Modern traction, stuff like Sprinters, Pacers, Voyagers. In future will people want to preserve them

Your welcome my friend!
Yes, it looks very wide as you say. All the windows in the front made these railcars popular also by passenger ,giving them "panorama" view. The trailer car you mentioned, is that one of the original one build in sweden as well? They build trailer cars suitable to use behind these railcars, to transport post and goods.

Knut

 

I don't think the Saint, the County or the 4700 are flights of fancy, they are serious rebuilds with the first mentioned almost there.

 

As were various salvageable parts from the likes of 50040/43 etc, look nothing is sacred dosn't matter if it's steam diesel or electric, look how many Thompson sleeping cars were 'preserved' and still survive. I was trying to be a little light hearted when I replied to your earlier post... Why have I bothered?

 

Ooh, lovely picture

Now, here's the other side of the unit. Zoom in and you'll see the other name!

 

I do believe it is, but one of the carriage and wagon people on the Nene Valley Railway posts on here so should be able to give a definite answer.

 

point taken!

 

That does look cool that Swedish Railcar, not been to the Nene Valley for a long time so might have to make a trip. The only time I have visited they were using the Swedish B class steam loco. Shame it appears not to have run since 2005, it was very interesting to see, see video below.



One advantage diesel railcars do have is that they are cheaper to operate. The SCR used to typically operate the Thumper unit on say a Saturday and a Steam train on Sundays and it was always cheaper per day to operate the diesel and not necessarily any fewer passengers plus the diesel is quick to start up and stop at the end of the day, no need to run around etc.

The mid Norfolk railway operates a number of Mark 2 coaches in use and they do feel nostalgic now so maybe a railway should be set up to specialize in modern traction and say market itself as 1970s/80s/90 etc and provide a home for some of these units.

 

Maybe not relevant in this thread, but I have had the same thougts about (future) preservation of todays modern railway vehicles elsewhere in Europe.

There have been a vaste of standard fleet locomotives like SIEMENS Traxx, Taurus, SIEMENS Vectron and many other delivered from the upgrowing railway industry in amongst other Austria, Poland, Czechia.

 

Hi Knut,

a trip to the Nene Valley Railway today - primarily to ride behind the diminutive BR Standard Class 2 78018 - gave me the opportunity to grab a couple of (poor) photos of parts of the trailer car, which are below. Are these what you recognise?

 

Hi!
Thanks a lot for your pictures!
You have right, these are the sort of trailer car i thought about! Restored and painted in the same livery as the railcar it would be a splendid sight!

regards

Knut

 

Speaking to one of the volunteers, it was suggested that the owner was hoping to have it running by Christmas 2018, but that at the moment there isn't a corridor connection available.

 

As an aside... I mentioned this to a non-enthusiast friend of mine and his first question was "how much would it cost to ship that from Sweden to the UK?"

I had to reply honestly - "I have no idea".

But does anyone on here have any idea how much it costs to move rolling stock about?

 

The thread initially discusses sprinters, pacers.

Technologically these are more advanced but not too advanced than today’s new stock. At least in BR days the 2nd generation used a similar coupling.

Since privatisation there seems to be little standard, additionally much new stuff is AC or DC, and given how little 1st Gen EMUs have been preserved, what would a preserved railway do with a 313 Unit, let alone maintain the electronics of a 377/387, and need a dedicated towing vehicle at each ends...and a diesel to pull it.

Preserving a 4-6-0 or 4-6-2 or a 40/50/52/55 that replaced it has a use to a preserved line, but what use a Pendolino, Javelin, or even a 91 and mk4 stock for that matter.

For a glimpse of the future of modern preservation, take a look at Eurostar.

Units, especially electrics have virtually no hope.. we can’t even keep the one electric museum the hobby used to have.

 

I would say that the last locos which were steam age were class 50s, and the last stock mark 2s, both did coincide with the last steam locos.

Agree with the last post on the usefulness of electric stock, I can see Pendolinos, and other current electric units completely disappearing, like much 1st generation ones did. There are only a handful of the hundreds of Southern region units, plus a Wirral and Mersey, class 503, and a Manchester -Bury class 504, this latter was a one off, they had a strong association with a line adjacent to the ELR and quite a local following.

Pacers and 150s etc I would say are the most modern units which would be useful to a heritage line, and are likely to survive. One possible issue is couplers, 1st generation DMUs can be coupled to any diesel or steam loco in the event of failure, but a 142/150 can’t

 

For a single move you can probably expect somewhere in excess of £1500 one way for a low loader move. So double that if Loco and tender.
Unless you can get a chain of moves set up as a deal.
As for shipping costs no idea.

 

Some useful debate here about the desirability to our public of offering modern traction on preserved lines. But leaving that on one side, wouldn't there also be some awkward practical issues with preserving in use the technology in modern railway vehicles?

I'm thinking about things like the proliferation of coupling types; power operated doors; and modern electronics and software. Once things have moved on and the current types are obsolete, it might be hard to keep them going in preservation and source (or make) complex spare parts.

Future preservationists might find it easier to keep 1950s/60s stock going than to do the same for their late 20th/early 21st century successors.

And as others have pointed out, modern passenger stock in EMU form (still an increasing percentage of what is running, despite the Government's misguided recent swerve towards bi-modes) is particularly hard to find a use for in preservation. That seems unlikely to change.

 

One item not mentioned is the excessive gauging for units, meaning larger gaps to platform edges, heaven forbid passengers disappeared down them!!!

 

You can rescue Pacers and 150s by using a standard emergency coupler which adapts a BSI to a stadard drawhook. However you have to consider that most units have at least two of everything which means that you can usually limp home on the remaining components if something ceases to work. I can't ever recall of any of the existing Pacers ever having to be rescued over the 15 or more years that they've been in pres.

 

Think about all the arguments about liveries people will be able to have when it comes to sprinters and pacers.

‘This isn’t authentic, the toilets don’t smell.’

I’d have thought a 4 or 5 coach voyager would be of more use to a preserved railway than a 7 coach hst. As I recall it is possible to run them on a couple of engines and if you are only doing 25mph who needs full power all the time.