Swanage - Wareham / Purbeck Community Rail Partnership October'11 minutes

If you are an avid follower of the reconnection project like me (!) you might be interested in the following:

http://www.dorsetforyou.com/media.jsp?mediaid=168156&filetype=pdf

http://www.dorsetforyou.com/media.jsp?mediaid=168157&filetype=pdf

Apologies for not knowing how to label the URLs nicely. The first is the October'11 meeting minutes and the second is the Appendix (action list). There is some fascinating reading in there. Makes you realise just how much has to be done to get this scheme up and running.

Best wishes,
Nigel

 

Taken from the Minutes: "DMUs
The DMU sale has been concluded.
DCC (DC) will advise on the situation for retained spare parts."

And from the Action Plans:
10 Purbeck
Community
Rail
Partnership/
DCC
17/6//09 Rolling Stock Options Significant There was a suggestion to hire some 1950s
“Hastings” stock for six weeks to run to
Wareham starting in June 2013. MS to
make further enquiries.
5 DMUs have been sold with DCC Cabinet
approval. Negotiations are occurring for the
removal of the final drive unit and other parts
that would be useful as strategic spares for the
current vehicles from the remaining DMUs.
It would cost in the region of £¾ million to
refurbish and transport the remaining units to
Dorset, however the cost of continuing to store
them in Warwickshire is more expensive. The
preferred option is to bring the units to Dorset
(Furzebrook Sidings) as soon as the sidings
became available.
SR advised that following
discussions the earliest that alternative DMU
stock could come off lease would be
2015/2016 so refurbished Class 117 may be
the best option at present. A meeting with DfT
is being held on 31/10 to consider differential
standards application perhaps as a pilot
scheme. A trial using a First Great Western
unit may be possible in 2012."

Can anyone confirm from who-who these units have been sold? Ie: from the project or to the project and what these units are? Any idea what FGW will be trialling on the branch as IIRC, 158's and 159's are not cleared at Wareham and are 2nd generation DMU's the option being looked at for the Norden-Wareham extension or the refurbished 117's as muted by the SR?

Overall the information is very interesting and I look forward to when all the issues have been resolved so once again the opportunity to travel from the mainline down to Swanage without the need to book a railtour is available.

 

The only DMU's coming off lease in the forseeable future are Pacer's, and perhaps the Chiltern 121's following the East-West Rail reinstatement - 117's or the Hastings unit look like the best option to me and wouldnt look out of place on a heritage line.

Chris

 

158's and 159's are passed all the way to Weymouth.

 

From Yeovil via Maiden Newton and Dorchester West yes but we were advised last year that 159's were not passed beyond Bomo Depot and the issue was to be looked at by NR. This was to enable a proposed staff railtour to be run but subsequently did not come off for this reason.

 

Thank goodness Pacers are banned from the Southern Region!

 

They have been sold off the project - DCC has decided they were no longer required.

These were the two class 117 units stored at the Midland Railway centre. DCC did have another class 117 unit in store for the project, iirc at the Weardale Railway. I'm not sure if they still plan to use this one. Also the Swanage Railway has a class 117 and 108 in working order, as well as a bubble car. So I guess these might be put into use to run the service.

At one point I think the plan was for SWT to run the Swanage to Wareham service, using class 159s. They seem to have moved away from this idea though.

 

They are passed all the way to Weymouth over the juice....

 

Can anyone confirm whether any regular passenger traffic between Swanage and Wareham or beyond will be run under the aegis of a Light Rail Order or will the line be upgraded to run at higher speeds for non heritage trains? As stated on other threads any thought that commuter or shopping traffic will be attracted by an amiable 25mph stopping trundle through the countryside on heritage DMU stock are misguided and will be doomed to failure as they have been everywhere else.

 

I am not convinced the 25mph "trundle" is a major factor. In an earlier post I remarked that the recent FGW trip on the WSR was successful, despite eight intermediate stops. Compared with "heritage" DMUs and Mk1s, the shorter dwell-time at stations and quicker acceleration of the modern FGW stock enabled a quicker journey even within the current 25mph limit. Sure, a higher speed limit would help at the WSR and at the Swanage but it would not be achieved without considerable cost.

My experience with marketing the former WSR DMU local service using DMUs from 1978-1984 was that two or three trains per day did not compete with the hourly bus service - the trains simply not run at the right times for people to use in sufficient numbers to make the thing pay. Fares that were similar or cheaper than the bus were not the issue, neither was the journey time.

