Rother Valley Railway

I am given to believe that the whole project is paused.

 

Whatever the position in Somerset, I am pleased to say that the K&ESR Board appears to be a strong one, with a powerful skills mix to help the Railway’s volunteers and staff move forward positively in what, it is to be hoped, will be an interesting few years.

Robin

 

When I worked in a bank the head of IT was appointed head of payments. The chap was a computer man, and had no payment experience. But experience of the job was not considered necessary for a manager, who was there to manage people.
Weird.

 

Of course not knowing anything about the subject when you start doesnt necessarily prevent you from managing it effectively, in the same way as knowing it inside out doesnt stop you making a pigs ear when you manage it

 

Very true.

Robin

 

Well sometimes. When I was at work we had two managers who had no shop floor experience at all. One was OK as an admin manager but kept trying to implement processes that wouldn't work, and got annoyed when we explained that we weren't going to follow them because they wouldn't work and explained why they wouldn't work. The other was a spreadsheet jockey and as long as the figures in his spreadsheets matched up at the end of each month he never realised that we were running rings round him.

 

Railway Operations is a fascinating game of three-dimensional chess. You do have to know the rules and some, at least, of the moves if you are to stand any chance of playing it successfully.

Robin

 

Say like adding a MK1 coach to a Standard gangway set and knowing it has to go between two coaches which have pullman adaptors not just dumped on the end as that has no adaptors

 

That would be a pretty specific example. Why does it come to mind?

Robin

 

Probably very specific to the SVR, I can't think of any other railway that has so many carriages in "normal" use that use standard gangways and is the sort of railway that add coaches on to rakes and take them off in the blink of an eye according to demand.

 

Absolutely. When it comes to operations especially I do wonder whether we take full advantage of the experiences on other heritage railways. On a number of occasions I've known suggestions dismissed as "too difficult" yet they are not too difficult elsewhere, if only folk would look beyond. One such suggestion did end with me rather impertinently writing a new timetable to prove a point ...

 

A mixture of BS and Pullman gangways is certainly not ideal. The reason why the Pullman Car Company adopted 'Pullman' gangways was the habit of the company to reform rakes regularly. By contrast fixed rakes were much more normal among main line companies.

Robin

 

I was (forgive the language) a bl***y good operator, and could make the trains run better for the Big Railway's customers. That career was taken away from me by an act of serious discrimination at a time when trans folk were not protected as they are now. I have made a good life in another profession and had the opportunity to contribute to our society through my military service but it pains me that a skill I have is not fully deployed for the common good and that even recently prejudice has caused me to be passed over in favour of those less able. But no one said life was fair and self-pity serves no-one.

Robin

 

The Rother Valley Railway web site - rvr.org.uk - declares planning permission secured some
time ago. The planning web site -Rother Districr Council, ref: RR/2014/1608/P - has nothing
new since the late summer.

Apparently the exact details of the conditions attached to the planning consent in principle
are being spelled out & settled. These seem to be principally ecological - and at times
pleasantly practical: owls need some tempting new alternative nesting boxes and to see if
there are any nightingales, listen for them. Implicitly a lot of really important things on which
there is nothing are not at issue.

Having all this carefully agreed in detail might stand things in very good stead later.
It is not clear to me wether or not a time limit which includes a time to begin the work
implies a prompt grant of the full permission with the conditions detailed explicitly.

 

Planning permission for what? The website says "As parties will know this is now in a public enquiry with a decision to be taken in the second quarter of next year (2019)."

 

Simply that our Ops Manager, a through and through railway man anotated the operating instructions for spare coaches with the gangway types should we have any failures.

I agree that using adaptors is not ideal but in the limited, dining train,we dont have a GWR kitchen so need to use a MK1 with adaptors on the two GWR dining cars

 

The SVR may also be one of the few to have spare coaches should any fail in service on the santas

 

Planning permission for reinstatement of the Rother Valley Railway from Northbridge Street, Robertsbridge, to Junction Road, Bodiam was approved in March ‘17. Planning permission for the other parts of the route was granted several years previously. As @Hirn says there are environmental and other conditions which must be satisfied but nothing insurmountable.

A Transport & Works Act order is also required to build and operate this railway. It will need to include compulsory purchase powers if agreement cannot be reached with the remaining landowners. That’s what the Public Inquiry will be about.

 

In the post today...

Robin

 

Many thanks for the heads-up, Robin.
Though June seems an awfully long way away, right now, at least the date is finally set, and an interesting choice of venue, hard by the very worst bottleneck on the A21