Project Wareham

The Rainhill Trials were Rocket Science.

 

Too big a risk?

Perhaps someone in DC will say "hold on a minute. We gave you the DMUs gratis, you have had £1M+ for their restoration to mainline standards, £3M plus has been spent on the enabling works, £500k from BP Perenco has been paid for the level crossing, you had £75K towards mainlining one of the "U"s, you have been promising to run the two trials since 2015 and now you say its a bit risky and might lose some money...."

 

It connects nicely with a flight from Canada to Heathrow via the tube and three train journeys?

 

Now EMR are running summer time trains to Skeggy!! Swanage is missing out and will continue to do so unless a reasonable service can be operated from Wareham to Swanage. i repeat it aint rocket science Its tribology. Steel wheel on steel rail!
class 180s at the seaside!1 Great publicity. great environmental upticks. See to it SRC!

 

National Express LHR to Upper Parkstone. One stop shopping. Made for Seniors!

 

But EMR and BR before them, Have always run summer Saturday trains to Skeggy!

 

whoa 801o4.(when does it return?) you are beginning to sound a bit like that whinger from the Dominion!

 

..and all we are asking for is a few summer time trains to and from Swanage.Publicise them,advertise them, promote them. How can "enthusiasts" (being polite!) be so negative about a railway initiative. It is environmentslly sound and properly promoted can be a great asset to Dorset. I personally do not think that Walton on Naze or Skeggy(although i have not visited them, Clacton Yes,Cleethorpes Yes) are half the attraction as resorts that Swanage and Purbeck is. fire up that 33 Andy!

 

These look like the Inconvenient Truths the SR has to face, despite decisions made years ago and in very different times - hence my previous comments about hoping that other partners in the trials will be pragmatic and reasonable if things don’t work out.

Call me Mr Ignorant (though I think somebody else here has better claim to that title), but does anyone know if the SR has ringfenced the Wareham venture both legally and financially in case its failure brings the whole edifice crashing down (thinking of Llangollen here)?

 

I do not consider myself to be a whinger but someone who is a realist and doubts that DC or others will wave a magic wand and make SRT SRC dreams come true. I fully support PW if only to the limited extent of running the trials so that SRT SRC and DC can then fully evaluate what until then (ie the trials have been run) is nothing more than speculation and "educated" guesswork.

My concern is that it is my understanding that one of the fundamental underpinnings of PW was that SRT SRC and DC had some form of agreement that if DC and others took care of all the capital costs then SRT SRC would take care of all the direct operating costs. If, as this years announcement suggests, that the revenues wont even cover direct operating costs then one really has to consider whether (as has been suggested above) the trial should be cut back (to say 60 days) to reduce the possible losses which would be incurred by SRT SRC.

I very much doubt that a bad Wareham trial would imperil SRC to the point of extinction but it could harm some very worthwhile projects that are essential to the long term well being of SRT SRC.

 

Yup. and the LSWR,SR and BR ran trains to Swanage.. I rode them(BR). So as a Preservation and Historical Society is that not part of your remit, Nowhere in the SRP tenets did it mention stopping the whole operation at Norden.quiite the opposite in fact.
The Trialists are going to have their day in the sun and we can only hope that all members get behind Project Wareham and determine to make it the foundation of a rail connected Purbeck.

 

I wish to let the experiment prove its results, for good or ill.

Meanwhile, here in Bomber County, the Skegness summer specials remain because there is proven demand for marginal extra traffic - which is still barely sustainable from the EMR fleet.


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So, as long as the SR keep the "merchants and businesses in Swanage" happy, that's all that matters? How about the SR making a decent profit off its services to fund all those projects you keep banging on about? Why does the "extra" money need to be spent in town?

By definition a cheap rail fare means the profits are either extremely slim, break even or in the red. Why would the SR expose itself to such a risk? Who's going to pay for major works when they become due?

What if those full carriages generated a loss? How could that possibly be seen as a success? (Remember you can't hike the price because you've already said you want cheap rail fares).

oh and I'm assuming you've canvassed all the founders for their opinion on this "amenity service", or are you rigidly sticking to something written 40 or more years ago and even then it was probably an aspiration rather than an obligation. I think you are probably the only person from that era who is willing to bankrupt the SR over the Wareham service.

You've demonstrated over what feels like several years, that you have no grip of the reality of running a heritage railway (or any other kind for that matter), but this really does show that you're living in cloud cuckoo land.

Why would it be? Just because it was done in the past doesn't mean a preservation group has to continue that practice? I'm guessing you'd be quite happy sending children up chimneys or to work in mills because it was done in the past?

I've fixed that sentence for you...

 

That leaves quite a large margin for failure...

 

@all. It's a waste of time trying to reason with @oliversbest. He is an old man living in the past, who has lost any capacity to have a sensible discussion (assuming that he ever had it) and does not respect anyone holding views that don't line up with his own. He also likes to think that he is amusing when he is simply irritating.

It seems to me that the general consensus on the thread is pro the trial but many of us have concerns about the implications for SR. Could really do with a statement from SR management to explain where they are at.

 

They have done - some time ago...
https://www.swanagerailway.co.uk/news/view/wareham-trial-train-service-postponed-to-summer-2023

 

I know this response may well/will stir up a response but here goes.
I believe Skegness [resident population roughly 20,000 ] has something like 4,000,000 tourists a year enjoying it's long beach front and many attractions.
As Andy Moody has stated, regular summer special train services to Skegness have been operated by EMR (and it's predecessor EMT); BR; LNER and other companies like the LMS over many decades. They've come to be expected. Millions of people in Midlands, and the surrounding catchment area, want day trips to Skegness and these services get them there without changing trains.
Swanage population is around 10,000; is a much more compact resort and has a much smaller beach with less visitor attractions. In my view the town is doing really well to have roughly 1,000,000 visitors each year. Most of those are, however, non-day trippers. Possibly, they would be reluctant to forgo cars [despite high fuel costs] to bring their families and associated accoutrements to the hotels/B&Bs/Flats/etc. they're staying at. Then factor in the change of trains at Wareham - as SWR's electric services would not run well (at all) between Worgret Junction and Swanage.
Potential visitors may wish to view the proposed train operation in Dorset quite differently from that pertaining to Skegness.
Swanage never had regular scheduled Summer time special trains - and those specials that did run were nowhere near as frequent as those to Skegness. Why ? Presumably because the demand wasn't there. If demand for rail services had been there then, perhaps, the line would not have closed in January 1972.
Comparing rail operations at Skegness and Swanage like this is nonsensical - but then realism and practicalities are not something some people take into consideration.
Oh to be back in 1972 when we were young(er) and comparatively innocent of the ways of the World. If we had known then what us pioneer members, and many others who are now long gone, had to overcome to get this far would we have bothered? I wonder?

 

This is a wonderful and factual response for someone like myself who won’t question or disbelieve what you’ve posted.
However, why is it I get the feeling someone will argue black is white with you?

 

Exciting just waiting ........ I'll get my coat

 

Skegness is the nearest seaside for a lot of the Midlands, by rail anyway. Swanage is an hour beyond Bournemouth. Why would you waste two hours travelling to a little seaside town rather than a big town with a huge beach and various attractions?