Bluebell Motive Power

Latest roster update has removed all mention of the Q for this month. Hopefully the further issues that presumably have been found won't take too long to fix.

 

Fingers crossed for a swift resolution!

 

The Bluebell News which plopped through my letterbox the other day contained a missive on that subject. It would appear that the painting the RMB in an historically inappropriate livery is going to turn the line into a 'theme park'. And that David Wilcock has adopted a pseudonym.

 

I never understand people's objections to B+C RMBs. when heritage railways have to compramise so much anyway it hardly seems like the be all and end all. It is quite common for stock not to match what's pulling it, so why get so fret up about one variant of a coach, the rest of which all did appear in B+C being in an unauthentic livery just for the sake of everything matching (and lets face it, even though we know mixed liveried trains were common, virtually all lines aim to have matching sets I think).

 

What I don't fully understand is how a blood and custard RMB is the end of the world, but a blue P isn't.

 

Well said Bramblewick!

Likewise I can't understand why people moan about the livery, yet don't complain about the unauthentic coach formations! Afterall, that is I assume whould have dictated the carriage livery in the first place!

Clearly the ideal solution would be to omit the RMB from the rake as in its entirety as it's completely out of place for the branch and passengers wouldn't have been able to get grub on the train anyway. Whilst they're at it, perhaps all rakes should be reduced to 3 coaches with a brake at either end, potentially with the occasional stregthening vehicle included?

 

Or in the case of the Bluebell, a single LBSCR coach and (in the absence of a C2X) a Standard Tank.

 

It's a vexed question, and one that was well aired in BN. Running truly authentic trains will always be hard, but I guess there is a value to at least making sure individual vehicles within them are authentic. Bluebell I think is a special case (she's been blue longer than any other livery) though fewer people complain about the anachronistic livery of both Terriers, and the fictitious running number of one of them!

For me, probably a better argument against a Crimson and Cream RMB running in regular service (and against Crimson and Cream coaches in general on the Bluebell) is that it dilutes the brand of the Wealden Rambler: I'd prefer to see those WR coaches kept looking separate in C&C as a homogenous consist, and everything else green.

Tom

 

Sometimes, you can get away with remarkable inauthenticity and no one complains! A BR-blue liveried Deltic coupled to an LNWR -liveried coach running on an ex-LBSCR branch line does actually take some beating, but the people in the relatively full Obo I watched go by last Saturday didn't look too miffed.

 

That seems fair enough, but if you're getting a number of coaches for a good price, then you can't complain really.

 

As I recall, the issue wasn't with the privately owned coaches, but painting one or more Bluebell-owned carriages C&C - specifically the RMB.

Tom

 

Tom, you beat me to a reply. I can see the aversion to painting a Bluebell coach into C+C but if its done to run with the other C+C coaches and save the larger RB I think it is, then so be it.
To the certain few the C + C RMB is unauthentic but to average Joe its a coach that has the chocolate and cans of coke in and that is who it matters too the most.

If somebody wanted to offer me a certain amount of Mk1s in ready to run condition. I would bite his arm off.

 

Yes, though by the same token, I wonder if those same people actually care whether it is green or C&C - the simple binary presence / absence is probably more important!

For me, when I visit other heritage attractions in fields I am not personally knowledgable about, I have a certain assumption that what I am looking at is grounded in reality, even if I am not personally able to determine that for myself. That feels like an important principal to hold on to where possible. I can understand in places you have to compromise for commercial expediency, though I'm not sure that that is the justification for the C&C RMB, though maybe there is a plan for future use in not aware of, for example allowing it some role in the WR at times. What the private owner does with his coaches is of course entirely his own prerogative.

(And ultimately If you are loco crew, the colour doesn't matter: in the end there is a reason why the guard always tells you the weight at the beginning of the day, but very rarely tells you the colour scheme!)

Tom

 

Do I understand aright that the privately owned plum and custard Mk.1s won't be around forever anyhow, in that they are a stopgap until some of the Maunsells and Bulleids have been overhauled?

