Weymouth Quay Tramway

Or possibly don't suit you to use for rather illogical ideological reasons. Hence my remark about the placard.

PH

 

Bluddy hull, it feels like Groundhog Day on here sometimes.

Next week, council-bothering fantasist insists that reopening Luton-Dunstable (with additional plastic bag-based asbestos removal facilities) pipes up and off we go on that one (yet) again. To be followed in short order by Folkestone Harbour branch, Meon Valley, entire S&D and another long-forgotten bit of lost never-should-have-been-built-in-the-first-place-because-it-didn't-have-a-snowball-in-hell's-chance-of-ever-turning-a-profit branch line backwater between Nowhere and Muddypuddle...

 

Dontcha just love NatPres sometimes? At least those threads tend to have some degree of unity - we all agree they're barmy! When Paulhitch and I agree on the lack of feasibility of a project it really is daft, and makes a calmer forum too!

 

Apart from being a 'nice to have but not a cat in hell's chance of ever happening' why is this thread in 'Steam Traction' not in 'Heritage Railways etc'?
Ray.

 

Not that NatPres threads ever drift off topic or people ever post about non-preserved stock and locations in the preservation sections ...

If PH's question has been answered, perhaps it's time to lock this one?

In the meantime, I'm off to start a Fudbook page about reopening the Hawkhurst branch. It's totally viable because it could be used for community transport, taking an average of 0.0075 cars per day off the south-east's notoriously overcrowded roads between the throbbing metropolis that is Hawkhurst and the main line at Paddock Wood...

 

Or maybe new users who sign up could be asked to digitally sign a 's**t list' of subjects that have been previously done to absolute death and which only ever result in the protagonists getting all huffy and the eyes of the realists assuming a permanently 'cast to heaven' position?

 

Can we start with:

1) Heritage railway economics is complex and can't be broken down into simple good / bad, large / small platitudes
2) Locomotives sometimes swapped frames but retained their original identity - deal with it
3) Acceptable locomotive load limits should not be based on the highest figure a locomotive can shift when running with worn tyres, bored-out cylindrs, good coal, immediately after washout and with the driver and fireman both on their A game - on dry rail

I'm sure that list could be expanded...

Tom

 

First candidate for expansion is "The pattern established by <name preferred preserved line> is not necessarily a template for, or even especially relevant to, other railways.

 

People with this sort of attitude should not be driving a shopping trolley, let alone a car or truck.
I'm not really what you'd call a cyclist, my bike is languishing in the shed with two flat tyres and probably comes out once in a blue moon, so please don't accuse me of being a member of the cylcing 'fraternity' whatever that is. But when I do venture out on the thing I want to get from A to B without having to bump up and down over every dropped kerb, stop for every minor side road, weave around pushchairs and small children, burst my tyres on bits of dead tree strewn across the path, wreck the wheel alignment on potholes and get brambles in my eyes because nobody bothered to trim them back. On top of which, when they get to 'complicated bits' like busy junctions the cycle path often just gives up and dumps you back in the traffic. I even saw a story the other day about a council which had sent a cycle route down a flight of stairs!
If you want to build proper cycle paths like they have in the Netherlands or Germany, then fine, but the majority that I've seen in the UK are a complete waste of time. And regardless, bikes have every bit as much right to road space as cars, lorries, motorcycles, tractors, horses, herds of sheep, and everything else you might find besides. Do you blast your horn at them too if they have the temerity to be going about their business in a time and space you thought your <£1 a day road tax gave you exclusive use of?
I will, of course, acknowledge that there are plenty of bad cyclists who flout the rules of the road and they should be dealt with, but they scare me considerably less than the bad car and lorry drivers.

 

Please can those who want to argue the toss over cars vs bicycles and roads v cycleways take their squabbling to a new thread in the appropriate area of the forum?

 

4. Richard Beeching is the Antichrist.
5. A commuter or 'shopper' service between point A and point B is a surefire winner and an excellent reason to propose opening any stretch of closed railway.
6. Any topic that involves the phrase "I've set up a Facebook page..."

 

Fair enough.
Ray.

 

The cycle way in question is new and the surface is better and a damn site safer than the adjacent A418. I can assure you I've only ever knocked one cyclist off his bike, at the traffic lights at West Kensington, I was walking across the road and silly me I should have rememebered red traffic lights don't apply to bikes. I believe in law horses have more right on the road than vehicles so no I wouldn't sound my horn at them, sheep, herds of wildebeest or anything else
Getting back to the thread does anyone know the date of the last steam hauled CI boat train to use the tramway

 

Weymouth's last two Ivatt tanks, 41284 and 41298, left in October 1966.

 

Would this be the infamous 'Bridport Belle'?!

 

Both Loco's were on 70F Bournmouth's allocation at that time.