Railmotor on the Liskeard-Looe branch?

I think the railmotor has been on the B&W railway for a while. The diseasel was making it's way LE. It wasn't an 'ensemble'
For the sake of 10 miles, I wonder why it wasn't possible to give it special dispensation to run on its own down to Liskeard. Can it really have been that risky for 10 miles? After all, the powers that be obviously decided it is safe enough to haul passenger on the Looe branch, surely an ECS move during a quiet period is far less risky than that?

 

I think NR were worried that if it got stuck on the single track section at Largin and couldn't get itself going again, there was nothing around to help out.

James at SVN

 

Couldn't the organisers make a claim on WC for failing to meet their part of the contract, or am I being to simplisitc.
(Probably a limited liability clause somewhere in the small print)

 

Apart from Bodmin, it's a good bet the nearest points a low loader could be (un)loaded would be St Blazey or Laira, neither of which being of any more use in this case.

 

I guess it just goes to show the state of our railway system when the nearest replacement vac fitted loco (regardless of TOC) was possibly a 56 at Cardiff (which I think moved today) so in reality it may have been another loco at Southall,it's only a gap of 200 odd miles!

 

I recieved an email at 2152 notifying me the event was "off", ie over 24 hours after the cancellation and the info was available elsewhere! So not a lot of help to those already on their way west today, that's the service we get for the massive "rip-off" booking fee. Thanks to some for explaining how the fee was caculated in a way to catch us out!
Also thanks to the "industry insider" for his input regarding the DL requirement. I thought it was still allowable to haul a limited number of vehicles "unbraked" ie by an air-brake DL in this case, but perhaps not.
It's time WCRC got their ageing fleet of four (?) vacuum brake DLs into better shape, as I understand one (Cl37) had already failed somewhere and its replacement, a Cl47, failed on its way west and with the other two already unserviceable!
My sympathy goes to tour promotors and their customers at present whai with one TOC with manning problems and the other with unrelyable equipment.
Andover

 

No 56s were ever built with vac brakes so doubt that was any use!

 

The number of incidents I know of WC diesels being outright failures on light engine moves in the last few years is stupidly low and the crews who drive them are very concious of trying to rectify anything minor and "keeping the job going" unlike the old EWS days a decade ago when you'd have drivers trying to fail engines because the cab door was a bit stiff or something was a bit rattley. I think 47500 is on repairs at Carnforth, 760 has been receiving work for fuel contamination up at Carnforth too (not a maintenance blunder either as I understand it but subsequently causing issues on an ECS + 1 steam charter). 47237 is back off a virtually trouble free summer/autumn on the Royal Scotsman and has now had its VAC work finished a day or so back so will be of some help in such movements soon. 47580, which is dual braked, has been taken off the mainline for the time being as it is preserved and needs stuff doing on it after nearly 5 years service (with zero repeat zero mainline failures out of probably well over 100 days running in total). Our group I think decided it wanted to keep the loco from deteriorating before necessary work was done so unfortunately its back at Dereham now for the forseeable future and can't help again for now. 47798 is back at York of course too, although if some people had their way you wont ever see it again despite its useful and desire by the owner to keep it operational as part of the national collection.

My personal experience of these engines has been generally somewhat better than many people in this thread may portray them and you don't hear of the 1000s of relatively trouble free workings many of them do each month (many of which allow these steam operations to run but are often totally unoticed and taken for granted as if the train magicked itself to the steam section out of nowhere).

I agree there is a UK wide shortage of dual braked locos now but this follows the larger freight operators dispensing with all things heritage, with the exception of a few firms none of whom really maintain or use this form of braking anymore.

 

A great shame that there is no vac fitted NR approved steam loco based in the south west which could have obliged!

 

Yes, I finally got an e-mail at about that time, then a recorded phone message about 08.00 this morning - not much use to those who had booked accommodation in the area. If I had not known until then I would have been on my way to Bristol after the Panniers tour when I received the e-mail and it would have been too late to cancel my hotel (although I would have needed it as it would have been too late to go back home). Instead, thanks to this forum, I haven't lost any money and I'm currently sitting in a different hotel in Lincoln looking forward to the bus rally which I was disappointed I was going to miss - so not too bad a result for me, but I feel sorry for those who may have lost a substantial amount of money due to the cancellation and extremely late notification. Strong rumours that the Railmotor trips may be rescheduled to Sunday 18th, so I'll probably stick with it although it was nice and convenient to be able to do the Panniers on my way south yesterday. Suppose it would to too much to hope that Ticketweb would refund the booking fee to all passengers booked on today's trips - not a lot but it would at least be a gesture.

 

Got an automated phone message from the ticket agency at 08:00 this morning. A fat lot of use that would have been if it wasn't for NatPres having informed of the cancellation yesterday.

 

By any chance would the people trying to dictate to WCRC/NRM what they should do with their former asset be the same ones who can't be bothered to run charters lately unless they have "Pullman" wrote on the side ?.

 

My e-mail arrived at 11:23 this morning. Along with the phone call at 08:00 this would have been no use at all if I hadn't already found out about the cancellation on here.
On a brighter note, the nice man at GWS has transferred my bookings to the 11th.

 

Is the plan to stable the railmotor in the Looe branch platform at Liskeard overnight before the run next Sunday??

 

Have been looking at Looe webcams. It's a nice day down their at the moment. Typical.

 

Afternoon all. Just to re-iterate the points already made about the rail motor working on the main line up from Bodmin. The ORR have only given dispensation for this vehicle to run on NR rails under strictly controlled conditions, and running by itself on the main line, no matter how 'quiet' it is, timetable-wise, is not part of that. To have flouted the ORRs rules so flagrantly would have been tantamount to inviting them to ban any further use of the rail motor on the national network, regardless of location and circumstances. If it's going to happen, it must be done 'to the letter of the law'.

As others have said, the rail motor has been in Cornwall for a few weeks now. It came down by road to the Bodmin and Wenford line for a gala appearance, and is due to remain there until January time. There was never any question of taking it by road to any other location, and there is nowhere at Liskeard (or Looe) for a low loader to unload a rail vehicle in any case.

 

I imagine the railmotor was steamed on the B&W to allow passengers who had booked to the Looe trains and already made plans to come to Cornwall to ride on it...

 

Anyone thinking that this rule could have been "bent" so it could travel under it's own power, under the cover of darkness, when it's quiet etc etc surely must have realised that it was never going to happen otherwise it would have been planned in the first place.

I hope it all gets sorted for next weekend and those people who have been effected can transfer but if a vacuum braked diesel pilot was required by NR to move the Railmotor, nothing other than this would have meant that it would have run this weekend. Let's hope next week goes to plan!

 

That was kind of what I was eluding too (although I communicated it assuming you were all mind readers!) I wasn't expecting the rules to be bent or flouted. I meant, if it is considered safe to run full of passengers, why the problem with transferring it empty over 10 miles, in a over-timed path during a quiet period?
I guess it could be reliability related? i.e if it broke down on the Looe branch they have all day to rescue it, whereas on the mainline - even in the night, probably only a couple of hours max?