Is a physical rail connection important?

Agree about Swanage; and it's likely to be a big factor when they do finally open to Wareham; motorised (plus maybe bus?) customers will be faced with a choice between a DMU or road to Norden for a steam train.

As regards "as required" I meant as required for bringing excursions and other main line stock / visiting locos / spoil tips etc on and off their lines;

Jamesquared have the Bluebell ever considered running a "gala" type shuttle between the BR or Kingscote and the NR stations? I'd buy that for a dollar! (or even several dollars)

I remember reading in the local paper when Tornado first visited there was an "old and new" picture of it next to a 377 in East Grinstead NR;

of course the "old" was the 377!

 

I've had a look at my heritage railway 'ranking' list, where I marked all standard gauge railways against a number of objective criteria. Of the 80 or so on the list over half either have a main line connection or a cross platform / station connection, or both. For those in the top half of my ranking, over 75% did so and most of those who don't are seeking one. A benefit is therefore being seen by railways, although no doubt for many different reasons.

 

This strikes me as not only slightly hypocritical, but entirely self-defeating. It's like photographers who want trains to take their pictures of, but don't want to put their hands in their pockets (by paying to travel on them) to help provide the very trains that they want to photograph.

If every enthusiast took your position of waiting for a preserved line to 'be connected', that connection would never happen... because nobody would be willing to put their hands in their pockets (by refusing to travel on them or otherwise financially contribute).

Bizarre.

 

well apart from main line excursions the only photos I ever take of trains are on lines (main line and preserved) and trains I've paid to go on. Yes if every enthusiast took my position as you say and as I said upthread "chicken and egg"

with 80 standard gauge railways there needs to be a bit more to get me to travel to and go on one; and many have plenty in the absence of a physical connection; it's not that black and white with me; just a factor

 

Firstly, to do so would require NR-registered stock - it couldn't be done with our own stock. So you would presumably need to hire a train to do so (either loco and carriages, or maybe an MU such as the Hastings Unit).

Once past that hurdle, you would have pathing issues. On the Network Rail side, the service interval is I think every 30 minutes, so not especially easy to thread in an additional service, even if only going to the EG (NR) station and return.

On the Bluebell side, anything north of Kingscote is on the basis of one engine in steam. Essentially, if you wanted to run just to the mainline and back, once the unit has left Kingscote, nothing else can go north (i.e. a regular Bluebell service train) until the special has made it onto NR; and the special can't then return until any regular Bluebell traffic is at Kingscote or further south. Furthermore, unless the special goes straight up and back, you end up transferring the token by road in one direction or the other, which adds to the time. I remember once working out the times and, although it is just about feasible to do a one-way move between the Bluebell and NR or vice versa in the time available during service 2, it is tight and requires paths on the NR and Bluebell side to align. Doing it during a more intense gala is not feasible, unless you wanted to terminate all steam services at Kingscote and then allow passengers to transfer to a shuttle to the Network Rail station rather than the Bluebell station. There is a reason why most moves over the connection either occur at night, or - for one-off passenger charters - happen on days when the railway is otherwise quiet, i.e. midweek service 1!

So the bottom line is you couldn't do it without major timetable disruption; you'd end up taking away from the steam service (e.g. at a gala) the point where the locos are working at their hardest - probably not popular with steam enthusiasts - and all you would gain would be a couple of hundred yards of "new" track over the Network Rail siding south of the mainline station. Probably not a runner, to be honest.

Tom

 

Pure W.I.B.N. Trouble is someone has to pay for W.I.B.N. wheezes. The line I know best has easy access by rail or bus to the respective termini. Trouble is the vast number of visitors arrive by road at the intermediate station which has no bus service nowadays. No amount of wishful thinking or placard waving by gricers is likely to change this.

Facing this reality, the railway has spent £60,000 on improving the drainage and surfacing of the car park.

PH

 

I think you mean W.I.B.B.L.E.

Tom

 

Doesn't quite convey the feeling of impractical sentimentality IMHO

PH

 

Sorry chaps but the last 3 posts with their abbreviations mean absolutely nothing to me

sorry to have started this thread; I'll just go back to lurking as I can't be doing with party lines and dissing those who disagree with it on public (as in open to all) forums

 

Having caught the train to Kiddy from Rowley Regis, far to many times to mention I can vouch for how useful the cross platform interchange at Kiddy is, 'Dad get the beers in, I'll get the tickets' or vice versa!

