Linear Scrapyard Award 2011

Several years ago Ian Allan, fed up with the appalling lavatory facilities found on too many tourist railways, began a "name and shame" campaign to raise standards. This had a noticeably beneficial effect and although things are not perfect nowadays they are considerably better than they were.

However there is another perennial problem with these railways which appears to show no improvement. This is the tendency to create linear scrapyards. For example, collections of dismantled saddle tanks, unlikely ever to turn a wheel again but, even if they did, not likely to be of much use as revenue earners and carriage stock awaiting somewhere with the skills of Boston Lodge or Haven Street but with small hope of this happening. Non enthusiast passengers, going for an enjoyable excursion in nice surroundings, are unlikely to be entranced by such sights or by piles of unidentifiable grot.

What about encouraging the sinners to repent by having an informal competition in this forum? To kick this off my nomination is the Spa Valley Railway. My apologies to the hard working associates of the SVA, whose achievements in re-opening to Eridge and thus moving into a higher league, are great but quite a lot of the nice views from the carriage are spoiled by the stuff in the foreground.

 

Too many to choose from!

 

I d wrote a similar version of this thread a few months ago about neglected carriages and wagons.

The problem as I see it is finding out who the owners are before doing something about them. Too many of these so called restorations started will with enthusiasm only to flounder at the first obstacle, usually cash flow of someone has died or moved on.

Many years later and there is hardly anyone around who remembers who these owners are, though you start to move these rust buckets off the railway and Solicitors letters will come crawling out of the woodwork.

Ned I say more?

Regards
Chris:

 

Its easy enough to identify the problem but the solution is harder which makes this kind of thing a little bit negative. Fixing up toilets is really a question of decent cleaning or maintenance - basic stuff. However supposing you have a load of stock awaiting restoration. If your railway is fairly limited in terms of land space, its likely that the only space is going to be a siding on the formation of the double track with the single operating line going past. Finding enough space to put it into a yard isn't always possible although this would compress the problem and reduce the amount of view blocked. Similarly putting it all under cover would just divert resources from actually fixing it up. Presumably if it could be fixed up it would be or would be in the process of.

So if hiding it isn't practical, and fixing it up is beyond the resources of the line at present, the only other likely outcome to a concerted campaign of this nature is a lot of stock being scrapped - possibly including some gems. Unless of course you get into the forbidden question of whether there is a limited to what should be preserved and how many lines we should have. Logic suggests this might be sensible but try telling that to whoever has just saved a 1901 ferret skin wagon and is planning on spending the next 30 years restoring it to its full stinking glory complete with real ferret pelts! In any walk of life there are odd balls and rail preservation is no different - my idea of scrap/junk is someone elses pride and joy.

 

Its a difficault one this, what is to some an eyesore, is to someone else a gem, everywhere has its forgotten coaches, wagons locos etc , all waiting for the call to the workshop that will propbally never come but you dare not scrap it , but have not got the funds to do much to it, take vintage coaches for instance , everyone likes to see a restored victorian rake , imagine the outcry if you cut up or burnt that old body that someone had brought to your railway and it turned out to be the last one , its all down to the skill factor also, if you dont have the skilled people to restore a woodern bodied coach might it be best to allow it to go elsewhere, where it might get the attension it needs, Locos, if still complete can always be tydied up by giving them a cosmetic job
Another thing is the never throw anything away types that every railway has, you often find things put in the cess 20 years ago because it was thought, we might need that,and it gets forgotten about and by the time its rediscovered its only fit for scrap, but will the owner let you weigh it in ,never we might still need that!!

 

The Heritage Railway Association are to debate this very subject at a business meeting next month.

 

The infamous headshunt of doom at Ropley must be a contender. However I do think it is unfair to single out railways like this. Often these "scrapyards" are created because railways are generous to individuals and owners who need somewhere to store their vehicles while they await restoration, otherwise vehicles would just be disposed of and lost. Storing them out of site would help reduce what some people would see as an eyesore but we know what happens if any railway suggests building such storage sheds!

 

The first one to spring to mind, is Horsted Keynes. The many sidings and the long ardingly apur siding full of rotten carriages and trucks and sometimes some locos.
My main problem with this is that couldn't that whole platform that is taken up with carriages at least be used by something more entertaining. On the 50th rally , there was brake van rides on bluecircle in here and the carriage shop is here, but otherwise is just the a fore mentioned grot. Maybe could use some of the carriages there for a model railway. There was one at the bluebell before at Sheffield park, I think. In their defence, they do have a lot of stock which would otherwise have been lost and their carriage and wagon works is here, but couldn't they at least try and hide the rot a bit more or use them for something.

By the way, I know it sounds like an anti-bluebell rant, but that couldn't be more opposite to my own views. The bluebell is my favorite line and good work to them on the extension.

 

It's a fair cop, though there are actually a good number of unique vehicles there - the problem is having the resources to overhaul them.

That said, people may be interested to know that now that the Sheffield Park "Woodpax" (or "Turner's siding") shed is built, with space for 17 coaches from the running fleet, the railway has now obtained planning permission for the next phase of Operation Undercover, which will see a shed on the down side of HK (behind the current C&W works) with space for another 24 full-length vehicles (or more shorter ones). This will provide better accommodation for wooden vehicles awaiting their turn for restoration.

