Swanage Railway General Discussion

Maybe in the future the 4TC plus 33/1, or perhaps a 5WES plus 33/1 if a WES unit can be saved. (Hope so as WES were the last mainline stock to use traditional SR EMU traction and indeed the motor bogies from REPs)

Brian

 

30120 in action yesterday afternoon.

 

More footage of the T9 yesterday.

 

5WES (Class 442) units are still main line registered and some still in passenger service.
Currently, no 33/1 diesels are so registered.
So, however nice it might be, are any 33/1 owners intending to embark on this task?

 

The LSWR Water tank project..will it literally ever get off the ground Armchair members are currently being overloaded with appeals
and underwhelmed by any news. Swanning Around has gone dormant. Lets Communicate!!

 

Designs exist to modify Blue Star multi fitted diesels to work with SR EMUs. Nobody has had any need to go through with it, yet.

 

And your point is......apart from stirring SH1T?
Swanning around has not gone dormant.
Communication on the railway, whilst can always do with improvement, is OK...
If it is of so much concern to you why not ask AT the railway rather than an Internet forum....

 

I am at least 5000 miles from Swanage. My point is incessant appeals and not sufficient public news.
There are several very good rolling blogs from Heritage Railways. Steaming to Broadway, RVR Blogger
EVR. to name some of them and as a Premier League operation SR should be at the forefront in keeping its supporters informed. this is an area open to debate under
Swanage Railway General Discussion
Anyway. Do tell us the latest news on the LSWR water tank.The OOC Turntable etc etc

 

Oliversbest,
As you are a member you will know that the Swanage Railway Trust publishes a very good 34 page full colour Mag three times a year posted free of charge to its members. The members also receive an interim newsletter by post three times a year so every 2 months or so you should get some news through your letterbox. In addition, in his spare time our volunteer press officer issues regular press releases for newsworthy events on the website. Other volunteers post on facebook and twitter. A year or so ago another volunteer offered to publish a informal style newspaper, "Swanning Around", every few weeks in addition to driving a steam loco or operating a signal box. For personal reasons he has not been able to release an issue lately, but we sincerely hope he will be able to restart as soon as he is able because we all miss it. We have no budget to employ a journalist so do the best we can to keep everyone informed with the skills and resources we have available. On the whole I don't think we do to badly.

The news we do put out tends to be dominated by things on which we are making physical progress, like extending the Railway by 4 miles, constructing a new Level crossing and road rail interchange, creating a fully signaled mainline connection, overhauling from barry condition the only surviving N class to main line standards, Overhauling a 4 car DMU set to main line standards, constructing new crew locker & shower room, overhauling the volunteer facilities, developing the new Mineral and Mining Museum, undertaking a huge civil engineering project to reinforce a stretch of embankment, carrying out a £20K restoration of the exterior of Corfe Castle station, completing another heratage coach, re roofing corfe castle goods shed, relaying a stretch of line with continuously welded rail, hosting the filming of a major hollywood blockbuster and many many other things within the last couple of years.

The reason you wont have heard much about the Water Tower and Turntable projects is that there has not been a lot of 'physical progress' on these two projects recently although I did write a full page article on the status of the Water tower project that was published I think in the autumn 2015 edition of the mag if you want to check back. Neither of these projects are funded at the moment. Most heratage railways are doing well if their passenger and retail revenue covers operating costs, overheads and maintenance. Things like loco overhauls and track relays are measured not in thousands but in hundreds of thousands of pounds. Wareham project has cost several Million. A substantial chunk of the membership fees are used up in the Mag and other membership communications, the rest is taken up by overheads. To finance expansion of the railway, things like Water Towers and Turntables we need to rely on Grants, Legacies, Appeals and Donations so I can make no apologies for the number of these you see. In addition to volunteering, responding to these appeals is the main way in which the membership contributes to the railway. As these funds can be hard to come by we have to prioritize our use of these and in recent years motive power, coaches for passengers and extending to Wareham have taken priority over a new water tower and turntable.

You will be pleased to hear that the water tower project will be subject to a forthcoming grant application and if sucessfull we will be able to proceed with the next phases. The planning permission for the turntable is currently being renewed but we do not yet own the land that the permission is for. Provision of operational maintenance and storage facilities is the next priority after Wareham and the turntable is likely to be incorporated to that. This will be a huge project and will require more Grants Legacies, Appeals and Donations.

I'm sorry that you feel you are not receiving enough news. Polite questions here will usually be informally responded to in a likewise fashion. You can also contact the railway directly via the membership secretary who will endeavor to respond or you might prompt someone to write a piece for the trust mag. We know we are not perfect but are open to constructive feedback from our members.

 

Is there a WTT available for gala? Free or purchase

 

That's quite a statement; the N was a complete loco and whilst suffering the effects of time down a head shunt, the overhaul seems to have porgressed at speed with little of the current heavy frame repairs etc that are run of the mill now.

 

Nice progress by the railway, whats actually happening with those DMUs your overhauling not much looks to have changed since I first saw them 2 years ago.

 

Still awaiting wheelsets

 

could have sworn I saw it pass it's boiler exam in about 1976

 

In steam by 30th April 1977. http://swanagemoguls.com/aboutthelocos/n-class-31874-bio/

 

12 years in Barry scrapyard or 16 years in Ropley headshunt of doom.....
Similar deterioration by corrosion!

 

I'm intrigued by the suggestion in that bio that the outside steampipe cylinders fitted to the Moguls in BR days were Standard 4 cylinders. I know a lot of them got Standard 4 chimneys, but Standard 4 cylinders wouldn't be big enough (you'd need Standard 5 cylinders) and the steam chest proportions look all wrong even for the re-cylindered Moguls; all the Standards have noticeably long steam chests, I guess to give direct ports.

 

St Leonards engineering workshop have completed the restoration of DTSO 76275 and it will move to the KESR Rolvenden carriage shed until the whole unit is completed. http://www.4tc.org.uk/ The carriage looks really good in BR blue and grey.

 

Nice to see it looking so good and will be under cover, although it seems the other three vehicles will need considerably more work. Will SLRE be doing them? One at a time?

 

only need 2 more for a 3TC