Project Wareham

I don't know the operational details, but I wouldn't be surprised if the move to Bournemouth was as much about freeing up Swanage station as anything else: having an HST parked for almost four hours in the station in the middle of the day is hardly operationally convenient. I suspect as well it is probably easier to service the unit at Bournemouth than at Swanage, especially if refuelling is needed. Quite possibly the move would have happened regardless, so being able to sell tickets is just a benefit that gives a bit more revenue to the promoter.

Tom

 

Tom could well be the former but it only spends 12 minutes in Bournemouth so no servicing opportunities. Although I am not sure there would be there anyway, is not all the XC stuff done at Eastleigh?


https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:K12022/2023-09-26/detailed

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:K12023/2023-09-26/detailed

 

Looks to me like it is a move for "get it away from Swanage" reasons. (Also - possibly a crew change somewhere? One crew couldn't do Leeds - Swanage - Leeds in a day, so Bournemouth looks a logical place to pick up a new crew?)

Tom

 

The backing of
Richard Drax MP.
Two heavyweight local politicians Cllr Bill Trite and Cllr Mike Whitwam
The Purbeck Community Rail Partnership

 

A good start. But such backing hasn't helped others of those projects going for that funding.

If the money's available, that's great. But I'm seeing nothing, sadly, that suggests a funding bid would be much more than WIBN.

 

Although I do not think you need to go any further than Norden to get out of the way. In 2021 and 2022 the NB Bournemouth Belle ECS came and stabled on the extension whilst the regular steam service operated, so I assume no signalling issue with that. In 2021 Tornado then came with its support coach to Swanage for servicing. In 2022 it was to diesels so they just stayed on the train. Due to this years trip being a Saturday and hence a Wareham service day I believe the ECS went to Eastleigh.
The fact the mini tour is also a sell out with a wait list implies more money for the XC chosen charity. In fact if the NHS allocated appointments early enough, and I knew when I had to take my wife and Dad to hospital I would have had a ride for the novelty value. By the time most were agreed the mini tour was full, although even yesterday Bournemouth Hospital were ringing my wife about cancellations freeing up space for next week.
I am guessing there will not be any XC HST drivers who sign for Bournemouth any more, let alone as far as Worgret, so not sure who will provide the pilots, I assume XC as far as Bournemouth as it is Voyage territory. A couple of Swanage drivers also drive steam for WCRC and I think one did, or maybe still does, work for XC.

 

Which is why a dedicated charter train siding was built at Harmans Cross a few years ago. Not sure what happened to this? Presumably filled up with their own stock when the SR became short of space.

 

Well as the MP you would hope that Drax would support it. But then he seemed to support the crazy SWR suggestion of one of the Weymouth's turning into a Portsmouth service rather than Waterloo.
Was it not you pointed out earlier Mike Whitwam is a Swanage Councillor not Dorset Council.
Bill Trite is one of 82 Dorset Councillors ,so not sure that would make him any more heavyweight than any of the other 81.

 

If an organisation puts forward an application for a grant, of course the local politicians are going to “enthusiastically back that application”. Why wouldn’t they, it’s a way of generating publicity and making them look committed to the local area. Basically you’ve listed an MP, two local councillors and a pressure group that have it in their job descriptions to be supportive of anything happening on their patch. The Purbeck Community Rail Partnership is hardly going to argue against such a grant, is it?

I’d be rather more convinced at the sincerity of such support if I saw an MP like Drax standing up in parliament arguing for tax rises to pay for genuine significant investment in local transport and other infrastructure, not just showy schemes that tinker round the edges to give the appearance of investment without the actual cost.

Ultimately, it’s easy to be very supportive of a scheme to spend someone else’s money …

Tom

 

The only possibility of funding for the service is, in my opinion, will come from Restore Your Railway fund which SR did make an original application, whether this goes any further might depend on the argument that SR put forward, funding will not come from DC

 

My (purely personal) records of the operation show it planned to be running on 92 days.

That would mean there would be 736 logical connections to and from SWR services, although in my opinion it is the down connections that are the most meaningful serving a far bigger catchment area, especially with many parallel bus routes from the Weymouth end.

4 days only had an hourly service on SWR due to ASLEF overtime ban, so very poor connections to some services.

This is of those 368 down connections this is my take.

6 were lost to issues with the DMU (4 on May 23 no operation and 2 on July 19 door issues). However if the 13:05 had operated on July 19 the SWR 12:58 was delayed sufficiently to miss the connection anyway.

20 were lost to 5 RMT strike days when no SWR service was operated west of Southampton.

4 were lost to a total meltdown of the service on April 13.

3 were lost to a landslip at Micheldever on May 10 (the first connection only being from west of Winchester anyway)

12 other connections due to late running, train faults or short turns at places like Poole, Bournemouth, Southampton or Woking. Some delays were so bad the two previous down services actually missed the connection. July 18 being an especially bad day when the 10:53 finally arrived 84 late and terminated, and the 13:05 which only started at Bournemouth anyway missed the connection also.

2 due to PHBT

There were other services held at Worgret for late running SWR down services leading to late arrival or departure as well as unscheduled re platforming and hence tight connections via the footbridge.

Like 2017 (when the 37 failed on the lunchtime train on the final day) it appeared from RTT the last day jinx struck the lunchtime train again today with the 13:00 arriving 5 late, being re platformed, possibly due to a late running SWR down service, but then spending 35 minutes at Wareham delaying an up service by a further 14 minutes, thus making that 17 late.

There were issues on up services as well with some spectacular delays due to signalling and vandalism issues, causing up trains to lose 100 minutes between Weymouth and Wool on various days.

