East Lancs Railway

Booking now available:
https://www.eastlancsrailway.org.uk/events-activities/ly-centenary-weekend/
The LNWR Coal Tank is to join the 3 L&YR locos. Looks like a great event!
Perhaps someone will add a thread to the Galas & Events list? I couldn't see it there or do it.

 

On the Swanage thread

Indeed not much to do with the Swanage, but it seems to deserve discussion here.

(Also on the Swanage thread)

The most obvious incompatibility would be one that has been cited for the (even less realistic) notion of a public transport service on the WSR; who mans the signal boxes? It did all work in the old days with company A having running powers over company B's line, but those were both normal commercial operations. Is there any way it could work on the ELR?

 

Thanks, very relevant - and welcome surely?
It seems to me to be highly desirable for preserved lines to be used for public services too, in spite of all the bureaucratic and financial obstacles that have been put in the way of public transport over the years.
It must surely be more economic to have dual use: main lines do have traditional signalling and preserved lines do have modern signalling.
Much greater obstacles get pushed aside for vast new contraversial engineering projects for both road and rail.

 

I note The A4 is now in the Transport Museum.

https://twitter.com/elrchairman/status/1524801600367300611

 

Thanks.
Good to see buses and lorries are still there too. From the reports on RailAdvent, I get the impression the traction engines were the main losers, hope they have found suitable new homes

 

I have to disagree with you, as an example off the top of my head every now and again someone suggests a commuter service between Bewdley and Kidderminster/Stourbridge etc, how on earth would that work with things like regular SVR services and not just necessarily passenger services? Throw in lack of car parking at Bewdley compared to Kidderminster/Stourbridge Jcn/ Rowley Regis how would you make it work? You say there’s way’s round the obstacles in the way and there are but it’s at the cost of heritage operations.
I’m using the SVR as an example because it’s a railway I’m quite familiar with.
For example Would you want to be the person to explain to members and shareholders who have funded the restoration and building of Kidderminster and Bewdley South box why they are no longer in use because they’re now part of the panel at Saltley?
You can have either a Heritage Railway run and staffed by a mixture of paid staff and Volunteers or a mainline Railway with very few paid staff and a basic railway, I really don’t think the two are compatible with each other.

 

I'm familiar with the SVR and Bewdley in particular too and I agree there would be problems there but that's not relevant here! But other lines often have a very minor midweek service and there would be gaps both in car parks and in the service pattern.
You also assumed the heritage railway would have to find the staff which seems implausible.
This initiative to use existing lines for more than petiodic heritage trains seems to me to be sensible in principle but clearly needs careful examination on a case by case (ie location by location) basis.
I don't think this positive government initiative should be dismissed by on a rail forum by sweeping generalizations.

 

Possibly the difference as far as the ELR is concerned is that the services aren't actually running onto the mainline - the proposal is that they run to a new Metrolink stop at Buckley Wells and passengers then transfer to the tram, which runs them into Manchester.

 

ELR has four signal boxes that would need to be manned. You can't be relying on volunteers for a daily service like that.

https://www.elrps.co.uk/signalling-department

They would have to be two-shift to allow a decent service to run, so that would be another 10 or so signallers just for weekday services (allowing for shift patterns, sickness, training, etc.). Plus there's Baron Street crossing at Buckley Wells to be factored in. Close it, rebuild it or upgrade it? Bridge perhaps?

Reduction in car journeys between one and three million? That's roughly 3-9000 journeys a day, every day. Assuming that most of those journeys are returns, they're talking of hundreds, if not thousands of people using public transport. There's no way a few tram trains are going to entice those sort of numbers, especially when they've then got to change on to a tram at Buckley Wells.

 

GWR 5643 at the Lancs/Greater Manchester border this afternoon

 

There’s a reason the big railway got rid of its manual signal boxes!

 

Statfold

 

52322 out tomorrow instead of 5643

 

The big problems as I see it are based around the fact you can't switch one out for the other
You can't have 2 sets of signalling, so it's either Mackenzie and holland or the current colour light/Ertms/whatever. For the former you need a huge number of staff (not just signallers, but maintenance as well), the latter just isn't heritage.
Then there's stations, can you imagine leaving a heritage station unlocked unsupervised for the late evening trains? And there being any heritage left the next day?
You can run modern trains on a heritage railway and (to an extent vice versa), but you can't overlay a public service railway on a heritage line.

You could manage an arrangement where the tracks were shared, but only outside stations, and even then, the signalling would be odd (and any modern systems would limit the pool of engines that could come in).

 

This subject really needs its own thread. There's much more to say on the ELR about events, the goods shed and current ops.l
But just to reply to the previous message, you can leave the station buldings locked and signal sections cleared out of use and run the line as a basic railway when only service trains are running. When both run, the infrastructure is open anyway.
If these initiatives are dismissed lightly and in principle, government and local authorities will just think "preservationists just want to play trains, leave them to it" and an opportunity to get a regular public support will be lost.
The real problems I think concern the bureaucratic, unbusinesslike way national railways are run. I suggest Modern Railways magazine, esp. the columns by Alan Williams and Roger Ford or Adrian Shooter's recent book on Chiltern Railways.

 

That would only work with a complete redesign (and in my personal opinion a downgrading) of the signalling systems and interlocking. Bury to Ramsbottom has no physical token, it works under the Direction Lever Track Curcuit method, while Ramsbottom to Rawtenstall works under One Train Working system with a physical token (the plan is to eventually work Ramsbottom to Rawtenstall also under DLTC). There are also three level crossings operated by signalmen, which would require staffing or 'upgrading' to automatic barriers/loss of heritage, which particularly at Ramsbottom which is more historically significant with its gate operated by wheel and town centre location.

 

If you want a heritage railway to become part of the national network it’s going to be very labour intensive, as you say it’s not insurmountable, but where’s the money coming from to pay those wages?
Staff costs are not cheap.

 

The ELR Gala website says that Coal Tank 1054 will be involved. Anyone know if that's still happening?

 

The initiative is from Government and local government.