Heritage Line Loco Power Requirements

Ouch!

Thank you for the correction.

I’m not suggesting you would run it with just the three engines. I suspect it’s the same argument everywhere. Run what you have! I have planned a trip to the IOWSR and I’m trying to plan my trips around seeing the original island stock and locos in particular.

It’s the enthusiast disappointment of potentially seeing something not in keeping with the history of the place that I’m struggling with.

 

I imagine a great many of us think as you do, but we all have to admit that such feeling might be classed as WIBN.I think probably the great many who don't care so much about the locomotive appropriate don't care at all and just want a steam engine on the front. I do hope though, that you aren't giving way to unthinking prejudice about the hard-working, much maligned Austerities. The preservation movement owes them an enormous debt, and if people start repeating such prejudices, sooner or later someone will have to write a book to set the record straight!!!

 

Absolutely not. They have saved lines in some cases. Incredibly useful.

Maybe I was overthinking it. Looking at my plans for the autumn I pondered my feelings on seeing the ivatts pulling the trains.

 

Both terriers and the 02 were in service over the last four days

 

Just joshing.
I have to admit, I rather miss the austerities now that everyone has matured and those rusting hulks we used to climb all over in 1980 are now the crown jewels. The austerities are now a bit like Boxer, done the hard work to build something and then quietly put away as a bit too mundane. The noise they used to make going up a gradient with 5 or 6 mk1's on the hook used to be magnificent! Oh for Holman F Stephens on Tenterden Bank

 

Now, if the Standard 2 2-6-2 tanks had got there in BR days as planned, what would your attitude be?

 

I can see your point, Simon, and it really boils down to how far down the road of compromise must a railway go in order to offer a heritage experience. With the Isle of Wight Steam Railway, the O2 and the two Terriers, along with the appropriate vintage stock, are as good an authentic experience as you can get anywhere. Yes, there are some other highly authentic combinations on other lines - 80151 and a non-corridor set on the Bluebell will hopefully be a sight we can enjoy again before too long and 32678 with the K&ESR's vintage set does have a good feel to it, even though a truly "authentic" K&ESR train really should be a terrier and only one carriage.

However, what do you do when you don't have sufficient locos or stock to provide authenticity at this level yet need to run some sort of steam-hauled service for the public? I would say that the Ivatts are much less inauthentic than some trains which one sees on other lines. After all, they are very similar visually and mechanically to the 84xxx tanks which were considered as replacements for the O2s before BR opted for electrification instead. They are thus a lot less implausible than, say, 35006 on the Gloucester-Warwick, 5775 on the Worth Valley or the Dukedog on the Bluebell (the only GWR engines ever to reach Sussex prior to 3217's arrival were the panniers which passed through en route to replacing the R1s on the Folkestone Harbour branch.

So yes, Calbourne will always be the IOWSR's flagship. It, the Terriers and before too long the E1 will continue to ensure that it will be possible at least some of the time for us to enjoy the feel of the Isle of Wight's railways as they were in the steam era and with the loco roster available on line, it should be possible to choose a day when the engine(s) you want to see will be in operation , but 41298 or 41313 hauling a rake of non-corridor bogie stock is (i) at least a sight which could have been seen on some Southern branches in the 1950s, if not on the island itself and (ii) a far more modest compromise than many other lines are forced to make in order to provide Joe Public with a ride behind steam.

 

Totally different. It would be authentic.

It isn’t. So I feel the way I do.

 

Gricer's gnat straining I fear.

 

I think it would be wonderful if every heritage line could run 'authentic' trains, but its just not possible in many cases, especially ex LNER lines where there is a lack of Eastern motive power. Lines like the NYMR and NNR have to rely on a mix of authentic types and 'foreign' types (by which I mean locomotives from other regions) to ensure they have enough motive power to run the required services.

I haven't visited the IoWSR, (hope to one day it looks like a cracking line) but to me personally the presence of the two Ivatt tanks do not distract from the island branch line look of the line, even if they are not 'authentic'.

 

Hey at least I am honest Paul.

I presume that the logic of wanting to run authentic trains but having other rolling stock and locomotives available to run a service is acceptable to you?

If that’s the case then you should have no problems with seeing an authentic Pullman train pulled by an authentic LBSCR Atlantic on an authentic ex BR and LBSCR line whilst other locomotives such as the standard 5 supplement the service.

 

None of it is terribly "branchline" but the Pullmans and the standards are authentic enough. As for the H2, well... The G.W.R. 4-4-0 strikes me as more appropriate for a rural railway. When is 473 to be sorted?

PH

 

Gricers' gnat straining again surely?

 

Evidently I should have put "more" in italics. However , using it is not the camel swallowing exercise which the use of express types on branch lines IMHO amounts to.

PH

 

Personally I equate using a loco too powerful and using a loco off region as being equally inauthentic, the wrong loco is the wrong loco. However, if an authentic train can be marshalled, that is, matching locos and carriages, whether it happens to be on a branch line or mainline is, IMHO immaterial. Where else do you run a train of wooden bodied Pullman's anyway, certainly not the mainline.

 

I think you need to read Post 732 again.
In general, I think @John Petley has got it about right, even if he seems a bit tougher on the "Dukedoog" than I am!

PH

 

Apologies forkssing your Pullman point. The rest of my post still stands though (I think!)

 

I think when people talk about "realism" in train formations, too often they mean "what I approve of" rather than "what actually happened".

A quick look at some photo albums reveals, pre-preservation:

- An original Bulleid Pacific on a Sussex branch line, single track, about 9 carriages
- A rebuilt Bulleid pacific on a Sussex branch line, tender first with a two coach train
- A Schools class on a two coach train of Mark 1s
- Numerous Urie / Maunsell 4-6-0s on three coach trains on the mainline
- A Maunsell mogul in Southern (Bulleid) livery hauling a rake of Gresley teak carriages
- A Maunsell mogul in Southern (Maunsell) livery hauling a rake of GWR chocolate and cream carriages

So pretty well a prototype for anything - big locos on small trains, big engines on rural branch lines, mismatch of loco type and carriages, and so on.

Ultimately, the historic railways had considerable diversity, well shown in photographs. It wasn't invariably twelve coach trains behind class 8 locos on the mainline and two coach trains behind small tank engines on branch lines. The two things I wish that we did better, in terms of creating realistic formations, would be to make them less uniform in type; and to remember that generally most secondary lines were running with rolling stock about a generation older than the newest available at given date, so even those lines aiming to represent the 1950s should be dominated by 1930/40s stock.

Tom

 

I agree about the rolling stock and it is the "sameyness" about the carriages of many tourist railways which is a profound disappointment to me.

Where locomotives are concerned, it is more complex. There are a number of photographs of Ivatt 2-6-2ts taken on services in the Sussex Weald when brand new including 41313 at Barcombe and 41298 at Clapham Junction on its way to Tunbridge Wells West. However, loco. foremen were used to using any old wreck on minor work whatever its size, so it could accumulate mileage to get it in for a works overhaul. This should not justify present day tourist lines indulging any big chufferitis tendencies in its workforce.

PH

 

There is literally a photograph of Beachy Head pulling a train at Horsted Keynes in steam days.

You are insufferable Paul.