Swanage Railway General Discussion

the problem has to be in finding a suitable end destination, Salisbury possibly if your talking more than one trip, but it would need to be heavily advertised, and have pre booking , then do you run only as far as Southampton on the return, or run back via Eastleigh, Southampton and back to Salisbury via Red bridge returning to Salisbury with the first, and last trips running Swanage, Bournemouth Southampton in addition, to return the loco and stock to Swanage and give additional pick up points, with the second being a Salisbury round trip out via Chandlers Ford, returning via Redbridge calling at Eastleigh and Southampton that maximises the earning potential if tickets for the second train can be sold on the day, whilst passengers off the first enjoy a day in Salisbury, one other question would be, would NR accept using the DMU as hauled stock?

 

Let’s not get too carried away with the idea of Swanage Railway running mainline tours. The primary aim is running steam into Wareham - enough of a challenge in itself.

If that’s a success, then in time tentative steps may be taken to run short trips slightly further afield.

Any mainline tours by 31806 in the next year or so, would I imagine involve it being hired to another tour operator.

 

A sight many will be pleased to see.

 

Good to see it back. Hopefully we can now enjoy it for a year of trouble free service before the boiler certicate expires.

 

There will be other changes needed to Mk1s if they are to be used on the main line in a few years time - at least retention toilets and changes to the windows and doors to stop people leaning out. There may be more. It may be that the cost of fitting the central door locking would not be recovered before the other changes become required & that the total bill isn't worth it.

 

If only running to Wareham, the toilets could be locked out of use whilst on the mainline to prevent any need for retention tanks. If travelling any further afield this might cause problems though!

On the 2017 trial service with the 4TC, I remember the guard making announcements about the toilets.

“We are now joining the mainline, please do not use the toilets”

“We are leaving the mainline, you may now use the toilets”

What form of door locking is normally used on mainline Mk1s? It’s not the same as used on the Swanage DMUs and the TC is it?

 

It all depends what regulations will apply when Swanage could have enough Mk1s to form a viable mainline set. Some of the changes have been covered in the railway press - door handles on the inside (so no need for opening windows) and retention toilets being two of them.

 

It will need to be turned before the Gala

 

I think a short visit to the great central should take care of that...

 

Let’s hope they don’t break my favourite Swanage loco

 

Sorry Gladiator, Bincombe Bank, not Upwey Bank

 

It is off to the Great Central Railway at Loughborough to take part in their Autumn Gala and when it comes back it maybe pointing the other way.

 

Not every coach needs to have toilets, so why not take them out, and convert a brake coach to have a single disabled friendly toilet with retension tank , on the mainline set, it can be done, Pedros has shown how to do it, central locking doors can be done quite easy, using electro magnetic bolts activated by the guard, to lock the doors , Mk 1 based mu stock had handles on the inside VEP's for instance, how much wiring would that take, then of course, once you have the first done, the rest becomes a fitting job as you already have the wiring components sorted out and ironed out any snags, hopefully as it becomes a requirement on the main line, one of the big heritage TOC's should have sorted out kits to make electronic central locking easier. and the toilet installation, should use components that are available off the shelf .

 

You trivialise two material issues. As discussed on various threads, loos cannot be so easily dismissed, while applying VEP type door handles is not necessarily a customer friendly answer to leaning out - my memory of them as a user is not particularly repeatable in polite company.


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I think the LU 4TC had no indoor door handles? But mainline certifaction may be getting tighter?

Looking at the gala timetable and there are 4 trips to the River Frome each day. Maybe during 2020, if some coaches could be brought up to mainline standards, running the 31806 with a 33 to Wareham to tie in with SWR trains (inbetween railcar trips) might be finally be possible?

 

I think this answers the question

https://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/1936/reg5-cert-railfilms-2013-03-30.pdf

 

To retrofit coaches that currently have outside door handles only; with inside actuation, would start at £2M, just for the tooling to make the parts.

 

I did say in my post that i would hope that one of the TOC'S that intend to continue to use slam door stock would be able to supply kits to enable the door locking to be done. are there any scrap 4 veps still around that could be stripped to provide doors i'm of course assuming the doors are a straight swop.

 

That price seems very high considering Kayes of Leeds still have the tooling to make BR mk1 double acting locks with inside actuation.
You would extremely lucky to find doors that just drop onto the balls. Each hinge is aligned per door. So putting a door from coach A onto coach B isnt as easy.

 

Or even a door from coach A into another position on coach A!