Swanage Railway General Discussion

I believe the Weymouth signalling can only cope with 10 coaches and two locos, but could be wrong. Certainly a DCE is very close to the signal. Also from a quick picture scan both the NB and Statesman tours this year had 10 plus 2 as well.

 

The signalling at Swanage can cope with extra length trains, as it did last Tuesday with the Cross country HST.
The problem is that the train would either have to run ECS to Corfe Castle down platform loop or berth beyond Norden Gates.
That is why the CC HST did a trip to Bournemouth and back, in the event from videos I have seen posted on youtube, Bournemouth was chock a block with trains in both platform 2 and the extension platform 4.

 

I suspect Bournemouth was still recovering from the operating shambles caused by the PHBT incident in the morning and hence lots of late running and short turned service trains.

 

The Northern Belle is normally 11 coaches, including two of the longer Mark 3s plus two locos. It has fitted into Weymouth ok on the occasions that I've worked it.

Peter

 

Thanks, looking at the websites the "Blue Pullman" seems to use Paignton as the Southern terminus.
"Farewell to XC HST" tour also had two other titles "Pines Express" which originally terminated at Bournemouth, but good it was extended to Swanage and also ran as the "Bournemouth Belle". Guess as the "Pines Express" was first a steam train, could run again as a railtour to Bournemouth and Swanage again in 2024 but with a different train rather than a HST?

Notice on FB the first "Purbeck Piddler" seemed to run OK yesterday, so might return one day?

 

If money was no issue, Swanage really could do with an HST set of its own and in summer run direct trains from Bournemouth/Southampton (semi fast from Eastleigh). I'm sure there would be demand, as it would mean no change at Wareham and providing a much quicker service than by car and having a very high capacity compared to any other service.

2+ 7 is around 200 meters long which would fit in plat 2 right up to the crossover points next to the signal box enabling it to either shunt into the sidings or plat 1. (Both would mean nothing could move anywhere to the west side of the running line however it would enable the steam to still use p2 and use the engine shed all day long.

Wishful thinking, but I can dream

 

But couldn't it also be done with the existing 117/121 mainline approved railcar, maybe also the more luxurious Brighton Belle which I understand will be based at Eastleigh when it re enters service?

 

Third rail to Swanage?

 

Given the new guts of the Brighton Belle are from a 4-CEP, wouldn't any flavour of 33 or 73 be able to get it from Wareham to Swanage?

(I will be waiting with wallet on hair-trigger for the Brighton Belle)

 

http://brightonbelle.com/history
"The BR Mk6 motor bogies was chosen and reliability, excellent power and a good ride is expected. Note the lifting shoegear, allowing Brighton Belle to work off the third rail, to be push-pull by a Class 73 or fitted Class 33. This is an extremely flexible train!"

 

Not that I am objecting to enhancing Herbert Walker's legacy and fending off the devil's knitting tho...

 

Is your objective to run the Swanage Railway as a primarily steam-hauled heritage attraction, or to enable people to get to the beach quick without driving? Because I am pretty sure the two are incompatible, and running the kind of mainline service you envisage would kill the heritage railway - and a few years later collapse itself when you couldn't attract volunteers to maintain the infrastructure just to run completely inappropriate trains.

Tom

 

Up until now the T3 has been funded by the SR Trust and volunteer contributions, a truly magnificent effort by those involved. From this Sunday the T3 will be carrying fare paying passengers which raises some interesting conjecture on the finances of the venture. This, I think, is the first loco to be owned by the SR Trust, until now all locos have been hired in by the SR Company from their respective owners. So from Sunday will the SR Trust have agreed a hire agreement with the SR Company to hire the T3 and if so what will happen to the hire fees within the Trust's income. One would hope that the T3 income will be put into a restricted account that can only be used to service, maintain and overhaul the loco. If done this way it frees up the T3 team, should they so wish, to now concentrate on the T9's overhaul and together with the Trust reach a beneficial agreement with the NRM on the T9's future.

I look forward to completing the token exchange with 563 on Sunday and shall watch it pass with pride in those who made this achievement happen.

 

The T3’s overhaul is completely paid for, so it enters service in a good position of not owing anything to anyone. I believe the SRC will pay the SRT steaming fees for its use, the same as it would to any other loco owner. These will then accrue in a ring fenced account to pay for the next overhaul, and any running maintenance required.

 

Why put it is a ring fenced account? I can understand the use of such accounts where the money has bee gifted by a person for a particular purpose but surely it is better for any steaming fees to go into the general account. The SRT may have urgent need of funds in other directions and it would be folly to have money sitting in the bank that cannot be used for this purpose. It may be 10 or more years before there is any need to spend significant amounts on th T3 and the world can change a lot in that time.