I reckon a good service could be provided on the Swanage even at 25mph using modern stock running a regular service from early morning to late evening.

Steve

 

The difference in speed between a Heritage line at 25 mph and a higher speed usual on a modern railway is largely irrelevant. What needs to be considered is the alternative transport time (and cost). In my experience, getting to and from Swanage by road isn't exactly the quickest journey in the land and at peak periods, even a 25mph railway is probably going to win in the time stakes. I've been known to drive all around the back lanes rather than do battle with the A351.

 

There comes a time to put a business head on, and you will find that every single case without fail of a heritage railway trying to run a conventional service has failed - the latest being the Weardale. Someone needs to do some proper planning here or this will just become the latest failure to separate commercial reality from rose tinted nostalgia. The Siemens Desiro stock on the main line at Wareham has set a standard for comfort reliability frequency and speed and sadly when you are looking to offer a transport service to passengers who don't care less about the transport mode, only time, economics, confort, speed, reliability, comfort, punctuality and cost will NOT be impressed by a slow expensive noisy bumpy trundle whether or not there is a nice view past the driver. THere is also a novelty value in a one off excursion which rules out using the FGW trip as the basis of a business case - you cannot surely believe that a shopper in Minehead would tolerate an amble down the WSR through 8 intermediate stops day in day out every day there and back let alone a season ticket commuter with a job in Taunton? Yet those are the markets to be created and conquered. This is why I challenge this assumption that the non heritage market will tolerate slow trundles because i won't. Not any more. You are trying to create the exact conditions that caused the line to close in the first place and that was over 40 years ago! Unless the Swanage line can operate as a modern reasonably fast commuter railway during the week I doubt it would compete with the car even on journey time, let alone all the other factors.

 

I know that South West Trains have raised concerns about there being no plans to upgrade the speed limit to 40mph, if they were to run the service.

 

I agree with you. I am quite sure the folks behind the Swanage-Wareham scheme are 100% on the ball as far as business cases are concerned.

I wasn't trying to use the WSR FGW one-off as a basis for a business case (and I've prepared more of those than I care to remember) but to provide an example of how 25mph isn't the crux of the matter esp when using modern stock with fast acceleration and shorter station dwell time due to auto doors. These things mean that the WSR journey can be done much quicker than heritage trains and in a comparable time to the bus service. That is useful stuff, if prepared intelligently, to form part of a sound business case.

Does anyone know what is involved in increasing the line speed of a LRO line beyond 25mph?

Steve

 

Please don't use the work "comfortable" to describe Desiros. They are fine trains, but the seats are rubbish.

 

I've just checked the SA for the route and it would appear that in a way, we are both correct. Strangely, 159's have no restriction but 158's are only permitted between Dorchester Jcn and Branksome Jcn over the up line with the following restrictions:
* ECS
* No greater than 10mph through stations and
* Not permitted to run if the air suspension is defective

 

Wilts & Dorset bus route 40 is scheduled to take between 31 and 37 minutes for journeys from Wareham Station to Swanage Station.
Eleven (rail)miles at 25mph would take 26.4 mins and at 40mph it would be 16.5 mins. Acceleration and braking for stops at Norden, Corfe Castle, Harmans Cross and Swanage would have to be factored in to those times of course.

 

Why would it need to stop all stations ?
Norden you may as well forget, the distance between there and Wareham anyone in a car will just drive to Wareham than drive to Norden, Wait for a train, take a train, wait for another.. it wouldn't be worth it.
Corfe Castle will have touristic value
Harmans Cross... again would it be easier to drive to Swanage or Corfe Castle.... if you really must... then make it a request stop.
Swanage's Bubble car is OTMR fitted and would make most sense for this service, it certainly wouldnt come much cheaper than that.

I'm not sure the weekday benefits of this service.. how many people commute to work from Swanage.. and where do they go ?
Certainly a summer weekend service will have benefits... but I'm not sure what tourist, local commuter or retirement income service you will get at 11am on a January weekday.

 

How many staff do the Swanage need to "open" the railway, especially signalmen? This is a major factor in costs for a service that would need to start early and finish late. If the branch can be worked with intermediate boxes "locked out" on a "one engine in steam" principle, it makes extended opening hours much easier than if you need say 3 signal boxes staffing whenever through trains are operating.

Steven