Bluebell Railway General Discussion

Hot on the heels of the last report, here is the Week 2 report of the track renewal and drainage work at Three Arch Bridge, along with photos:

https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/ext/3_arch_relay_week_2.pdf

Tom

 

Bit of a strange comment Paul- given your well known opinions on preservation economics- especially the use of more expensive motive power?

Aren't vintage carriages bordering on WIBN given their higher restoration, upkeep and maintenance cost?

Chris

 

This is the thing with preserved coaches. With locos anything is considered "viable". Barry locos have been rebuilt with wheels that had been cut through, cylinders or tenders missing. Huge numbers of parts removed or needing to be replaced. Some have been rebuilt from little more than rusty wheels, frames and boiler. Even completely new locos are increasingly becoming 'possible'.

However, with coaches the attitude at many lines is different. Anything in poorer condition is considered as almost scrap. That is the same whether its a vintage one or a Mark 1, yet I would argue it is considerably easier for example to make some new seats for a coach that doesn't have any, than it is to say build a new tender, or a complete set of motion for a loco. I am sure partly this is down to the numbers of people wanting to work on them.

At the Swindon and Cricklade we have found there is more volunteers wanting to work on the vintage stuff than Mark 1s and Mk1s have often had to go away to be done elsewhere under contract.

 

No. If "heritage" is to mean anything they are vital.

 

Latest news from Three Arch Bridge was that as of yesterday (Wednesday), 23 of the planned 29 panels had been laid, and the rail head is north of Three Arch Bridge. (The initial plan had been 26 panels, i.e. 520 yards, but a decision was taken to add another three panels as materials were available).

(Incidentally, quite a number of our track relays seem to be based around 13 panels, or multiples thereof. I believe at root that is because the lorries that deliver rail carry 26 rails as a maximum load).

Tom

 

Then surely the same rationale applies to Motive power?

Chris

 

Indeed, even if it cannot be 100%.

 

Just as you advocate! It's really not possible to have it all ways. It's perfectly natural to keep the stuff restorable in the near term and get rid of the longer term projects if pressure is applied to get get rid of something. It's common sense and people like you are the architects of exactly that outcome - so don't bemoan the fact that railways occasionally try to do what you advocate!

What is the alternative to the "linear scrapyard in the short term? How many railways have the workshop capacity to restore more than one or two vehicles other than in-traffic coaches under cover? How many have carriage sheds for other than in-traffic coaches? The "linear scrapyard" for many is the only option for most railways if the "interesting stuff" are to have even a chance of restoration. In most cases, moving the "interesting stuff" to a smaller line is no solution, such lines are probably going to be at the same point as the original host was 30-40 years ago, struggling to find coaches to run, and in a far worse position to solve that problem because they are no longer available cheaply ex-BR..

I note that the Churnet Valley are looking for a further 4 mk 1s for when they inaugurate services to Leek. It will be interesting to see how they fare. I fully expect to see them having to pay large sums for wrecks, but I'm sure they would rather do that than take on more challenging pre-grouping vehicles in linear scrapyard condition.

 

We are not talking "short term" but forty or fifty years in some cases.

 

And here was me thinking that this discussion had been moved to https://www.national-preservation.c...st-1948-carriages.1417609/page-3#post-2548587

Steve B

 

I like Mk1s - they are heritage vehicles in their own right -and I'm impressed that your railway has dramatically improved the condition of the running fleet in the last few years. Sadly though you've got quite a lot from the Formica and fluorescent period. Those which date from the earlier wood veneer period - even if they don't have the traffolite plaques informing passengers as to the species of tree the veneer came from and the part of the empire it originates in - are to my mind real gems.

 

I agree, the wooden panelled ones are much nicer. We do have a couple with plaques giving the wood used from memory. I keep badgering folk to let me try my hand at some scumbling, I'd love to have a go, I'd declare war on formica panelling! I'm not certain, but I think we actually have more wooden panelled coaches than Formica. The reason you get the impression we have more Formica is probably because, by chance, more of the Formica coaches are the ones in best condition, and are open coaches, so tend to be out more. There's a higher proportion of wooden panelled, compartment coaches in our spare third rake and fourth(ish) rakes. Compartment coaches are less convenient for well-known reasons and these carriages, whilst still in reasonable condition, are not usually the ones we're most proud of. You'll probably see this change over the coming years as we try and make our rakes of carriages more interchangeable.

 

Meanwhile, back at the plot:

Another infrastructure update on the work at Three Arch Bridge. https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/ext/inf_news.html#22jan20 Apart from the track work, something very notable in those pictures is the tidy state of the line sides - a tribute to the gangs that keep them under control through the year.

