Main Line Steam - Possible ramifications of the WCRC suspension

Could they do more turns to Carlisle and possibly north? Fair question?

 

Nope; Chris Milner posted it on WNXX thread. Other (rumoured) bits from various linesiders are DBS to take-up Royal Scotsman and GBRf to take up the Jacobite; seems like there's a free-for-all on the go.

 

I remember reading in one of the railway mag's that there's going to be a complete time table rethink in the next few years. I would think most of the spare paths would be taken up by extra service trains leaving less space for rail tours steam or diesel haulage. Sooner or later main line steam will come to an end. It's not if but when this will happen. But we always have our perserved line's to fall back on.

 

Fingers crossed that would be what the future holds, instead of the end of Open Access. Have to wait and see Martin.

 

the only option is going to be mid week off peak short distance services, from centres of population, such as York to Scarborough, Victoria to Canterbury or the Sussex coast if there's some way to turn the train, or a circular route over less busy lines Waterloo to Weymouth all aimed at the holiday market any long distance would most likely be week ends only when hopefully there's more paths

 

Vultures circling it sounds like, picking off the lucrative bits and creating a new order that wcrc will have to deal with if they are readmitted to the club.
Sounds pretty ruthless but business can't stand still and there seems little room for sentiment or love lost.

 

Your memory is absolutely dead right on this! There was a feature on this issue in Tony Streeter's "Down Main" column in Steam Railway / SR432 (12th September-9th October 2014) that I'm sure will have been the source of your comment. Within the body of this article, December 2018 was identified as a critical point at which the operation of steam charters in what it describes as (rapidly evaporating) "white space" in the working timetable could become very much more problematical - citing GWML electrification, the IEP programme, Crossrail, Midland electrification, East West Rail, and Edinburgh Glasgow Improvement Project as all being representative of the sources of future constraints.

The article quotes Nick Gibbons, DB Schenker's head of national planning and contractual performance as saying that "the key crunch point will come in just over four year's time with major changes to the UK timetable in December 2018". This appears to be some kind of insight into how DBS is thinking about the future, and whether or not you agree with the content of the article as a whole (it also includes contributions from Steam Dreams and RTC), its well worth a read for one version of the vision of the future for main line stream, albeit not a particularly optimistic one!!

 

If that is correct, DB i guess would be rather pleased winning back Royal Scotsman seeing as West Coast got it off them a few years back.

As regard to GBRF on Jacobite, as a company their management seem quite pro on classic traction on their freights. They do staff charters to kings cross etc using riviera stock so i guess theres no reason why they cant not go up there if they wanted to take full control diesel only. If this was the case i fear that folk travelling far and wide would probably only do it the once. The romance of steam in a beautiful part of the world is what brings people back.

 

I was always led to believe that any extra paths on the LSWR main line between Southampton and Basingstoke will be taken up by container traffic coming in and out of Southampton. I did read some time ago that freight companies want to run 24/7 on the network. It's only going to get harder to find space to run rail tours.

 

It must be pretty tight to path trains down there even now. Between Basingstoke and Eastleigh there are a pretty steady five passenger trains per hour each way - two Pompeys, two Bournemouth / Weymouths and a cross country service, and in my experience there is a lot of freight too. And that's before you get to Southampton when you get the two Bournemouths, the cross country and the freight service, but then have to fit in an hourly Portsmouth - Cardiff, an hourly local to Salisbury and two south coast services per hour - about seven trains per hour each way, plus the freight. My experience as a regular commuter is that it all runs pretty efficiently and delays are rare, but it is a really slickly-timed service: stand at Southampton Central and it is a rare moment indeed that something isn't on the move somewhere.

Tom

 

It's got so busy in the Southampton area. Network rail have reinstated the up loop line between Southampton Parkway(Southampton airport) and Eastleigh to allow freight trains to stop and swap over crews with out blocking the up main line in Eastleigh station

 

But haven't they botched the work and the loop currently remains OOU ?

 

SD now have a timings page for the trip on the 19/4 which states " We are still waiting for final timings from Network Rail for this trip"

 

Just seen this on the SD F/B page:


On a serious note, I'm hearing rumours across other forums that WCR will be back in operation from Friday 8th May.


Sounds very unlikely to me,anyone else heard this?

 

I haven't heard that.

 

"Open Access" has no direct link to type of traction. It refers to operators and is enshrined in UK and EU law. Of course, if/when the UK leaves the EU in a couple of years time................

Any operator has a list of "Specified Equipment" attached to their Track Access Contract (repeating myself here, I know).

Their SMS must show how they intend to safely operate that equipment.

At any point, under the terms of a TAC, Network Rail could suspend network access for a particular piece of equipment if given good reason.

Open Access allows access to the network but does not guarantee paths for trains to be run. These must be bid for around those paths already allocated, subject to negotiated amendment of those paths if the holder of them is willing to co-operate.

Steam traction needs something like 80 exemptions from group Standards to operate, but numerous steam locos have those exemptions, including 1 new build (it has a lot more, as some exemptions apply automatically for older build traction).

A complex picture but somebody deciding they don't like steam and will ban it would need a very good reason - and I haven't seen anything suggested that shows an inherent problem with steam that can't be dealt with as being involved in all of this.

Steven

 

I don't think anyone is 'winning' anything right now - there may be one or two operators covering trains on an ad hoc basis but I'd be extremely surprised if there is any truth in either of the above predictions - they might be slightly more believable if the operators are juxtaposed. If there is any substance in the talk of Scotrail looking for a new partner in its steam programme (and I have yet to see any attributable quotes from the company itself) then, so far, that is the most plausible bit of rumour I have seen today.

 

Hopefully this goes ahead ! DBS should be able to cover it, as its ground they cover on the, Torbay.

 

Absolutely hilarious!
So much fun to be had, while people are doing their jobs and working on solutions.......