructure. We were reminded of HSTs in their early liveries which contrast with today's privatised schemes. First generation DMUs and long withdrawn diesel locos also featured in the programme.

More recent developments were also featured, such as the arrival on a regular basis of some 250 Class 66 locos at Newport Docks on delivery from North America, including shots of the locos in the hold of the ship before unloading  and delivery to various freight operators.

Some notable railtours were recalled, particularly the Pathfinder/ DTG tour to Inverness and the Kyle of Lochalsh in June 2009 using Class 52 “Western Champion”, surely a development not anticipated 30 years ago.   In Ireland we were reminded of locomotive hauled trains on main lines on Irish Rail now replaced to a very large extent by DMUs.

This show illustrated the vast number of changes that have taken place during the period covered which in many ways are far more extensive than the changes made as a result of the conversion from steam to diesel and electric traction.   As always from Ian this was a most enjoyable and interesting session. 

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