Swanage Railway General Discussion

And some people at Swanage Railway are worried about Dorset County Council giving the line to SWR for them to run a commuter service......

 

Feels rather unlikely to me. A Swanage-Wareham commuter service would lose money hand over fist, and Dorset Council (DCC no longer exists) doesnt exactly have the money to pay for it, and the DFT aren’t queuing up to subsidise more service at the moment.

 

OK, Silly question of the day.
Back to the T9 being tenderless for a short while.
Are tenders not transferable?
The is a plethora of them at Norden at the moment from Bulleid high siders to the U class's, will none of them fit?

 

Sometimes tenders are transferable but there are a lot of things to consider. Even amongst the BR Standard classes not all tenders would work with all locos.

 

Anything is feasible if engineers put their minds to it.
But if T9, part of National Collection; was mated with a Maunsell or Bulleid tender to get T9 into service as soon as possible to keep 100% steam traction, after the tender was derailed due to an operating incident. It could look like commercial pressure was overriding any duty of care Swanage Railway may have for part of the National Collection.

 

Swanage Railway problems pale to insignificance compared with WSR. A Recent post on that site confirms my impressions of that operation from two years ago. Tatty rolling stock and general unkempt conditions trackside especially in the vicinity of
Dunster and Minehead. The Wareham connection issue will evolve and once again passengers from the network will get to corfe and Swanage by Rail.

 

Would appear squadron has sat down this morning? Waiting at Corfe for the crompton

 

What are all these shuttles today? E.g. http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P95010/2019/05/26/advanced

 

I believe they are the Wareham paths if the service was running. They were in the summer timetable last year for a few weeks before being removed.

In an image that could be BR Southern mid 60's, D6515 passes the shed at Swanage where the failed 34072 has just arrived. This may have been the 14:00 service from Norden, but not sure. Just visible in the shed is the T9 tender.

 

The Swanage Railway are certainly on the ball when it comes to updating their website. <BJ>
''We regret that due to a locomotive failure a revised Diesel Hauled Service is operating today''.

 

Anyone know what's wrong with Squadron now? She keeps have admittedly minor sounding issues.

Also I know about the U Boat and the T9 but I have noticed 80104 has seemed to have not run since the Gala. Insurance exam?

 

Standard Tank on today.

Sent from my SM-T820 using Tapatalk

 

Not a good day for the SWR shuttles by all accounts, hope to use it myself in coming weeks if it lines up with a couple trips behind 26007, noticed from webcams The 26 has been quoted as being out but one of the 33s has been out instead. Correct gen would be a great help in future. Saves a bit of money too,

 

Not sure a commuter service is the issue to focus on. This implies an early and late service for those working a normal day. I can't see commuters abandoning their cars so agree its unlikely to be a commercial success if attempted. Such a service tho, if run by others, wouldn't conflict or compete with the SR service. The main threat to the SR is in a service that runs over the same route at the same time as the core Heritage services as these will inevitably abstract from the the SR revenue.

In the short term I don't think SR has much competition. It would be foolish tho to rely on the current incapacity on the part of external operators to continue indefinitely and if SR doesn't have its act together at that stage then it could have a serious challenge on its hands. SWR will likely be using the current services to route train more crews. The rolling stock situation will evolve more slowly so for the short term alternative providers are hard to see but I think a laid back attitude to delivering on the commitments made (whether you support them or not) would be a very poor long term strategy for the railway. Imposement of an external operator is only one way dissatisfied stakeholders can impact the future.

I believe that delivering the commitments made in an efficient and profitable way will produce the best outcome for the railway. This success will then open up other opportunities can then be leveraged to attract funding.

 

But who would actually use a public transport service - for which they had to pay - during the day? Those who are not at work can already travel for free on the bus.

 

And that is really the nub of the problem. People like me (that you refer to) may take a train occasionally for the ride but others would not and most of the time I would use a free service. The issue of a commuter service (which I also believe is a no go) is where do you run it to? Not much of a service if you expect people to change at Wareham and the even if the SR could and wanted to run to Poole or Bournemouth, the logical commuting towns, there is no where to lay over a train or probably platform space in between SWR services (which are regularly late running anyway) and XC services turning back along with SWR ones at Bournemouth. Delay minute penalties alone could wipe out any profit, even if there was one to be made.

 

Surely no-one in their right mind is talking about commuter services: that's a red herring. The issue is about serving the Swanage tourism market, which means services during daytime through the summer. The unknowable, as outlined by @Mogul, is to what extent people travelling on those services might otherwise, had they not been running, have driven to Norden and caught a heritage service from there (presumably at a higher fare, and with all the income going to the heritage railway). So the risk is whether opening the line up to Wareham results in a reduction in the core Swanage Railway heritage traffic and, if so, whether any access charges make up the shortfall.

The other point that I haven't seen widely aired is to what degree volunteers on the line would be happy to see the fruits of their labours essentially supporting a third party operator. It's one thing to be a member of a a railway society and turn out, perhaps in all weathers, to maintain the track over the winter, or work long hours in a signal box, if you know your efforts will help support the running of heritage trains by your own society; perhaps a rather different thing if you felt you were putting in hard unpaid work just to see a different operator profit from your work.

Tom

 

Is there any evidence to suggest that a "Swanage tourism market" wanting to travel to Swanage on a DMU rather than just driving there actually exists?

Consider a family of 4 - the car journey is free at the point of use - apart from parking costs at Swanage, and all the paraphernalia that a family outing entails can just be chucked in the car. They can depart/arrive at times to suit themselves.

On a train they have to get to the departure station, pay the fares - maybe £30 for a family of 4? carry all the paraphernalia and depart/arrive at times to suit the operator.

 

I can’t imagine that the Swanage Railway and (as it was at the time) Dorset county council, have spent millions on something with no demand at all! I don’t know whether you travelled on the 2017 Wareham services, but they were quite busy.

I do think however, that in the long term, services through to Poole, (Parkstone?) and Bournemouth would be better used because many of the day trippers come from there, and lots of people are out of by changing trains, and for those coming from further afield, e.g. Reading, it would make Swanage only one change away.

 

Why would the day trippers go by train - more expensive - rather than by car, irrespective of "only one change" ?