 

So apart from the most important points that @Jamessquared has covered and the question why on earth would the railway want to do it, the following occurred to me. Lets assume someone with a bucket full of money gave them a 2 +7
You appear to be suggesting that the Swanage Railway applies to become an Open Access Operator. Therefore I must assume you are proposing to run this service every day?
Why would the licence be approved when under current arrangements the government pay SWR and XC a management fee and this would be extracting money from their fare box, which these days ends up finding its way eventually back to H.M. Treasury. The government would be approving competition on a very short route, already served by four (two to Wareham) SWR and one XC per hour. I am of course here assuming you would be proposing the carriage of non Swanage passengers, if not then the costs would be horrendous for carting around loads of fresh air.
Where is this 2 +7 going to reside? The railway is not exactly awash with spare siding space.
What would be the back up plan for failure, spare power cars? Would it get up Parkstone Bank on just one?
It is a 40 mile mainly two track railway to Southampton (totally two track to Redbridge apart from Brockenhurst. So every delay that SWR currently suffer, suicides, track circuit failures, signal failures etc would be suffered by this service.
A XC Voyager takes 30 minutes from Bournemouth to Southampton and the tour last week another 20 from Bournemouth to Wareham. So that is around 54 minutes, if you only call at Brockenhurst and Bournemouth. It is then about 45 minutes (if on time) to get to Swanage. So total journey from Southampton 1 hour 40 to 45. How many round trips do you propose in a day, and unless you stop everywhere someone like your self in Christchurch would still either have to change at Bournemouth or Wareham.
So how many paid staff are you going to need to operate this? Whilst you may get away with Bridge 4 to Wareham or Grosmont to Whitby with volunteers I do not see the ORR being impressed with volunteers operating something like this.
How do you handle passengers on days the Swanage unit fails, the Lumo example shows that everything is fine until a DfT says they will not accept the tickets. Would you tell people to buy another ticket or lay on an RRB.
That is before you get to the potential of all the delay minutes if your HST sits down on the 2 track railway and where the rescue loco comes from and on the modern disjointed railway could it even couple up?

I am sure there are many many more, these are just what popped into my in bed having read your post just before bedtime.
Maybe your post was tongue in cheek to see if anybody bit, well I did.

Of course if a donated Castle set was offered the railway may view that as a DMU alternative but I suspect it uses a lot more fuel, and is of a different era to that the railway portrays.

 

I think this confuses two points. One is how deposits are held, where I agree that pooling moneys may be a more efficient way to manage liquidity, with longer term funds held in investment accounts. The charity still has separate accounting for the different restricted funds, but gets the benefits of scale in how they are held on the balance sheet.

However, if the payments are into a restricted fund, then by definition they are not available for other uses. Just treating steaming fees as part of general income, rather than reserving them to one side, is robbing Peter to pay Paul, and guaranteeing that any appeal for restoration in 10 years or so will be more significant.

Written by a chair of finance with a low General Fund and healthy Fabric Fund.

 

The problem with that approach is that there are other much needed developments - such as the carriage shed - that the money could be used for, but in ten years time will those developments have generated cash to refill the T3 overhaul fund? In some cases they might - e.g. using the T3 earnings to bring another SR mogul back into service - but others, like the carriage shed, or perhaps improvements to the workshops or a development at Wych Farm -might not. It's the problem that has led to overhaul queues up and down the country where locos have been used without accumulating an overhaul fund and then parked, and attention has moved to something else that is easier and cheaper. I doubt if anyone wants to see that happen to the T3.

 

@Tom02 deserves credit for starting with "if money was no issue"; I'm sure we all have a long list of things that we believe would be wonderful if only that condition could be met! I therefore read it as a statement that he (a) believes there should be a through service to Swanage and (b) likes HSTs, so (c) proposes combining the two. At that level, I've read many worse ideas on here!

The bit I don't get is why an HST is the ideal train for the purpose given that the line west from Southampton hardly stretches them, Parkestone Bank notwithstanding. But then I'd far rather a 33/1 and TC!

 

OTOH - currently inflation is high. So any money put into a ring-fenced account now will be worth significantly less in 10 years time when it is needed; while at the same time, any project that is delayed now for want of funds will become more expensive by time it is actually delivered. So there is a lot of sense in spending accrued money now to lessen the cost of today's project.

For example, with inflation currently at 7%, £100 of steaming fee banked today will only be worth £50 at today's prices in 10 years time when you want to use it. But if at the same time you have to delay a more important project by, say, 1 year for want of that £100, it will cost you £107 by time you come to deliver it. So you lose out both ways.

One of the reasons that Railway memberships elect Trustees is to make difficult decisions around priorities and funding. Obviously if you have a newly outshopped loco now, you need to be mentally preparing that in ten years you will have to overhaul it. But ring-fenced funds aren't necessarily the best way to do that, especially in an environment where inflation is high. If the railway owned all its own locos, I suspect you would probably just be budgeting that every year you needed to budget sufficient revenue in your workshop to be able to overhaul a loco approximately every two years. (And probably a carriage every two years; 1/4 mile of track replacement every year etc etc). In other words, it is a steady-state calculation.

Tom