 

How would you rate the Mid Norfolk then? Mainline connection but a bloody brisk walk from Wymondham to Wymondham Abbey in fact I'd say it's a similier distance from Loughborough (mainline) to Loughborough GC. And as for the Nene Valley...

 

"W.I.B.N." is a convenient acronym for "wouldn't it be nice" in other words idealised proposals which involve other people in work and expense; something railway enthusiasts are a bit too apt to put forward. "W.I.B.B.L.E" is similar. "I.M.H.O" is a more general online acronym for "in my humble opinion".

There is nothing "party line" in disagreeing with postings or using such acronyms (IMHO).

PH

 

Cross-car-park interchange, surely!

 

Please don't apologise - different points of view are always a Good Thing when it comes to any sort of forum.

I don't think there's any sort of party line here though; I didn't think there seemed to be much in the way of "dissing" going on either, just that most people don't think the distinction you draw is significant. Moreover, the British Rail network was never a single unified whole in any case.

(Historical note: I can't actually think of any isolated sections of the GWR network in the 1923-47 period, but certainly British Rail, and the other three Big Four companies, all had isolated lines or systems which weren't linked to the main parts of their networks)

 

I think expecting preserved railways to help relieve traffic is unrealistic.

For example, my nearest preserved line is the MHR. To get there by rail involves a twenty minute walk to Salisbury station, then a rail journey with a change at Woking that takes in total just over two hours. So about 2.5hrs door to door to get to Alton. By contrast, I can drive to Alresford in about 50 minutes. Unless you really like travelling by rail, is it any surprise that, with a young family in tow, a car would be preferable in the circumstance?

With a few honourable exceptions, preserved lines tend to be in remote rural areas of the country, poorly served by public transport - that's why they closed in the first place. Some have mainline connections, though even so they tend to only give access to for people living at one end of the line. If you live in south London and want to visit the Bluebell, rail is viable. If you live in Brighton, you've got to be dedicated - travel three quarters of the way to London, then change trains and come most of the way back on another line. Before the railway opened to East Grinstead, it was required by planning conditions to run a bus connection to Kingscote from East Grinstead: it attracted few passengers and ran at a loss every year.

When all is said and done, we are part of the leisure industry, so you need to consider the means by which people access the attraction in the same terms as you would to any other rural tourist attraction, such as a country house like Longleat - they'll come by car.

We have to be careful not to throw the ecological baby out with the bath water. If people find driving to a rural tourist attraction more convenient than going by rail, that is what they will do. In the meantime, there is lots to commend heritage railways for; for example, they tend to be havens for wildlife, essentially "green corridors" that suffer relatively little disturbance. If traffic is an issue, work on the major shopping centres or sporting venues in big cities convenient for mainline railway stations that nonetheless have huge car parks. When their visitors overwhelmingly arrive by public transport, it might be time to consider mechanisms to enable heritage railway visitors to get to such attractions using mechanisms other than by car. Until that happens, it's a waste of time.

Tom

 

None of it - because all of the national network was and is on islands.

However if you include islands, the SR had the Isle of Wight network and the Waterloo & City, and the LNER had the Grimsby & Immingham. I'm not sure if the LMS had any isolated standard gauge lines, but its networks on the island of Ireland were isolated from its network in Great Britain.

The last GWR constituents I can think of that were isolated lines were the Liskeard & Caradon and Liskeard & Looe, connected to each other but not to anything else until the early 20th century.

 

The LMS never linked up with its Belfast and Northern Counties lines.

 

Fair enough; I was not in the best of moods last night after having been shouted at by two very drunk pax to "fold my effing bike up" at 2100 on a very crwded 4 coach Southern service (it actually takes up less space semi- folded which I had done)

Re Wymodham, it's connected, Loughborough isn't. I would go on the line from the Abbey station I'm not that anal about covering every inch of the network. Plus I think the GCR is well worth waiting for to become the full line it will eventually be,

30 years ago I was at an open day and visited a MHR stand; they asked when I was coming to visit and I replied "when you have a mainline connection" they were fairly incredulous at the time, but the extension was built without my contribution and I've since travelled on it several times.