Swanage Railway General Discussion

If you are a member, you will be aware that there is an open forum next Wednesday. A chance to get some answers

Steve

 

How would a member know?

Just found it in Swanning Around but either the day given (Thu) or Date (12th April) is wrong.

 

I sent it signed for and someone signed for it...

 

I was not aware of that as I let my membership lapse since

 

Very interesting last few pages of Swanning around mag, talking about increased communication with details about many individual projects.

In terms of the Shed
"Herston Shed. The Trust is hopeful that clarification on the current planning issue will be received. A Project Board is to be established to ensure that the project team work closer with PWay, C&W and Ops and dovetail construction work with other commercial plans"

Details that the T3 might miss the forthcoming Anniversary Celebration is sad, but the good news is the trust has confirmed its keen to commence work on the T9 (Is the T9 now long term Swanage-Based??)

Plus a new Strategic and Business plan being created.


Swanage Railway Company: SR Staff - for all who work on or for the railway

 

Well yes but there are a great many members of the Swanage Railway Trust who do not work on or for the railway and do not have access to SR Staff which is in the main password protected.

The Swanage Railway Trust Website - which one could reasonably expect to be the main communication channel between the Trust and its members - is updated infrequently and when I last checked does not mention the Open Forum.

Legally the SRT and SRC are separate organisations with their own separate boards of Directors (Trustees in the case of the Trust). It appears that members of the trust (and others) volunteer their services which are then used by the company being "directed" (probably not quite the right word)by directors and managed by paid employees of the company. The lines do seem to get blurred somewhat.

 

Whilst separate legal entities, SRCL is the operating subsidiary of SRT - and therefore the two combine to form one organisation. Historically, this meant that most 'delivery' was undertaken by the company on behalf of SRT - the clear exceptions being non-commercial activity such as the restoration of historic coaches etc. Whilst I am not aware of the detail of current arrangements, these were in the past project managed by SRT, but with work on SRCL managed land being managed under the SRCL SMS.

 

Access to "Swanning Around" is not password protected. Try https://srstaff.co.uk/swanningaround/index.php

 

The Swanning Around Mag is very very interesting read, comes out monthly. If you never have, give it a read

While on the staff website, its not protected and even the wording in the last paper implies its for everyone.


"I am delighted that John Denison has welcomed a new approach, allowing Swanning Around to be used as a ‘platform’ to improve communications; specifically so that information on future events, plans, projects and strategy can be quickly disseminated across all areas of our working railway."

 

Anyone one know where Eddystone has gone off to? Was being taken via the class 33 towards Norden a few days back and didn't see it anywhere on Tuesday.
Swanage is now down to just two locos, must be one of the lowest number in a very very long time (apart from after the crash in 2017) ?
I know they are only needing one steam even during Easter so they dont need that many atm

 

Eddy is at the North Norfolk railway for their easter weekend running and steam gala next weekend before returning to us.

 

I assume the U was taken poorly during the first trip of the day as when I went down the Co op (to get what Mr Tesco claimed was "unavailable" for our delivery yesterday) there were lots of passengers and no train. The stock from the 10:40 from Norden was at the Swan Brook signal and the loco went to shed, D6515 had already been fired up. Only noticed later in the day the 33 was on the back.
So for the many that love a diesel on the back & 75763[/ATTACH]

 

I note from your photographs, that the train is formed of six coaches, So would have to be top and tailed as it would be too long for the Loco to be able to run round at Swanage.
No idea why the first two trains were running late,

 

That had not occurred to me Andy, but good point.
Maybe the plan was always for the U to do the first trip on its own, I did see it go ut whilst having coffee in the lounge, but other than checking it was still the U never bothered to see how long the sock was or if something was on the back.

 

No issues with 31806 today. There were significant delays to the first down train caused by damaged S&T wiring. Repairs took most of the day, it was simpler to top & tail the train to reduce point and signal movements in Swanage to a minimum.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Very rare on the normal 5.5 miles of the line to be able to find anywhere "new" for an image. But yesterday's lineside clearance between Bridge 21 and Afflington has, with the help of a step ladder opened up some new vistas. The U passing the 2 huts working the 15:20 from Swanage and the DMU cresting "the hump" on the 15:19 from Wareham.

 

If there is a planning issue with the carriage shed why isn't the plans watertight before they launched that appeal for money in 2021? Basically conned supporters to give over money which thanks to their delays and inflation has now been made useless.

And also why has this only been admitted until now? When they originally announced the the delay from 2021/2022 winter to 2022/2023 winter all they mentioned in the main was worries over the omicron variant of COVID and 'other factors'.

 

It refers to a clarification of a planning issue. That could be anything from a change of the cladding colour to whether internal lights are allowed. I would be very very careful about using words like "conned". The appeal was for a carriage shed and a carriage shed is what is being built.
I'm not sure why you're bothered anyway - you've already told us that you let your membership lapse and you don't seem to have many good words to say about the SR. Time to move on perhaps?