TWO more major mishaps have struck the West Somerset Railway (WSR), the first being a runaway train in Williton and the second when a steam engine became stuck on points in Minehead Station.
The points incident happened on Saturday (August 12) and caused damage put at £8,000, and left the heritage railway unable to use one of the station’s platforms, resulting in services having to be rescheduled.
The runaway train occurred in Williton when a Hymek diesel locomotive ‘started to move uncommanded’ and was only stopped by shutting down the engine.
Both incidents were reported to the Office of Road and Rail (ORR), responsible for the economic and safety regulation of the country’s railways, which looked into them and decided no further action was needed.
It follows a landslip in Combe Florey shortly before Christmas which cut in half the Minehead to Bishops Lydeard line and saw a major fund-raising appeal launched to help cover repairs costing around £100,000.
The weekend incident saw Jubilee class steam locomotive No 45596 Bahamas bring visitors from London before being uncoupled for maintenance in Bishops Lydeard while a WSR steam engine took the carriages to Minehead, where it became stuck after arriving shortly before 2 pm.
WSR director Frank Courtenay said: “We have to do a detailed investigation as to exactly what has happened.
“Clearly, there was a points failure. The points were released before the engine had fully gone over the pointwork.”
Mr Courtenay said the locomotive was travelling at a low speed of about six mph and its direction meant there was no risk of a derailment.
However, he said: “Until that has been repaired the points are out of use and that means our Bay platform is out of use.
“At the moment we do not know how long that is going to take to repair.
“The way the mistake happened, quite a lot of the points can be re-used, but we will leave that to our contractors who will decide.”
Mr Courtenay said with only the main platform available, services were being rescheduled because inbound trains had to wait at Blue Anchor, which was the next location where two locomotives could pass each other.
The Bahamas had been chartered by the Railway Touring Company (RTC) to bring steam enthusiasts from London to Minehead, allowing passengers to spend about two hours in town before starting the return journey.
Mr Courtenay said: “Fortunately, we were able to get the Bahamas back to Taunton within the window of time Network Rail had allowed and everybody on the excursion was reasonably accepting of the situation.
“From time to time on a railway of any kind, whether it is a heritage railway or mainline railway, these things do happen.”
Mr Courtenay said the Hymek diesel incident was being investigated by the Diesel and Electric Preservation Group (DEPG) in which the WSR had ‘absolute full confidence’.
He said: “They know what they are doing. They have a number of professional railway people from the mainline.
“They are completely reviewing their safety regime and the way these particular locomotives operate.”
DEPG chairman Martin Howard preparations had been underway at Williton for a static test of Hymek D7018 after some adjustments and checks had been made to its transmission.
Mr Howard said: “Following the engine start and while the preparations for the actual test were still in progress, the locomotive started to move uncommanded.
“This was against the parking brakes and included riding over scotches, or wheel chocks.
“The movement was only stopped by shutting down the engine.
“Some minor damage resulted, both to the locomotive and to some of DEPG’s equipment and spares.”
Because of this, the DEPG had stopped all operational Hymek activities until further notice while the cause of the incident was reviewed and additional controls developed to ensure the locomotives remained safe to use.
The knock-on effect of the decision was the DEPG’s 50th anniversary celebrations on September 22 would be postponed until some time in 2024.
The anniversary would have been 50 years to the day when the ‘Hymek Swansong’ rail tour marked what was planned to have been the last year of Hymek operation on British Rail.
The DEPG and WSR had planned to commemorate the milestone event with a long weekend of diesel action.
It also meant cancelling the visits of Hymek D7017 and D7018 as working locomotives to the Severn Valley Railway’s ‘Magnificent Seven’ event in the autumn.
Mr Howard said: “We recognise this will disappoint many of our fans and followers, but it will be appreciated that the safety of both the public and our own volunteers cannot be put at risk.”