The Impact of the Heatwave on Heritage Railways

I’m happy to be proved wrong, but I don’t think the fire fighting Land Rover’s at the SVR anymore, I seem to remember it being parked up at Bewdley when I was younger, I haven’t seen it for years.

 

Read the heatwave thread to see just out of touch some Jurassics are! As far as another Pacific Loco I was referring to "Swanage" which has spent a quarter of a Century Plus in "storage" (haha!) on the MHR. Don't you think the SR based SLL coould have done better than that??

 

looking at the upside of the Heat Wave (very interesting thread on this site) surely it has put paid to the ridiculous idea of services from the main line terminating at Corfe. When volunteers start mentioning 90f temperatures in MK1s one can imagine JQP getting turfed out, with the missus and kids, of a nice AC unit into the blast furnaces at Corfe.

 

Something like the famous UK steamed vegetables? Read the Heatwave thread and then persuade your local HRs to start putting some Mark 1s on the market whilst they are still saleable. Glamping,Aitbnbs might be looking. Can you foresee a business case for the rest of 2022 for running two steam locos per day on the SR?

 

Only presumably at the expense of another now-restored loco that would have been consigned to a siding in its place. Like it or not, locomotive restoration is something of a zero-sum game: you can only do what you have the resources to do.

Tom

 

Was adding AC to the DMUs part of their mainline upgrade then? (Genuinely I don't know the answer, but it would seem more of a luxury than a requirement?)

 

You can’t play with all the toys out the box at the same time can you? You only have to look at 4930, 7325 and 75069 at the SVR. Of course I’m sure you know better than most.

 

The DMUs are very much yesterdays technology. you might want to stand at an open window but mum and dad want to stay cool on their journey. Do you believe AC is a luxury in todays climatic conditions?

 

Yes, it is. Despite what many will have you believe, air conditioning is not necessary for most of the year - including the summer season on tourist railways.

It wasn't included in the refurbishment of those units, which is unsurprising given the lack of power in the engines - the 350hp/car class 158s and 159s struggle to deliver air conditioning, and have much more power than the 1st gen DMUs.

And none of this deals with the underlying issue of a steam era rail delivering "heritage" in the (proposed by one) form of a superannuated Tube train retrofitted to look like nothing that ever ran on the SR. Ever.

 

Struggling or not JQP and his wife want to sit in comfort on their ride from Wareham to Swanage when its scorching outside. . Don't engineers build units out to the nth possibility? The UK government seems to disagree with your assessment of climate change. I think that volunteer experiencing the 90f temps in the Mk1s might argue with you on working conditions! Mr Posner from the USA seems to have some faith in the VivaRail units and he is the CEO of a growing RR. Of course not every new idea introduced to the Railways works(Leaders etc!) but not to have made the attempt is worse than failure. Mr Shooter is also providing employment in a sector dominated by multinationals and their UK assembly plants. The argument that AC is not necessary? Events of the past few years are proving that argument wrong. So if i get out of my AC SWR train at Wareham on a scorching day should i not expect continue my journey to Swanage in the same sort of environment. Better still if that SWR train continues on down to Swanage,no changes and NO SWEAT!

 

Speaking as an engineer: No.

 

Then you need to answer, again, what kind of heritage railway experience you wish the Swanage (or indeed any other) to represent. Because the railway that has that through service is one that has very limited space for 563, or 34105, or whichever other locomotive floats your boat.

As for Mr Posner, I'm sure he had confidence in VivaRail a few years ago when he bankrolled their purchase of scrap D Stock. I'm less sure now given that Viva Rail have established a track record that even CAF (Cheap As F***) would be embarrassed by.

 

I have seen very little in the way of references (in fact none...) to any potential parties actually visiting the "demonstration operation" for the battery unit conversions that was set up at the Rockhill Trolley Museum in Orbisonia, PA, to be honest.
Most US Urban Transit operators seem to be more worried about the decimation of passenger numbers following Covid and wondering whether those numbers will ever recover again. SEPTA in Philadelphia are still only carrying 50% of the traffic they used to, pre-Covid.

 

Oh cool, another excuse to post this:

 

I wonder if I'm the only one seeing the irony in promoting the use of Vivarail 230s to avoid the problems of heatwaves and lineside fires given that they have been known to self-combust on more than one occasion (the last incident was involving the battery setup)...

This is one of the reasons why this regular user of the Wrexham-Bidston line is still waiting for them to be introduced into public service 2 years after they were due to be running, even though they have been delivered. There are hopeful murmurings, but I'm waiting to see one actually turn up for passengers at Wrexham before getting excited about it.

Steve B

 

A certain overseas individual has hijacked this thread with all of his usual waffling, found on the Swanage Railway and project Wareham threads. It appears that he wants Air conditioning fitted to all Mk1 and DMMU's. When I was a guard (1974-2914) on the Main line and there was hot weather,
the windows and drop lights were opened allowing air to circulate, so what's the problem?
My experience with latter trains with Air conditioning was varied on 442's 444's 450's 158's either it worked or it didn't! and resetting MCB's dit not make one bit of difference.
Here in East Dorset the temp is 26c with a slight breeze, I do not have air conditioning except in the car, but open windows to allow air circulation.
So, To get back onto the topic for this thread. The problem here in the South of england is that there has been NO RAIN in the past month, The ground is tinder dry the Fire risk is to say the least is EXTREMELY HIGH! this is why steam railways have had to revert to Diesel or curtail their services.
August is supposed to be the busiest month for preserved Railways so this is a disaster.

 

This is all veeeery confusing as Ignored Member #2 keeps getting in the way.
Pat

 

I think the various Dorset threads were cleaned up, but the quid quo pro was that this thread had to "take one for the team".

Tom

 

At least its just a temporary, or "seasonal" thread.
The sooner the rain begins to fall again, and the thread becomes redundant, the better for everyone.