 

I think all that is definitely in the public domain is that there are a number of privately-owned carriages, including BSKs 34556 and 35207, FO 3064 and RMB 1674. One assumes that their presence is governed by some kind of agreement that gives a known security of tenure, but what the owner's long term aspirations for them are I don't know.

As for Maunsells and Bulleids, the Carriage Strategy Review in BN suggests that the completion of the full-strength Maunsell train (with restaurant car) was the main long term priority (i.e. after completion of existing projects, which include three more four wheelers and a Bulleid composite, likely to be followed by a Bulleid brake 3rd), together with strengthening the bogie non-corridor set to full capacity (i.e. equivalent seating to a six coach set: that probably means restoring the second 100 seater and the birdcage centre coach 1050 to add to the current 100 seater, birdcage brake, LBSCR First and LSWR brake 3rd.

The idea with the Maunsell train is to provide a set with equivalent facilities to a regular corridor set, but in vintage idiom. Currently the Maunsell train consists of a brake composite and two all 3rds; there is a brake 3rd under restoration (well advanced); and then the restaurant car, which leaves the sixth coach to be decided - possibly another brake 3rd converted to have wheelchair accommodation. Interestingly LSWR 494 (a high capacity corridor 3rd) is also in the frame - that gives 7 coaches, but presumably allows a certain amount of rotation for maintenance purposes while still keeping the set at full strength. Three in six carriages brakes - sounds like the ACE!

It also stated that "no additional Mark 1 carriages will be purchased, though the opportunity may be taken to replace an existing carriage with a better one".

The rate of everything is subject to funding, as always.

Tom

 

Its odd to me that people would complain if a coach (whether it is bluebell owned or not) is being painted in a arguably in authentic livery (yes I know that RMBs were first delivered in 1959 and B&C was superseded in 1957 but its hardly inauthentic for the majority of MK1 fleet types) but they don't mention the 'wholly inaccurate' state of say 1958 built BSK 35207 in B&C with bright orange ETH fittings and late 1960s B4 bogies or 1961 built RBR in similar livery and condition but with commonwealth bogies.

Does it really matter?

As far as I'm concerned paint your coach whatever you want and if RMB 1818 is going to be marshaled into a rake with other similarly liveried coaches then its good for the railway image, good for photographers etc.

 

To be totally honest, speaking as a lover of all things steam railway, if the offending vehicle has the same quality of finish as the rest of the coaching stock I travelled in and observed last weekend at the diseasel gala (yes I know but it was a brills day out) then I for one don't give a hoot what the livery is. I actually had to check my photos to remember what colour coach I returned to the 'park in, does that make me any less of an enthusiast? or was my head turned by the big blue, smelly, coach thing at the front

 

I do find the whole livery/authenticity thing marvelously nitpicking. I suppose the thing that most , dunno, struggle for a word here, puzzles/bemuses/irritates might be part of it, (any way you get the gist), the thing I don't understand is why the nitpickers typically focus on the authenticity of a single item, and ignore the whole picture. So in this case it appears they'd rather see a train in an inauthentic mismatch of liveries from different periods rather than presenting a single period appearance, albeit with some stock out of place when you look close up, and they'd rather see a locomotive in freight livery on a passenger train rather than an authentic looking passenger train, albeit with a locomotive that would have been in freight livery in the days when it was a freight locomotive.

To me it seems that a degree of inauthenticity is inevitable, but in the case of a running railway (as opposed to the case of a museum exhibition) its probably better to get the whole picture and whole train as representative as possible of a given period rather than concentrate on individual items to the exclusion of the big picture. So personally I have no more objection to a one time freight locomotive in passenger livery pulling a passenger train than I do to it pulling the train in freight livery, and am probably less happy with a train consisting of individually authentic items mashed together to produce an array which covers 50 or more years...

 

I think it is actually the other way round - previously all our Mark 1s were green and presented a homogeneous appearance, but now (even ignoring the privately owned ones) we have an increasing number of mismatched C&C ones. I must admit I have a certain sympathy with the livery purist viewpoint - after all, if you have to paint a vehicle anyway, why choose the wrong livery when you could paint it the right one? Especially when, as I understand, C&C is slightly more expensive to apply than green ...

Tom

 

Takes more time too, especially if doing lining out.