The absolutely latest news is that all but 13 feet of the track has been relaid; that gap should be closed today, followed by ballasting and tidying up early next week. The team are then moving on to do some more work in the section around Fireslip, north of Horsted Keynes, picking up from what was done in November. There will have been an epically large amount of renewal done this winter by time the line re-opens for public trains in February; I honestly don't know how that team does it.

Tom

 

Professionalism and dedication with a bit of good organisation is how it gets done.

Well done to all involved.

 

Second visitor for the Branch Line Gala just announced - Ivatt class 2mt 41312, courtesy Mid Hants Railway.

So the loco line up is

Taff Vale O2 No. 85, courtesy KWVR
Ivatt 2mt 41312, courtesy MHR
Wainwright H class 263
Wainwright P class 178
Stirling O1 class 65
Maunsell Q class 541
BR Standard 4mt 80151

More details and advance purchase tickets here: https://www.bluebell-railway.com/whats_on/branch-line-weekend-3/

Tom

 

A few photos and a short video of the winter relaying works are on the “what’s new” page: http://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/whats_new.html

The work at Three Arch Bridge, south of Horsted Keynes, is I believe now all laid, ballasted and awaits tamping. The team has moved on to a section north of Horsted Keynes on the line leading away from Leamland. 200 yards is being relaid, starting where the work in November finished and continuing to a point about 50 yards beyond Horsted House Farm crossing. By the end of this winter, round about another 1/2 mile of track will have been relaid.

Tom

 

They dont hang about, do they?! And with all that drainage work in Nobles Cutting, as well. Big shout out and well done to the Civils, they've gotten it down to a fine art
I was interested as to why the last few panels were relaid with b/h rail. Is that because of proximity to HK and preservation standards?

 

No, there’s no hanging about! You can’t totally base things just on length done per season since some bits are more complex than others, but having said that, I think the work at Three Arch / Nobles was at the upper end of complexity given the need to build new drainage as well as replace the track. Even so, by my calculation, 1040 yards of track has been or will be relaid this winter - 620 yards south of HK and 420 north. I think that is comfortably the longest amount of track we have ever relaid in one season.

I’ve asked about the reason for using bullhead rail on the last bit of the Three Arch relay.

Latest news (as of last night) was that on the section to Horsted House Farm Crossing, all the old track has been removed; Terram matting has been laid on half the length that was very wet, and two (out of ten) panels have been laid back down.

Tom

 

A couple of updates from the e-newsletter:

Infrastructure Update: Approaching Horsted​

When planning a track re-lay, it is very important to factor in time for unexpected snags. With the lack of a full history of what was done and when, you can never be 100% certain of what you might find. If everything goes well, you finish early.​

The January re-lay in the Three Arch Bridge cutting was originally planned to be 26 60-foot track panels. Bluebell Railway track re-lays tend to be in multiples of 13 panels because that is one truck load of rail. ​

Three Arch went very well, which was why the re-lay was extended to 29 panels and was comfortably completed within the timescale. We could not do much more because at that time we did not have sufficient sleepers and ballast. This left us with 10 panels of rail from the final truckload.​

The decision was taken to extend the November re-lay north of Horsted Keynes at Fire Slip further northwards by these 10 panels. This spot was chosen for two reasons. Firstly, Horsted House Farm foot crossing needed replacing and secondly, the Temporary Speed Restriction (TSR) could be further shortened. ​

Work started on this on 5 Feb. The 10 panels were rapidly stripped out. But as the formation was prepared for re-laying, it was realised that the trackbed was wetter than expected near the foot crossing. ​

A usual rule of thumb is that track on an embankment is self-draining and when in a cutting, it requires drainage. This part of the trackbed was above the surrounding land and should not have been wet, so the decision was taken that this section would require a Terram/polythene/Terram underlay so that we should not need to revisit the site.​

One possible cause of the wet conditions was a collapsed drain under the track. This would have been put in when the line was built and has to be replaced.​

Where we re-lay on the straight, we pre-drill the rails for fishplates to save time. As this re-lay is on a curve, we pre-drilled the outer rails but could only pre-drill one end of each of the inner rails as these will need to be shorter and will require cutting, but this was expected.​

One feature to look out for when the foot crossing has been completed will be the recovered and donated South Eastern Railway "kissing gate," which is in a very similar style to the LB&SCR equivalent.​

At the time of writing, track panels are starting to go down and the underlay is being positioned.​

By Bruce Healey​

 

Secondly, an update on OP4, with photos, is available on the infrastructure news page:

https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/ext/inf_news.html#7feb20

Tom