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Is there such a thing as too many heritage railways?

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by zumonezumwhereinzummerzet, Nov 21, 2016.

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Do you believe that the heritage railway movement can support more new projects in the long-term?

  1. Yes - the number of projects is dictated by demand from the local communities

    13.6%
  2. No - additional projects are not sustainable due to a deteriorating volunteer base

    19.4%
  3. Possibly - it all depends on the circumstances of each project!

    61.2%
  4. No - the heritage sector is overly reliant on lottery hand-outs which may not always be available

    9.7%
  5. Yes - the Borders railway has demonstrated that some routes can be revived as 'real' commuter lines

    6.8%
  6. No - there is a limited pool of suitable locos and stock which will become uneconomic to maintain

    9.7%
Multiple votes are allowed.
  1. Matt37401

    Matt37401 Nat Pres stalwart

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    I know it's on the way, can't come soon enough! Otherwise if your train comes on on platform 2 it's a long walk (it seems even longer) when your desperate! Round the headshunt to platform 1! I'm not having a go at the NNR btw it's a superb railway, already plotting my next visit :)
     
  2. Matt37401

    Matt37401 Nat Pres stalwart

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    Thankyou sir! I'll certainly be paying a repeat visit to Sheringham it's always worth a visit. I don't think Mr Hitch gets my point though, if your at an event like a gala where the host railway puts on somthing like a beer tent and a bar car with plenty of liquid refreshment, once you've broken that seal...! You can go and go and go! Perhaps this is somthing the IOWSR dosn't have a problem with not having buffet cars?
     
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  3. Forestpines

    Forestpines Well-Known Member

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    I did recently see a dad try to hold a train from departing at Bridgnorth because his young son had suddenly developed an urgent bladder with no warning. The family were completely surprised to hear that there were toilets on the train - not what they had been expecting at all.

    The last time I was at Holt it was a single platform with no facilities at all. I must have been about 10; I recall train arrivals being rather dull, and it being a very tedious walk into town too past an apparently endless school. As a terminus, it of course didn't need a footbridge - has the line been extended since then?
     
  4. Forestpines

    Forestpines Well-Known Member

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    (And to forestall the inevitable: yes, I realise Bridgnorth has a footbridge. It was not designed as a terminus; the current Holt started out as one.)
     
  5. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    Of course not! Who was ever saying otherwise? Certainly not me. My problem with the word "heritage" is that it implies a degree of "authenticity" that is often not there in reality. If you don't like the word "tourist" (which I don't feel is any kind of insult) then call them pleasure or leisure lines.

    I know a station which was rebuilt between the wars to be operable by a single porter/signalman who sold tickets as well. Nowadays twice that number are in the gift shop alone. The only form of lighting was by oil. Thus to keep some idea of things "as they were" it was necessary to try and operate trains of the general type as used to run. Inevitably there will be some anachronisms and expedients. Nevertheless, instead of hauling de-electrified emus, as once proposed, many decades of work by quite a small organisation has enabled it to reproduce individual pairings of locomotives and carriages shown in pictures taken in the early nineteen thirties. My personal version of W.I.B.N. would be to see this emulated more widely. There are a few encouraging signs.

    PH
     
  6. Matt37401

    Matt37401 Nat Pres stalwart

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    I'd recommend a visit to to the NNR, cracking railway, there's a fair old bit at Holt now, miniature railway, lovely signal box, there's the exibition about the commuter trains into London (it ties in with the quad arts and the subs) then there's plans for a turntable there... It's well worth a visit.
     
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  7. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    The answer is simple. Just don't get onto a train bladdered!

    For information, the IOWSR has beer festivals, wine tastings and sells various non-alcoholic fluids. As far as I am aware, there are few significant problems although, unconnected with these special events, a drunk did wander onto the line at Wootton and had to be ejected!

    PH
     
  8. Tim Light

    Tim Light Well-Known Member

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    All good points, and I think the availability of lots of MkIs in the early preservation era is the clincher.

    It's not impossible to run a heritage railway with non-corridor stock, so long as the ride is not too long (bearing in mind that todays preserved lines generally run at lower speeds than their predecessors). But there would need to be different arrangements for ticket inspection and collection. In my youth it was impossible to enter or exit a station platform without presenting a ticket, even at smaller stations. Ticket inspections on the train were not so necessary. IMO the value of an on-train ticket inspection is the opportunity for passengers to talk to the guard about anything to do with the railway (What is there to do at Oxenhope? Is there a café at Levisham? etc.).

    For me, the compromise is to use corridor stock for most trains, but to run occasional vintage trains for those of us who appreciate them.
     
  9. martin1656

    martin1656 Nat Pres stalwart Friend

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    This seems to have gone right off tangent from the viability to suitable rolling stock, first, not everyone was lucky enough to have been able to purchase a selection of LBSCR and SECR coaches directly out of BR in 1967, its pure luck of location, some people should remember that before criticizing other railways, the chance to buy mk1s in good condition available for almost immediate use is why many railways on the mainland went down the MK1 route, only the bluebell and similar started early enough to get pre mk1 era coaches ,every other that came into preservation was former engineers coaches, in need of extensive rebuilding, at a time when many did not have the facilities to do anything other than maintain in running order anything that needed major attension was shunted into a siding, people can forget just how limited preserved railways were just 30 years ago, so to bring this back round to the viability of some sites and railways, people expect more, they expect decent clean toilets, they expect clean coaches in good condition with windows you can actually see out of, they expect somewhere selling refreshments that dont mean chipped crockery and the proto typical Br sandwich with curled up edges, and stewed tea pot , unles of course your doing a back to the 50's gala :)
     
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  10. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    I think you probably over-estimate the issues around ticket inspection etc. of running non-corridor carriages. On many (most?) heritage railways, the majority of tickets are "rovers" in any case, so the key issue is ticket inspection when getting on to the platform, after which ticket inspection on train is of secondary concern. On the Bluebell, a check is normally made to ensure that people in first class carriages have first class tickets, but I've never heard that doing that check before departure is an especial problem.

