Overweight passengers mean heavy going for Bridgnorth Cliff Railway

[Adlington]

Shropshire Star:

The railway, built in 1891, has had to have the suspension to both its carriages repaired, as well as have new supporting hangars and brackets installed using parts taken from a Land Rover.

It comes after railway staff noticed carriage doors becoming stuck shut when they were at their 18-passenger capacity due to overwhelming stress to the supporting brackets.

Director of the railway, Malvern Tipping, said part of the problem was t that the carriages were designed to take smaller people back in the 19th century. "We are faced with people having become larger and heavier".

Question: a much cheaper solution would have been to restrict capacity to say 15 passengers.... Well, it's no skin off my nose, actually....

 

[Bald Rick]

Related to this, one of the highlights of my entire life was on this funicular.

I was about 10, and on a family trip from Wolverhampton to Bridgnorth to see the SVR and (of course) the fantastic ice cream shop at the bottom of the funicular. We boarded the funicular at High Town, and as soon as we went through the door we saw it was busy with only single seats left; we would have to sit separately. My Dad said to me “go and sit next to those funny looking ladies there”. In the preceding decade I had never heard him say a cross word about anyone, let alone strangers, and in their presence??! I was dumb struck. I turned to look at him; he gave me a ‘go on son, be brave’ look, and so with bowed head I shuffled to the vacant seat. My mind was turning over various scenarios: would there be a scene? Or shouting? What would Dad do? What would I do?

About 3 hours later (actually about half a second, but it felt a lot longer), I realised that the funny looking ladies were my Dad’s aunt and cousin, who were there by sheer coincidence. We all had a good giggle, and it was at that point that I realised that my Dad was quite a card. Nearly 40 years later I still do similar things to my kids