It's also worth remembering that the "linear scrapyard" is not a new phenomenon: in the early years of the last century, Brighton Works had a backlog of repairs and engines waiting repair were dumped at Horsted Keynes, sometimes for years at a time - where we have sidings full of old coaches, once there were lines of "Gladstones", "D Tanks" and similar.

Tom

 

I had intended to let this thread "brew" a little more before responding but this post raises a couple of things.

It is not so much stuff lying around obvious workshop areas such as Ropley that strike me as a problem. It is things like the lineup of crippled stock between Alton and Butts which look such a mess, a classic linear scrapyard indeed.

Compared with the orderly situation in much of the Welsh narrow gauge where the railway companies tend to own the equipment the situation on the standard gauge seems almost anarchic. With a multiplicity of ownerships it will be very difficult indeed for the necessary hard decisions to be made about what to keep and what to scrap.

 

Always wondered what the sidings were used for originally.
Are there any photos about of the sidings used like that ?

 

A fair point Paul and I can give you a couple of answers.

1, This line is about half of what it was 6 years ago as we are gradually working our way through it.

2, What is left creates something of a problem. Some of this is owned by groups with "grandfathers" rights, some are owned by we do not know who, and some are in store for owners who IMHO would rather see them rot than let anyone else restore it, a very sad situation.

There are also a number of track panels recovered from the Gosport branch and some wheel sets which were stored here while the building work was going on at Ropley.

Does this help to explain a few things to you?

Regards
Chris Willis
Mid-Hants Wagon Group

 

Chris (coal wagon) raises an interesting point; lots of items bought by well meaning owners who have neither the skills, finance or ability to restore them but are loath to allow anyone else to try and restore them adorn many railways. I have seen the same and tired of trying to reason with owners who would rather see them rot than restored. To sum this up, i saw a former GWR coach who's roof remains were 18 inches from touching the under frame recently, when i enquired why such a thing which even if it were unique was totally beyond restoration was being retained by the railway i was told we couldn't possibly dispose of it as it belongs to X a life long member who we couldn't possibly upset. Afraid a hard policy of realism for both the allowing of such on to your line or the removal (or disposal) should the promised restoration happen is the only answer or let your railway look like the door step of a landfill site which is not appealing to the 'general public' who now form the vast majority of our fare paying passengers. If anything ends up in siding two of our up yard its not because its a long term restoration project but on borrowed time waiting for the grim cutters torch!

 

A line of wagons just rotting/rusting away and unlikely to be restored (for whatever reason) is a sad sight on any line, especially when there may be other railways that would be glad to have them.

 

My nomination goes to Coventry Railway Centre

 

My Saturday visit to the MHR was my first for a couple of years and on my shorp hop from Ropley up to Medstead and back I did notice the MHR's version of Barry Docks had shrunk quite a bit!

But many of the reasons for stock sitting out on sidings seemingly rotting away have been explained. And realistically there seems no immediate answer to it. Quiet sidings heading off into a secluded woodland away from the running lines and public observation areas are not that common. Neither is finance or space available for massive sheds to hide everything away in. And history has show that some of these "hopeles cases" may actually get put back into service some stage in the future.

So we have to live with it, IMHO. With the Heritage Railways doing their best no doubt to reduce the impact of the resulting eyesore as much as time, space and money allows.

 

Ask the army for old/scrap/surplus camoflage and cover it up! Mind you I have seen a couple of cases where it was unclear where the vegetation stopped and the rolling stock began.

I think Chris has hit the nail on the head, we are going to reach a point where the stuff that people will not allow to be moved/sold/restored will disintegrate leaving only that which is cared for. Is that right? Will we lose some valuable pieces? At the end of the day you can not force someone to sell if they don't want to. You could claim damages for the pile of scrap left on the railway but it would only see valuable money spent on the legal process and I think we have enough rich solicitors and barristers as it is.

 

Interesting topic. What is grot today is a gem tomorrow. The last few big restorations carried out in the C&W have in effect been reconstructions with the bodies being completely dismantled into component parts and re-ercted using new and reusable pieces. Much of the collapsed grot that is laying around will be resurrected one day but will be comprehensively rebuilt in this manner as opposed to the old patch, repair and rebuild methods.

Very tempting to get rid of the rot-box that has been hanging around for decades but this maybe the next coach of the year winner. If you want to see what was a terminally rotten and stripped hopeless case then look at the LSWR brake third No.1520 now in service at the Bluebell. This was rotten, doors long sealed, in danger of collapse due to rotten bottom rails caused through the vehicle being home to the Fire Department (who regularly sprayed hundreds gallons of water about), was stripped to a shell when it became a departmental vehicle in 1948 and was low priority because of its low seating capacity. Utterly hopeless case. A small group was formed (and was laughed at by most others), learnt as they went on and now 15 odd years later a totally unique survivor is running and looks fantastic. This is the other side of the coin.

Chris hits the nail on the head with the dingbats who dump rolling stock on railways and then cannot / will not do anything with them and refuse anybody else the chance to do so. Quite often they die, lose interest or move away and the damn thing is left there destined to rot into the P.Way.