Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

Was Mrs's T's visit to York when she unveiled the plaque celebrating the Electrification?

 

I think so - we were going to York when we travelled on the same train as her.

 

Getting back to Parracombe...

After an Up train has arrived at PE the loco will need to run-round its stock. Regardless of whether you have a TT or just a normal point spur, there will be a period therefore during which the carriages will be stood at the platform with no engine attached. Given that the line at that location was on a 1-in-100 down to Blackmoor, then AIUI the ORR would not normally sanction such an arrangement. Unless you extensively re-grade the line to ease the gradient, or top-and-tail the trains, how can it be operated other than by getting a derogation from the ORR? I've not seen or heard anything yet to suggest that the L&BR have investigated the issue and found a solution, yet this is the sort of thing which I would have expected to have been explained 'up front' in order to dispel any obvious concerns. Anyone know please?

 

Pretty certain that's how WHR opened Beddgelert despite it being on a 1in33.

 

Isn't the gap of 87 years rather 'pushing the boundaries' ?

 

Isn't there also an issue at Beddgelert that if the station weren't there, it couldn't serve a key destination on the through railway?

 

The case of Beddgelert surely pivots on the railway never having actually closed- there was just a rather prolonged possession for renewals. The new L&B are building a new railway line in 2022. On the formation of a previous line, but an entirely new line for all legislative purposes.

Re. Beeching closures: there were many branches built 1870-90 to serve bypassed communities, often to prevent a rival company from encroaching on territory. They may have actually made money for a few years, but post WW1, they steadily lost money- and the roots-feeding-the-tree theory doesn't hold. These lines then haemorrhaged money from the system for 40 years, with no apparent hope of this ever changing, and were closed. Should the remaining land asset really have been tied up as a liability for the next 70 years just in case the world changed in ways that nobody in 1955 could possibly have foreseen?
Profit for 20 years, breakeven 20 years, loss 40 years- just wait another 60 years and this will be really useful.
When the railways were nationalised, competing routes previously owned by rival companies were just a drain on resources. When the whole network was losing money year on year, should the less efficient of two parallel routes have been kept, subsidised by the better route, just in case?
How many of you have kept 386 computers, just in case?
How many of you have thought it daft that your wife has 7 spatulas, 5 of which are never used?

 

Oddly, the conditions under which Vale of Rheidol was constructed meant that, in order to not be held to have 'abandoned their enterprise', the moribund Aberystwyth Harbour Branch (never a financial success) saw a token movement once a year. As the only locomotive permitted on the branch, VoR No.3 Rheidol (GWR No. 1198) was withdrawn and scrapped in 1923, between then and 1930, when the GW threw in the towel as fas as commercial goods traffic (and winter running) was concerned, that "token movement" perforce involved someone shoving a wagon along the branch in each direction.

During it's years of closure, the Festiniog was required to 'prove' the line wasn't legally 'abandoned', doing so by pointing to the section between Duffws and the LMS exchange sidings at Blaenau, which was formally leased to one of the quarries and rather more amusingly, cited the informal use of a waggon by a lineside householder .... during the same month in which said householder was threatened with legal action for trespass and illegal use of a waggon!

 

Through stations can be on a gradient with agreement from the ORR as long as trains don’t terminate there and the loco stays attached. After all, there’s little difference between a train running through at (say) 15mph and one doing 0mph from a safety perspective.

 

But Beddgelert is routinely operated as a terminus


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Now, as historically, indeed it is. When the line was reopened, there was a stipulation that, due to the unbroken gradient through the station - the southern end of a full length train in the platform is over a full carriage height below the northern end (!) - Beddgelert was not to be used as a terminus. Presumably there has been some official easement.

That actually brings up a question specific to the L&B. At any point during it's life, did the original company ever operate services over just part of.the line? Every timetable I've ever seen suggests not, but surely in the best part of 40 years, you'd expect there must've been some special event which justified extra trains?

 

Well, I observed trains terminating there last summer on the WHR's part line services.

 

As mentioned*, they do .... very frequently regularly. On the current timetable, both the 'Glaslyn Venturer' (ex-Porthmadog) and 'Gelert Explorer' (ex-Caernarfon) terminate at Beddgelert and here's the F&WHR url to prove it:

https://www.festrail.co.uk/trains/

It's also just the sort of station to host the odd event, now and then.

*are you sure you couldn't use another cup of coffee?

 

Just poured, and glad we're on the same page!

 

The essential feature of automatic vacuum or air brakes is that, if a train is divided, the brakes come on. Presumably they then have to stay on for some reasonable length of time (although not indefinitely, vide a nasty runaway at Lac-Mégantic). Therefore, even in the absence of any other measures, a train can't run away while the loco runs round. However the automatic operation is intended for abnormal circumstances, when a train divides by accident. For the routine situation of a loco running round with the train on a gradient, I would expect the rule book to require some additional measure, for example use of handbrakes or wheel chocks.

Does anyone actually know?

 

Separating the planned from unplanned, I can't find any current images (including Google Earth, where resolution isn't the best on my Android) showing trap points at Beddgelert - not too surprising, given PW nerds with camaras are a bit thinner on the ground than loco nerds with camaras! - but it seems a fairly safe bet there are trap points.