Kent & East Sussex Railway

I think you've taken 2 and 2 and made 654193831.

A loco on hire to a railway not being used as much as you think it should could be for all manner of legitimate reasons - the loco might have been out for repair, for whatever reason there might have only been a limited number of crew members passed to work it meaning its use is limited to when those crew members are available (it happens), or, like others have said, the hire agreement may only have been for a certain number of days. There could also have been specific issues with 4144 (not necessarily universal to all GW locos) which meant the KESR were less keen to use it - maybe it didn't agree as much with the specific coal they had available at the time than their other locos did, or it had higher fuel consumption than the rest of the fleet, or for whatever reason it was more prone to starting lineside fires during the hot dry summer. All of these are legitimate concerns to consider then rostering locos, and far more likely scenarios than the railway sulking and deciding not to use a loco simply because they don't like its heritage. Also, the lack of publicity could have been to something as benign as a different marketing policy which changed recently.

Also, for the sake of argument, let's go with your hypothesis that the KESR doesn't like GWR locos. Let's say they decide to evict the 4 GWR locos and they move to other, as per your suggestion, ex GWR railways. The KESR has just effectively lost years and years of time and man hours in the workshop because they've been working on locos that they've now kicked out and so are not going to benefit from the fruit of their labours (not to mention all the money they might have ploughed in to their restoration). This means that they're suddenly in a position where these locos are no longer going to be ready to return to traffic at the time they are currently planning for, meaning that unless they can fast track another loco through in time, they're going to be short on locos and have to hire ones in, which, ironically (given the availability of locos in preservation) could well end up being a GW loco.

It's not worth trying to create controversies or issues when they don't exist and don't need to. So maybe it's worth stopping

 

Quite.

I seem to recall that the sudden shutdown of heritage railways due to the pandemic, occurred soon after 4144 had arrived, been tested etc.

I believe that 4144 had been hired due to a perceived lack of sufficient serviceable locos for the busy part of the operating season.

With the drastic reduction in train operations, fewer locos were needed. Having paid the transport costs, the loco was retained in the hope of use once the situation improved. It eventually had to be sent back, and I think that was while services were still very restricted. It would have been financial folly to add daily hire fees to the losses already incurred. You may recall also that the Santa services had to be cancelled at such short notice, that thousands of Mince Pies (for example) had to find new homes, and ready wrapped presents had to also be disposed of (I think the local council was involved in using these, but I don't remember the details.)

As for 4253 & 5668, they are not the property of K&ESR, but privately owned by the 4253 group.

 

I remember turning up at Swanage on nearly September weekend when they had theN2 sadly not in steam as I was told that after a lot of track work the previous winter they not keen to pay any more in steaming fees than they had to.

similar weekend different year and I headed off m Norden behind a Terrier

 

Wow, someone got out of bed on the wrong side!

4144 was used more than you allege, was popular with crews, and was definitely not ignored. The KESR attitude is not typical SR, but rather the Colonel Stephens attitude of "run whatever you can get". It's a fact that Barry scrapyard had more GWR engines for rescue than anything else, hence they survive in greater numbers. The "point" of having 1638, etc, is that they are engines that can pull trains. I think the owners of those engines (which in two cases is basically the KESR itself) might have something to say about your intended reallocation....

 

Fireline is correct. One point a number of people have suggested is lack of crew familiar with certain locos. Unless it has all changed in the past few year familiarisation consists of reading the owners instruction on the loco operation, being shown round it by an Inspector and the Inspector riding for the first round trip. Steam locos aren’t particularly complicated bits of kit.

 

Depends on the steam loco - with 419 at the Battlefield line which has a few quirks and is quite a different kettle of fish to the GW locos we'd had for several years previously , for the first few terms one of a small pool of crew members who had gone up to Bo'ness for a familiarisation day had to be on the loco until more crew members had got a bit of experience on it. That was written in to the hire agreement in lieu of Bo'ness having to send a minder down from Edinburgh on every operating day

 

I wish people people would return to calling 'Austerities' by their proper name of 'Buckets'.

 

Bucket of course can include a non-austerity Hunslet. Such as the post-war examples with gas-producer gear.

I believe elsewhere they are referred to as 'bed iron' locos.

 

What about non-people people?

 

" THERES A HOLE IN THIS BUCKET "

 

Miles off topic, but I believe that’s the reason why Class 40’s are sometimes known as ‘Buckets’

 

Probably easier to find crews passed on Austerities at a railway with a pre existing roster of them than a "foreign" locomotive even if there is a GWR loco on site.

 

It's quite interesting how things go full circle 30 years go the railway was desperate to shed the austerity and mark 1 image now they are embracing it.

From what I've heard the next visitor is a little different from anything that has ever run on the line before.....

Andrew

 

Electric? they've had steam and diesel before so it can't be of those types.

 

A shareholders letter from Southern Locomotives hit my inbox this morning.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

A BoB seems a bit excessive!

 

Do you know something?
All I can see in these comments is "Buckets are cheap."
If there is ONE thing I am getting sick of hearing is how everything is "better because it's cheap."

 

It will be very interesting to see what happens to the visitor numbers.....certainly the Spa Valley has seen a significant boost following the arrival and running of their WC/BoBs

 

Had 73126 but it didn’t use its shoes .

 

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