    On the Bluebell at least, the main requirement I know that dictates using corridor carriages is that there are specific requests for such coaches from coach party operators. Since midweek, coach traffic is a significant part of revenue, there is an obvious desire to assist with any requests. In addition, because coach traffic is often booked a considerable time in advance, there is a desire to know which types of carriages will be running well into the future, before maintenance schedules may have been finalised. There is also a requirement that on a one-train day, there is always a disabled-access coach available, which again means using a Mark 1. (We have a wheelchair-accessible four wheeler, but only one, so you couldn't guarantee year-round availability). That has led to a situation where there are interchangeable "core sets" of corridor coaches, so that there is always a guarantee than an open saloon corridor coach and a wheelchair-accessible saloon will be running, regardless of which specific set it will be. Thus, the normal pattern once daily operation starts is to have a one-train service of more modern carriages (typically a five or six coach Mark 1 set) running all week, with the second train (at weekends) being some variation of vintage stock - which might be Maunsell corridors, or might be even older non-corridor stock. At peak midweeks when a two train service is run, the second train will be vintage on a daily basis.

    That pattern also takes into account maintenance schedules, since, like it or not, Mark 1s can go longer between scheduled maintenance than vintage carriages. That is significant since a seven-day carriage diagram will be in excess of 460 miles.

    Long term, I would like to see the issue of coach tour requirements for corridor coaches being met by making the "midweek" set alternate between 5/6 coach Maunsell and Bulleid sets, turn and turn about, rather than alternate between Mark 1 sets. However, that is a distance away, since it means not only upping the operational strength of those fleets from the current total of six or seven Maunsells / Bulleids into about twelve (and including a wheelchair accessible conversion into each fleet), but also strengthening of the notionally "vintage" sets; in particular removing three Maunsells from the SR-livery set to go in a putative Maunsell "core" set would mean three, probably non-corridor, replacements needing to be restored and drafted in - ideally one of which being modified to make it a wheelchair-accessible vehicle.

    Tom
     
  11. Greenway

    Greenway Part of the furniture

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    If a beer festival, refreshments en train etc. are provided then surely the further needs/consequences of the patrons should be taken into account. It should not solely be a question of raking in extra cash but providing a complete service to customers/passengers as expected in the 21st. century.
     
  12. Ruston906

    Ruston906 Member

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    I agree coaches need to be clean and well maintain as the first priority nothing ruins the day more than a coach which is dirty and you can not see out of the window.
    A mk2 a or b is not a bad thing nice seats all with good views out of the windows I feel they enhance a trip to the mid Norfolk when used with a loco fitted with working ETH heritage does not stop at 1968
     
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  13. Matt37401

    Matt37401 Nat Pres stalwart

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    That is something I have preached for more years than I care to remember! It's certainly something that myself and a few friends have had to pull staff up at the SVR about. It's rather embarrassing when a diesel's described as a 'paraffin can' or a 'Smelly Diesel' by on train staff and the owner/s are sat with you and it's pointed out to them, if there has been a steam failure and there is a diesel substitute surely something along the lines of 'Sorry there's no steam loco today, these things are bit temperamental, but we do have a vintage diesel which was built in xxxx by xxxx' it makes things sound so much more professional, rather than the steam=good, diesel=bad
     
  14. GWR Man.

    GWR Man. Well-Known Member

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    So what about this coach then as it is corridor but will have 16 doors to repair and there are many more like this one with up to 16 doors to restore, and some are done like this one http://www.cs.vintagecarriagestrust.org/se/CarriageInfo.asp?Ref=191 You MK1 boys and girls "have never had it so good" ;)

    DSCF2968.jpg
     
  15. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

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  16. GWR Man.

    GWR Man. Well-Known Member

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    Guard this door doesn't open. No madam we were told by a young whippet snapper from the G&WR not to bother repairing them all. :D
     
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  17. Greenway

    Greenway Part of the furniture

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    The advantage of having many doors on a railway coach is that passengers can get off the train less stressfully: no queuing to get out of the only exits at either end. Many of those using the lines that cater for those on holiday know that many passengers are used to having to queue in daily life and their journey should, therefore, ideally be pleasurable.
     
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  18. tilling

    tilling New Member

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  19. tilling

    tilling New Member

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    I seem to be carrying something of a candle for the old S&D. Ive never visited but Ivo Peters, Donald Beale, Peter Smith and Sir John B paint such a captivating picture that I feel bound to say that this railway is so important historically it must be revived in some form.
    Has anyone looked at Midford to Midsomer Norton for instance?
    Until the Welsh Highland and then Borders railway, Id have said " bonkers idea", but if the trackbed is still unbuilt upon, the money, these days, can be found.
    Any links?
    Del Tilling.
     
  20. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    There is no "must" about anything connected with tourist railways.

    PH
     

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