So I have no idea what any of the passenger loads were, other than the day I spent counting passengers on the service or what I had seen locally. But of course at the Swanage end you have no idea if they are only travelling to or from stations between Norden and Swanage.

So it would appear that around 12% of the potential down connections were impacted in some way or another. So the industrial relations climate has probably not helped a decent analysis to be gleaned this year.

I am sure the railway has collected far more accurate data than I have, but I did mention earlier I would share what I had recorded. I hope at some stage an "official synopsis and verdict" may be shared with the public.

 

I did debate which of a number of potential threads to post this in, Trails & Tribulations of the Tory Party or Have a Good Laugh at some Really Silly Things, but decided to go with this one as it shows where are local MP is focusing his rail activity, although I gather from the recent visit with the minister he supports the link from Wareham, or did that day anyway.

So what I regard as my first General Election leaflet popped through the door in the week. I have attached an image of what he is fighting for us where rail is concerned, plus an image from the leaflet at a well known station with him on the platform astride his motorbike. Good job it was not a banned e scooter!
I take it, as it has been pushed by him before that the proposal is to reinstate double track where it does no longer exist between Dorchester Junction and Castle Cary to "enable faster trains to London"
So on my reckoning the current faster of the two services per hour from Weymouth take 2 hours 46 minutes
Castle Cary to Paddington is 1 hour 46
Weymouth to Castle Cary 1 hour 06

I accept that due to the single track the services via Yeovil Pen Mill are often seriously delayed but if double tracked where is the time saving unless all the stops are missed out, of which there are only 7 and 3 of those are request stops anyway.

I am of course assuming the proposal is not for some new junction to the Exeter line where trains already take 2 hours 40 minutes from Yeovil Junction to Waterloo.

Other things confuse me, this is the MP who supported the SWR proposal to reroute one of the Weymouth's to Portsmouth and have people have to change at Southampton Central, does that not make the journey longer to London? He is MP For South Dorset, yet the only stations in his constituency impacted by this are Weymouth, Upwey and both the Dorchester Stations.

I wonder what the DfT and the Treasury think of these ideas, two letter word beginning with N I suspect.

 

reposted from the SR thread as part of a post from Cuckoo Line https://www.national-preservation.c...eneral-discussion.37847/page-479#post-2846025 which lead to a discussion

But the Swanage Railway has not yet published the results of the trial.

The wording of the Save our Railway lists it as one of the 2023 successes.

There has been some problems, but the Save our Railway Appeal says the work on bridge 11 took more money than expected. This would have had to be spent even if the trial did not take place.

A lot of people, especially those making a day trip to the railway and Swanage from Hampshire, Surrey and London by train, welcomed using the heritage train (rather than a bus) at Wareham.

Hopefully the results will be published and a viable way of running the Wareham service again in 2024 can be found.

 

There is no viable way to run the Wareham service without significant Government subsidy and I strongly suspect there is zero chance of that in the near future.

 

Have you seen a report on the 2023 Wareham service from the SR to confirm this, or just your thoughts?
In a recent Modern Railways report there was, "While the ‘117’ option has cut costs, Mr Johns told Modern Railways that unfortunately the indications are that the through service will still not wash its face financially and will require cross-subsidy from the SR’s core steam operation."
There was talk of the insurance and the need to hire a WCR driver being high?.
But so far the "indications" have not been confirmed in any report it made a profit or loss?

 

Even just taking direct costs I think it would need to carry more passengers than there were seats.

 

To be honest, i don't think there is the slightest chance that the service made money.
I travelled on the service twice, both times i would have visited the line anyway so the only additional revenue from me was the difference between my Wareham to Swanage ticket and what i would have paid Norden to Swanage. I can't remember off hand what that difference was.
And having sampled the service for novelty reasons, i would not do it again. Next season i will drive to Norden irrespective. The timetable with the Wareham DMU and the need to interface with mainline connections just did not work to give me a decent time on the railway.

 

No, I know nothing more than anyone else but I understand service costs and subsidies and am making an educated guess.

 

For me the service started too late so we used the
Bus from Wareham but returned via the DMU. The DMU service resulted in fewer steam services and therefore the need to operate 6 coaches and a DL at peak times. In my view if it operates in 2024 it should complement the steam service an not compromise it. Possibly Wareham to Corfe only

 

As I have mentioned before this is the crux of the matter:
Wareham Revenue
(1) All the ticket revenue from customers who travelled on the Swanage Railway because they could travel to / from Wareham and would not have used the railway otherwise.
(2) The difference between the Swanage <> Norden fare and the Swanage <> Wareham fare for passengers who would used have used the railway in any case (as @ikcdab for example)
Principal Wareham Costs
(1)the traction costs between Norden and Wareham
(2) Wareham Station access charges
(3) Track access charges (Mainline)
(4) Mainline insurance premium
(5) Any additional staff costs.

I have not seen any figures but my best estimate is the Wareham deficit is between £135K and £160K though as the Wareham service acted as part of the core service and not as an addtional service (as in 2017) there will have been some savings on the "core service".

Whatever the actual figure I sincerely believe that SRC need to advise Dc and other interested parties that the service will not operate again for the reasons so ably described upthread. It then needs to undertake a sales and charm offensive so that its loss (in reputational terms) is swamped by a wave of positivity.

It complemented the core steam service in 2017. It was suggested that it ran Wareham <> Corfe Castle only so that it didnt "over service" the core Swanage <> Norden route, didnt congest Swanage Station, and so that it could operate 5 or 6 times a day thus testing the demand for Wareham much more comprehensively.