9017 "Earl of Berkeley"

Can't. It's part of the agreement made with the person who bought her and donated her to the Bluebell that she can't be sold on.

 

Shame really.... Surely that person would rather see her running somewhere rather than sitting in the eternal overhaul queue

 

12 engines? What on earth are you doing that requires 12 engines? The SVR needs about 7 or 8 to get through its summer peak service. If you need 12 engines then it's time to either start using diesels a bit more often to relieve the pressure on your workshop or reduce the number of trains you run to lengthen the life-span on each engine.

 

Just what I was thinking. The MHR needs six locos to cover summer peak season.

 

As I said - 10 - 12 gives some contingency. The service will run with 6 or 7 (as it is at the moment) but doesn't give much slack and sometimes means you're running a service with a sub-optimal engine (i.e. running a light train with too big an engine, or a heavy train double headed).

Bear in mind the following:

1) Most Sunday's we need 4 engines to run the service: a big engine (which in our terms is Class 4 or above) on the 11am / 1pm / 3pm train; a medium engine (class 2 or above most of the year, though it will need to be a big engine at peak times) on the 12am / 2pm / 4pm train; a medium engine on the lunchtime Golden Arrow; a medium engine on the afternoon "Wealden rambler" cream tea train. The latter two are pre-booked so are favoured by the operating department as they essentially remove some of the variability that the other trains have in terms of whether passengers will turn up! This is pretty much a year-round operation; the only difference in the summer peak is that we need two large engines for the service trains in the summer, but two medium engines in the winter.

2) On Saturdays we generally need 3 engines - the two service engines plus a shunting engine. However, often a fourth is needed, for example if there is a wedding special or other private hire. The engine working the 11am / 1pm / 3pm gets back about 4:30pm and is then used on the evening Golden Arrow dining train, so doesn't finally get back on shed until about 11pm. (Needless to say there is a crew change!)

The fact that 4 engines of various sizes are needed over the weekend, all year round, probably means a running fleet of 6 to 7, which matches what the comment about what the SVR needs, without allowing for any failures.

3) We have a lot of variability in train weight: at one extreme our heaviest trains (requiring a class 4 or bigger - our steepest gradient is 1:60, the same as the Mid Hants) runs to 6 Mark 1s; at the other extreme we do good (and pre-booked!) business in the shoulder seasons running just our 1913 Observation Car with a P class or a Rooter. So we don't really have one type of engine that can do all our trains; that means we need more variation in size between a Rooter and a Battle of Britain (or at least between a Rooter and a Standard 4). If we only had 6 or 7 big engines, we couldn't run the Observation Car Specials; if we only ran Rooters and Ps, we couldn't run a Satan service.

4) We have a couple of turns that look a bit like an extravagance; notably a winter steam heat / pose turn during the santa season (normally covered by Stepney or Baxter) and the Saturday shunts. However, these are valuable from a crew training point of view, as well as providing another attraction for the punters, so efforts by some to suppress them are fiercely resisted in some quarters! In practice, the steam heat turn justifies having a tiny loco like Stepney (which is also our flagship) and it can also be used for brake van rides etc on gala days, but isn't up to much else. The operating department have a secret diseasal head in their midst and keep trying to roster the 08 for the shunt, but in the loco department it is considered valuable experience to engage in steam shunting.

5) Using a diseasal to run off-peak services is still largely a dirty word on a railway whose motto is "let steam flourish"!

We have made some changes to ease the situation: The lunchtime golden arrow has been lightened so that it is now within the load limit of a class 2 engine - this was achieved by swapping a Mk 1 pullman support vehicle and a separate Van C brake for a single LMS Stove R which functions in both capacities. We have also removed the early morning / late afternoon half-line service from SP to HK and back, which has almost no operational impact but generated a lot of excess mileage.

So steps are in hand, but the bottom line is we run a pretty intensive service, all year round but with a wide variety of train weights - that's why the plan calls for an ideal of 10 - 12 engines in service! It is certainly in my view a more complex and varied service than the MHR, with greater variety of train weights and just as steep gradients; I can't speak for how it compares with the SVR - though I'd suspect that if that railway needs 6 - 7 engines to run its peak service, the Locomotive Director I'm sure would probably want 10 - 12 serviceable if he could get it!

Tom

 

If you need 4 engines and have 6 or 7 then you've got plenty of slack for failures. The SVR have run quite a few days this year with all their available steam fleet out (and some turns have been covered by diesels) but if your maximum number needed on any given day is 4 (of various sizes) trying to get 3 times that amount in traffic seems pointless when having a few spare will do.

 

I wrote:

One other point which is another near-unique feature of the Bluebell, certainly relative to other "large" railways: more than half our loco fleet (taking account of engines in currently service and those not) is over 100 years old. Indeed this includes 5 engines over 130 years old (Fenchurch will be 140 next year), two of which are currently in service (Stepney, built 1875 and Baxter, built 1877).

Of the medium engines, which are operationally useful, every one is over 100 years old if you reckon on the Dukedog consisting of a rebuild of two Victorian engines:

27505 - Built 1880
488 - Built 1885
65 - Built 1896
B473 - Built 1898
9017 - Built essentially 1899 / 1906
592 - Built 1902
263 - Built 1905

Inevitably with such engines, which have all done pretty big mileages, overhauls become progressively more complex each time. For the record, our oldest engine, Fenchurch, has done about 1,400,000 miles since she was built!

Tom

 

Neil - if on some days all your steam fleet is out and some turns have been covered by diesels, then by definition you don't have enough steam locos available to cover the service!

