Swanage Railway General Discussion

Would it be very naughty to suggest asking XC if they want to extend their services from Bournemouth to Swanage?

On the subject of FGW - they do run Sprinters down to Weymouth... and don’t SWR use 158s on the Lymington branch

 

Monkey Magic!

You’re a child of the early 1980’s!

 

But when are you in favour of the Nuclear Option??

Dubious call centres are the obvious candidate

 

Sometimes my view changes when crossing the Wiltshire border and heading towards the general direction of Taunton (and points west) ...

Tom

 

Hmmm - Bournemouth to Wareham is 25 minutes one way; Wareham to Swanage probably 45 minutes. So you add getting on for 2.5 hours just to run Bournemouth - Swanage - Bournemouth, relative to a cross country unit just being serviced and turned straight back at Bournemouth to do the next north-bound run. No doubt it is technically feasible, but only if extra units (and drivers) were available - i.e. at a cost that is far more than just the marginal cost of a small extra mileage.

Tom

 

Fare abstraction may not be as much of an issue if a mechanism was put into place whereby the track access charge for a third party operator had some link to the usage of the service. After all, as a trial service surely the SR is obtaining data on passenger usage (eg: type of ticket, destination, discount etc) on which such a mechanism could be based?

 

You are making an assumption that SR would be free to negotiate the track access charge on its own terms. Even if SR was able to implement such a mechanism, what would be left in it for the third party operator to make it worth their while? This is particularly a problem when there is a large disparity between SR fairs and the third party operator fairs. Mile for mile SR heritage fairs are several times a main line fair. How could you afford to compensate for the loss of the larger fair? IMHO it just doesn't stack up and without a subsidy one party or the other will end up the loser.

Fare abstraction aside there are the other issues with third party operation covered on this linked post that track access charges will never compensate for.

 

The SR is effectively the infrastructure provider; why should it not negotiate the track access charge on their own terms? Is that not what happens when railtours work in?

 

Does the Hastings unit use the same supply chain for wheelsets? That one seems to run main line without wheelset problems. Main line Mk1's, who does their bogies?

 

I think you will find the problem stems from the axles not meeting the required standards for crack testing and to an extent being unique to lightweight DMUs If memory serves the hastings units run on bogies similar to Mk1 and we must assume that the axles pass the required ultrasound tests and dont need replacing

 

On the whole, B4 wheelsets are still supported by wheelset overhaulers.
All B4 type wheelsets (many Mk1s and all Mk2s) have SKF axleboxes and bearings.
For Commonwealth bogie wheelsets, there is a general change to standardise on SKF bearings, axleboxes and axles; because SKF lead times are much shorter and the bearings much cheaper than Timken bearings.
The main problem with Timken imperial bearings as used on some Commonwealth, many 1st gen DMUs, English Electric diesels (not 73s, they are SKF) is the minimum 6 month lead time and eye watering prices.

Compared with either on the shelf or a few weeks for SKF bearings for a few £100 per bearing.

 

So does pose the question, why not re-engineer for SKF bearings?

 

If you think bearing lead time is a problem you are going to love the process for qualifying a new design to main line standards.

 

Who'd not want to be a monkey born out of an egg on the top of a mountain.

I wasn't being entirely serious but more to flag up the diesels west of Southampton.

I am assuming that XC don't have the stock. My understanding is that the whole reason why Virgin XC cut back from Brighton, Poole and Portsmouth was so they could run a more frequent service with fewer trains. (I am entirely happy to be corrected in this).

Although, as I recall (and I am sure someone knows better) isn't the Lymington Shuttle a 158/159 during the week and 450 at weekends, so potentially there is a 158/159 around that isn't in use over the weekends so maybe SWR could use that?

 

With services about to commence at the weekend a few shots from the engineering activity in the station area. The other side of the Birds Nest has already been painted.
Also today 257 Squadron made a brief appearance away from its regular location near the pit .

 

Any chance of a heads up regarding loco roster for the return of trains? Hoping to nip down sometime in the next few days. Thanks!

 

31806 was in light steam when I went down the Post Office this morning, so I guess that will be the loco for half term week.

 

Thanks!

 

Introducing a bit of drift, I suspect the whole question of tyre and pan renewals and the cost of them is one the heritage railways have not thought about let alone addressed seriously. Yes running on good railhead profile at 25mph with no flat incidents will not cause a lot of wear per year but as rails grow older any lipping will chew through flanges like butter let alone people leaving handbrakes on or stuffing in full brake on a wet rusty rail with a resulting loud bang bang noise after release. As its not sexy it does not get attention till it smashes you in the face ( just ask the Bluebell) but its the elephant in the room in my opinion.

 

Perhaps it has not been mentioned in the comics but the SVR has recently had a set of LNER wheels retyred and profiled