Homes needed for 4cig and 4vop

The only way to safeguard 3rd rail emu stock is to run them on the juice. Be it on the main line or a perserved line. The latter is most probably never going to happen unless a perserved railway can make a good business case to run 3rd rail emu stock on the juice and find away of getting over all the H&S issues with volunteers working around high voltage 3rd rail.

I for one wouldn't entertain traveling on 3rd rail emu stock unless it's running on the juice. Being pulled or pushed by a class 33 just isn't going to give the same experience has running on the juice.

 

I heard that the EKR was a target for 3rd rail when an electric group that is (or was) based there wanted to electrify the line - the ekr didn't want that so I understand - probably part of the recent fallout. I read about this incidentally on an advert onboard one of their EMUs. I could never see a preserved railway running 3rd rail, imagine the cost to install and operate 24/7 - you couldn't switch it off due to H&S. All we can hope is that Gordon Petit and the Belle stay out on the juice! I saw the COR at the EKR, one vehicle was looking smart but the others are in a hell of a state - its the same old same old, EMUs just don't seem to attract the volunteer workforce and one has to ask why that is?

 

Never mind switching it on and off - getting permission to install it in the first place would be extremely unlikely.

 

Some news from Dartmoor is a blow to electric preservation as 3 vehicles from 4-Cig 1399 are going to be scrapped due to the cost of keeping both units on site. The vehicles being scrapped from 1399 are: 76818, 70508 and 76747, MBSO 62385 will move to the VEP unit as a brake coach as it doesn't have one. This news will leave 2 CIG sets in preservation in Britain, 1753 at Finmere and 1497 at the Mid-Norfolk railway. https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=684251745083710&id=135004650008425
Can I just say from my view £900 a month for 7 vehicles where it cost nothing a few months before it daylight robbery from the owner and the group, I know as well this money will not be spent on the railway its on but to the American owners of the railways sitting in a tall tower in a foreign company.

 

Well thats just depressing, how on earth have we got to this posistion when there were so many of them comparatively recently, the same goes for the humble MGR wagon, there really seams to be a lack of forward thinking at play, its just a "oh yeah i remember them" and then nothing concrete takes place, But just look at how many broke steam locos hang about covered in moss for years on end, the only difference is they are seen as desired and more modern stock are just seen as necessary if that

 

it seems to me with no knowledge at all that the Dartmoor Railway isn't a proper preserved line at all, bought by someone with a view to making money on their investment at some stage. Shoot me down in flames if I'm wrong.

 

You are right there sir,but i thought it was no more than six hoppers, which is lovley but they were usually in rakes of 27-30. im not poo pooing it but not really a rake is it

 

I don't think you'll find many lines that could accommodate 27-30 hopper wagons and maintain them in a presentable way.

There has to be realism that:

a) not everything can be saved
b) steam has a much larger draw for families and the general public than diesel/electric
c) it is not financially or practically feasible to preserve/run/store rakes of coaches or wagons in prototypical numbers.


Keith

 

The Trains to Northfleet ran with 43 mgr with two locos, but were increased to 46 when the class 56 became available to work the trains single headed.

 

I suspect keeping 25+ wagons of a single type operational, especially when combined with also keeping actual revenue-earning stock (i.e. carriages) operational would be well beyond the capacity of any preserved line in the country.

Long term, a combination of technical complexity and sheer scale is going to make realistic representations of the modern railway essentially un-preservable - in rather the same way that people will probably be flying 1930s airliners like DC3s and Dragon Rapides for as long as heritage aviation continues, but no-one will ever fly a Boeing 747 for the same purpose: it's simply too big while not having sufficient "draw" for Jo and Josephine Public.

Tom

 

I think you are right Tom. For that reason a preserved HST in original format is unlikely... perhaps the bst we could hope for a is a 253 power car to go the other end of a 2 or 3 Mk3s and the prototype. (need a little rewiring probably).

How often is the Windcutter used on the GCR and how many wagons is it typically?

 

Well that is a very good point i went up to the GCR last weekend and the loop they were in coupled up together is now a passing loop and the rake are split up all over the place, so as a rake they probably dont see much if any, the good thing about the MGR wagon is though they never seamed to get any maintenance in service so they would have looked after themselves but as someone has pointed out,they would never see any useful purpose again, unlike the windcutters that might get some use to move things around the railway MGR's are no use for that at all but to go from 15 thousand to 6 is not a good reflection on the movement

 

Why is 6 out of 15,000 not a good reflection on the movement? How many do you want preserved? Have you considered just the simple issue of how much space a train of, say, 30 MGRs would take - rather longer than the passing loops at most heritage line stations, for a start. Most heritage railways simply wouldn't have the space to run such a train, much less store it. And why just MGRs - if you want a realistic-length train of MGRs, what about all the other types of bulk wagon that characterise the modern railway: a dozen or so 100t oil wagons? A raft of bogie container wagons? All of those would be historically worthy vehicles to preserve, but saving more than one or so of each type is likely to dwarf the capacity of any individual railway to store and maintain them.

As for your comment about how much looking after they would need (or rather, lack thereof): a few months ago, I happened to look at the preserved MGR at Shildon, and it struck me as quite a complex vehicle. Relative to a typical preserved unfitted wagon of earlier vintage, you've got air brakes to worry about, as well as a complex system for operating the hopper doors which are actuated by a sequence of strikers operating against cams on the side of the wagon. They certainly aren't the simple metal boxes on wheels that they might appear from a distance.

Tom

 

good point . I think there was a wagonload version of the HAA (HDA?) which would be at home in small numbers in a representation of a Railfreight train.

 

I don't know why on earth you would spend anytime doing work on the hopper doors as they won't be used any more anyway, and the brakes have to be maintained on any piece of stock, but I do take the point that to ma & pa normal they would just look straight through them. But that's not to say they arnt important, and even I won't advocate having 30 of them but say 15 would at least look right but that is a fair bit of siding space to take up full time for a few trips out a year

 

Well the whole point is, are there any of them left as as there is only less than 10 left on the national network of the main type, although there should be over 100 CDA,s left in Cornwall that's another thing entirely

 

Not so, the Windcutters are in use regularly at galas and the like. About half of the wagons are serviceable at present, so at a guess about 13-15 of them, though I don't know exact numbers. I know that a couple are standing around because of defective OLEO buffers; some £££ would help.

 

My understanding, correct me if I am wrong, is as follows and much simplified. Infrastructure and quarry belong to Aggregate Industries as a result of early stages of BR privatisation. This excludes certain local authority ownerships such as Okehampton station. Aggregate Industries contract BAR subsidiary RMSL Locotec to maintain the infrastructure and BAR Subsidiary Dartmoor Railway to operate the Railway. Various other parties have tenancy arrangements.

It would be better described as an industrial railway on which heritage trains also operate. An earlier similar example is the Derwent Valley Light Railway in the late 1970s.

It is known that Aggregate Industries have wished to sell the mothballed quarry for sometime what then would become of the railway infrastructure I do not know but I suspect delving into the various recent reports about re-opening the rote as part of the national network might give a clue.

Who's responsibility it is for setting the rent for third party rolling stock kept on site I do not know.

 

The current heritage operation is known by that name, however when I purchased D2298 "Lord Wenlock" it was painted as D.V.R. No. 1, without the L.