Also, as I said in my previous post: our problem is that on any one day we only need four locos, but sometimes (during the Santa season) that is 3 big ones and a small one; sometimes (during the winter) it is probably two medium and two small engines. You can't cover that requirement with only 6 or 7 engines without sometimes double heading two small engine to make the equivalent of one big one; or else running one/two coach trains with a class 4 or above. So it is not the number needed on any one day, but the variety needed throughout the year.

Tom

 

If you need 12 engines because you're overhauling lots of small ones that can't pull your trains then that suggests a strategic problem.

 

What about 1638, 1618 & 541...? All locomotives that are classed as medium engines in preservation.

 

The strategy doesn't only call for small engines: it calls for a mix:

(That comes from a 2006 loco availability paper, but I don't think the strategy has formally changed since then).

So the problem isn't the strategy, but the capacity (especially boiler repair capacity) to deliver the strategy! If the SVR has a match between strategy and capacity, all power to them. But I suspect difficulties keeping up with ever growing traffic requirements with increasingly old equipment are going to hit lots of railways.

Anyway, we should probably agree to disagree on this point.

Tom

 

They are classified as large in our terms! (Large in our terms is any engine that can take a full load along our line, which in effect means 6 Mark 1s).

Tom

 

Well, since my original comment seems to have vanished, and to draw this back to a discussion of Earl of Berkeley rather than the Bluebell's overall locomotive needs,

Its a shame to see her laid up early, but no doubt as a useful locomotive both on the Bluebell and in recent years, waving the Bluebell colours across the UK on tour in both GWR Green and laterly BR Black. I'm sure she will find a spot in the que for a quick return to service. Assuming she's been well cared for during the past 8+ years or so since her last overhaul was completed in 2003, hopefully not a lot of restorative work will be needed to see her back in service.

 

Why can't a class 2 haul a six coach train? The M7 does at Swanage when we run 6 and it does it very well. Also why doesn't the bluebell expect a locomotive to do 10 years in traffic?? It seems crazy to me!
The overhauling of little engines like the P class tanks, sure is nice, but is it securing the core business?? No its not.

 

Firstly, it's not just the weight, it's the gradients as well. We have a section at 1:60 and most of the line at 1:75 one way, some of which is in a rather damp tunnel. Hence the load limit for a class 2 is I believe 180 tons: not enough for 6 mark 1s. What is the steepest gradient at Swanage?

The reason for not expecting locos to always run 10 years I elaborated before: the mileages are pretty high, so sometimes a loco will be mechanically worn before ten years. This problem is exacerbated by having fewer service locos, meaning greater annual mileages on each loco that is available. Taken to extremes, we could probably work a loco up to 20,000 miles in a year if it just worked week in, week out, but it would probably only last about 3-4 years.

Some locos, even the big ones, do last the full ten years. 80151 did its full ten and has had an extension that will see it run 11 years before it is finally withdrawn. But if a loco (such as 9017 in this case) fails after, say, 8 years, it is a judgement whether the repairs needed are worth the money just for another two years service, especially if the rest of the loco is also tired.

The P class locos are surprisingly useful: they can run the Obo specials in spring / autumn very efficiently, which is quite a money-spinner, extending our core season by several weeks each end of the summer; but with a load limit of 80 tons they can also take the 4 Mets which, in terms of seating capacity, is a pretty respectable train, as well as being good shunting engines. The main operational problem with them is limited water capacity.

Tom

 

Being slightly fatuous, 1 in 54; albeit only for a short distance at the end of Norden platform, but its there nonetheless. In terms of proper gradients though, 2 miles of 1 in 76 approaching Harmans X from the Swanage direction. Its then downhill to Corfe from Afflington bridge, so there is more awareness of water level than necessarily when you're only really climbing one way.

How long is the 1 in 60 section at the Bluebell? I have fired at the Bluebell on visits a good few years ago, and found it a relatively straightforward line to fire to; presumably the majority of the climb is at lesser gradients, and like most 'banks' it undulates along the way.

 

The 1.60 bit is not long and just before the tunnel i think. Swanage has a climb all the way from Swanage to HX 1 in 76. There is a 1 in 80 climb from Corfe Castle to Afflington bridge. This lasts for approximately 1.5 miles.
Swanage is an interesting line to work. I was a cleaner at the bluebell for a while and did not find it an arduous line to fire. Its simple to be honest, up hill to Kingscote, down hill to sheffield park. easy!

Its just an observation that the bluebell don't expect a loco to do 10 years. When the U came out they only expected it to last 8. Seemed very alien to me and if i'm honest, it still does.

Load limit of 180 is a little bit on the light side! Thats only 5

 

I dont see why they need 11 engines ok they need the shunters but how many engines are needed for peak services?

 

There seems an underlying point to this thread, and that is a lot of people want to see 9017 out & about. The Bluebell have stopped the loco as a business case. They can't sell the loco; it was donated (by RV Gomm?).

However, is there a case for the loco getting done 'outside'? Ownership issues are unaffected, and a nice looking loco into the bargain. Seems a result all round.

Ian

 

It all depends on what you mean by "done outside", doesn't it? If by that you mean"overhauled by a contractor" that would presumably depend on finance being available. If on the other hand you mean "loan it to someone else to be done up by them" you'd have to query whether this is a viable option for bth parties - would the recipients get enough out of it to make funding the overhaul worthwhile, and what would be in it for the Bluebell in return? The satisfacyion of seeing a loco in steam and being used elsewhere (and being further worn out) would probably not be enough!