The Williton-based Diesel & Electric Preservation Group have announced the opening of their online shop:

Our online shop is now open so go ahead and visit our store! In addition to our range of clothing and collectibles, new merchandise is coming soon including mugs and coasters featuring each of our locomotives along with additional items in the clothing range. DEPG membership can be purchased or renewed from the shop pages and most importantly, donations can be made as well.

Thanks to the Diesel & Electric Preservation Group's Andy Royal for a report on a successful online staff event held by WSR Plc on 28 January 2021.

Last Thursday, the WSR hosted a Zoom session where Chairman Jonathan Jones-Pratt gave a detailed update on the status of the WSR including finances, infrastructure and future plans. Over 60 volunteers joined the call and several engaged in a healthy Q&A session that followed the news briefing. In my book, the WSR get top marks for this initiative because it brought people together and re-ignited the spirit of the 'WSR family' and showed that we are all so eager to get back to work and get the railway back to normal operating status as soon as we can.

Good progress with the major rebuilding of the West Somerset Railway Association's GWR 2-6-2T no 4561 is being made at Williton's Swindon Shed. Details can be found in the recently updated 4561. Click or tap the button below to load the blog.

The West Somerset Railway Association recently invited members to respond to a few high level questions about possible future restructuring of the WSR organisations as proposed by in the Bailey Report. Click or tap the button below to load the survey report from the Association's website.

The Trust has announced the publication of Newletter no 16 now available from the Trust website wsrht.co.uk. This is a milestone for the Trust as it is the first Newsletter published under the name of West Somerset Railway Heritage Trust. A link to Newsletter no 16 can be found below.

Go-op - a co-operative society - is planning to run an electric train service between Bishops Lydeard, Taunton and Swindon, according to a post on Facebook.

A project funded by Innovation UK is seeking to bring 21st century rail technology to the 19th century station at Bishops Lydeard - a renewable energy generation and storage system for a battery powered train. The project would see a modern multiple unit train set based at the station, with an ultra-rapid electric charger alongside. If successful, it could be the basis for future train services in Somerset, and possibly even a regular connection to the national rail network for Bishops Lydeard.

In the source, WSR Plc are quoted:

The WSR has always encouraged train operators to run trains to connect with the very popular heritage steam trains that run from Bishops Lydeard to MInehead. We have been discussing with Go-op, a Taunton based cooperative about a potential train service that they want to run from Bishops Lydeard and Taunton to Swindon. This has included safety and operational requirements on the WSR, as well as how the trains would connect. We are at an early stage and will continue discussions as Go-op resolves the many issues involved in running on the national network.

Go-op add:

The local substation has some scope for supplying electric vehicle charging points, but that won't always be coming from green sources and may not be sufficient (the battery on the train might be as large as a megawatt-hour, and charged several times a day). So it would be ideal to have some additional generation - perhaps a mix of solar and small-scale wind power - and these could be sited in currently unused land owned by the WSR just to the south of the station. While there are long term plans to establish additional sidings there, the energy infrastructure could be designed so as to be compatible with such future uses.

The above was gleaned from a Facebook post on the Bishops Lydeard page. At the time of writing, there is nothing on the Go-op website but Go-op have confirmed the report, and WSR Plc have confirmed their statement.

The Culture Heritage Recovery Fund (CHRF) is part of the £1.57 billion rescue package announced by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to safeguard cultural and heritage organisations across the UK from the economic impact of COVID-19.

The WSR has been awarded £865,000 to help secure the railway’s longer-term viability as a popular tourist attraction, educational offering, and preserver of heritage locomotives. The money must be invested by the end of March 2021 to receive the full benefit of the award.

The WSR's CHRF programme implementation board has been brought together to manage the oversight of spending these funds and are providing helpful regular updates to volunteers and staff about how and where the money is being spent in order to achieve the stated aims of the fund. The board have kindly given their permission for the updates to appear on wsr.org.uk and enable a wider readership.

The West Somerset Railway Association have published the agreed Minutes of the Board Meeting of 10 December 2020 and a synopsis of the more recent Board Meeting held on 12 January 2021. Click or tap the buttons below to load the documents from the Association's website.

Kate Beard writes:

With the whole of the UK effectively locked down once again, customers may be pleased to know that Bishops Lydeard Shop is happy to accept customer requests for models, books and other items, and railway modellers may like to be reminded that Hornby have recently announced their programme of 2021 new releases. We would ask that customers let us know their Hornby requirements asap please in order not to miss out on the limited number of pre-orders often allocated to us.    

Customers may e-mail us or send a letter to the contact addresses below, setting out their requests and providing a telephone contact so we can get back to them to discuss delivery and arrange payment.

Email: kate.beard@wsrail.net (monitored daily)   

Address for letters (monitored weekly): Station Shop, Railway Station, Bishops Lydeard, Taunton TA4 3BX 

The West Somerset Railway Heritage Trust are looking for a website manager:

The WSRHT (formerly WSSRT) charity would like to invite applications from any volunteers who can act as a content manager and help with the development and running of their web site. Any interested parties should be familiar with the processes for designing and implementing functionalities on a web site, including the appointment of a new web hosting provider to manage the site itself. Note, this is a task that can easily be run remotely from home or office. Please would any interested parties contact the WSRHT via e-mail at info@wsrht.co.uk or Geoff Evens directly at geoff.evens@wsrht.co.uk A working specification is available on request. Thank you.

The Friends of Minehead Station report that the local authority have decided to take down the structures just outside the Turntable Cafe at Minehead on which there were a few 'sails' left, and add that it will be interesting to see what it looks like with all the structure gone. The modern-style canopy was constructed by the Council in 2008 to complement the newly installed turntable.

Keep warm this winter with WSR clothing:

The temperature is set to be pretty cold over the next few days - even in sunny Minehead! We have a great range of WSR winter clothing online in various sizes. Hoodies, Hats, Scarves and Gillets, plus our softshell jackets. Click or tap the button below to check out the range.

Writing on their Facebook page the Steam and Vintage Rally Team say:

Happy new year all. Hope that this Covid all clears up and we can have our wonderful Steam Rally this year. We are in the very early stages of starting to plan for this year's event. As everything this year it all depends how the Covid situation goes. So all keep safe hopefully look forward to seeing you all in August.