Swanage Railway General Discussion

If true that’s a great shame. His name was Freddie Butcher by the way

 

Oops. Wires crossed, I suspect. I know nothing of Mr. Butcher. I was referring to the decline in standards since the franchise changed (predictable, many would say).
Pat

 

A decline that, regardless of the input of Worst Group, is also widely suspected to be linked to an unusually benign regime under SWT for the units, compared to 158s elsewhere in the country. I had heard the word "mollycoddling" used.

 

It's a shame the situation , With the footcrossing in Wareham hasn't been resolved.

Isn't there a rake of MK1s that could be used with 33012.

If it was able to run round etc.

Shame the LT 4tc went home after the gala,
But unless you have a loco mainlined like 33111, then you run into the same issues as using 33012/31806 and the mk1s.

 

Wareham service resumes tomorrow (Wednesday).

 

People from lesser Regions than the Southern have accused the Southern of mollycoddling their trains for many years.
The reliability of the Southern way has its merits!

 

Even if the five 'plated' Mk1s were upgraded to carry passengers - the cost of fitting secondary electric door locking would be exceedingly expensive with money the railway doesn't currently have in all honesty. Also the topic of toilets would be raised. The railway could not afford to install retention toilet systems so the existing toilets would all have to be locked whilst on NR tracks.
Also, even if the foot crossing issues were sorted out satisfactorily [probably at vast expense] - the time taken to run round a set of coaches at Wareham station (which the trackwork allows - but not the signalling) might not easily be fitted in between SWR services. Therefore, it also needs the Down sidings to be brought back into use with the insertion of an additional point at the eastern end to enable running round off the main line. This too would cost a fair bit to install and would, I'm sure, also incur additional Network Rail track access charges as an on-going cost on top of current Wareham running expenses.
Running on the Bournemouth - Weymouth main line is not cheap I'm afraid.

 

Considering how popular the HST's were at Sevrails diesel gala, are these units a way forward?

 

Now you’re talking. An HST set would be wonderful. 1960s’ era though?

 

Where would the Swanage Railway store it when not in use? My sense is that the SR is not over blessed with siding space, and an HST is a lot of train / length to store!

Tom

 

I guess he meant a Castle set or an even shorter version. Quite an appropriate name for a diesel depot located at Corfe. Would be very comfortable but I guess not cheap to run or maintain.

 

I have an idea that a similar barb was aimed at Eastleigh's maintenance of the Cromptons. Considering the consequence of one sitting down on the job outside Waterloo it was money well spent, I'd say.
Pat

 

Quite possibly. But it did cause some jealousy when other fleets of the same unit were much more tightly diagrammed, often working singly rather than in 2s and 3s.


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If the Wareham service does continue, it may be possible to find a cost effective solution for door locking on either the current 5 mk1s or the Swanage 4TC unit (which has made slow but good progress).
The service could be run ocassionally by mainline approved 31806 steam loco and the mainline approved 33 top and tailing so no reversing loop will be needed at Wareham. But something for future operation?.

 

Good news
https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2023/0...to-be-reinstated-after-train-fault-fixed.html

 

Would the single car 121 unit have had enough capacity to have covered the diagram on its own on Tuesday, or was it also affected by a fault?


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Unlikely to come up with a design more cost effective than one that already exists. So the costs, subject to inflation are already known. From memory the ORR document said £231K for a 10 coach set in 2021 pounds, so at least 10% more now I guess.

 

For the distances required, would the ORR make an allowance for a LHCS set?

 

Out of traffic I believe, blown head gasket. Being sorted by Friday

 

Sorry I was referring to the Stores Foreman in my post about the days of steam