Trawsfynydd and Blaenau Ffestiniog Railway

I've read the first few pages and my first impressions from the contents pages and Executive Summary were of a very thorough and professional approach .... then I got to the management committee. There's little evidence of hard-nosed rail industry, or project management, experience which is odd, given the feel of the document? I wish them well, but I think they'll need to get additional heavyweights on board if they are to turn dream into reality.

 

A little contradictory, your saying there is a professional approach but the committee isn’t?

Surely the same committee is the ones that produced the document?

Some people don’t find it easy describing themselves so I’d let the document and approach speak for itself rather than a bareish committee members page.

So far they don’t seem to be repeating the old “we will be running trains in a year” message that we kept getting in the past. At least this lot are open about the task and actually have a proper plan!

 

It is certainly a well-written and comprehensive document but I still question the viability of any new scheme in an area already saturated with heritage railways.
Ray.

 

Saturated is probably a bit strong, there is only the Ffestiniog Railway in immediate area with the Bala Lake Railway an hours drive away and the Llangollen further away.

Hardly saturated but if they all worked together at advertising rail based holidays they could easily generate more visitors combined to satisfy all of them.

 

I felt similarly, and also noticed an odd mixture of enthusiasm and professionalism that left me with significant doubts about whether they are offering any more than WIBN.

They’ve obviously reflected on what went wrong with previous attempts, and are trying to make this one work properly. I wish them well but there’s nothing there yet to make me think this is a must do.


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.... or the Welsh Highland x2, Snowdon, Llanberis Lake. It must be remembered that most members of Joe Public are only likely to travel on one heritage railway during their visit to an area and so more railways does not necessary equate to more spend. Sorry, but IMO, this is just another WIBN scheme with no real purpose or viability.
Ray.

 

What on earth is WIBN?

 

Wouldn't It Be Nice...

 

"Wouldn't It Be Nice", a phrase much used here to describe unfeasible or unsustainable projects of various kinds - originated by a frequent poster called Paul Hitchcock, or at least used heavily by him

 

What though is the lines 'USP' Its not an 'iconic' route like the S&D or Waverley Route

 

How many other standard gauge lines are there that have an old Nuclear power station on their doorstep?

Besides the RHDR + RER miniature gauge lines.

 

Well, there's the old GWR Severn Bridge line which goes to Berkeley power station, the SER branch to the loading area near Lydd, which serves Dungeness , the GER line from Saxmundham which serves Sizewell, a branch from Seaton Carew to Hartlepool Power station....

 

The O.R.R. will not allow trains to run until all operating staff, track maintenance , loco & carriage engineers are competent. Who is going to train them ?
Where will the locos & coaches come from ? If you can get a good mark one for less than £15k you'll be doing well.
Good luck with the amount of grant funding required - not a hope in hell of raising that !
The new station at Corwen has been built entirely by volunteers, with the exception of the concrete underpass & the transfer of infill material from the Ruthin branch. The cost of the work is considerably less than the assumption in the report.

Bob.

 

I've read through it all, and the first thing I have to say is that clearly they have put a good deal of effort into producing a reasonably professional document. The presentation could do with some work - the diagrams and tables all seem pretty mangled, there are weird things going on with the kerning and line spacing, the photos aren't captioned and there are lots of other things like typos, wrong page references and suchlike - but cosmetic things are easily sorted, and overall it is a good effort, much better than many other small railways can do and certainly light years better than anything put out by the late Mr Dale's team. They've shown their working on various points, shown that there is at least some level of thought behind parts of the plan rather than just a finger in the air. You might doubt they can build a "heritage centre" for 5 million, or wonder why they think that all the stations will cost the same amount, but they are at least able to demonstrate that there is rational reasoning behind those figures.

Having said that, I still don't really think the project will get off the ground, and there are a number of things that make me say that. The CVs of the committee don't exactly inspire that much confidence. I certainly don't think they will manage to reach their target fundraising amount, based on what they have shown so far. I don't really understand some parts of the phasing of their plans - why are they producing interpretation boards in phase 1, when "negotiate to gain access to the site" isn't until phase 2? They also don't really seem to have considered in any depth how they would get a station site at Blaenau, other than "the FfR will give up one of their platforms for us" (and it will only cost them the same amount as reopening, say, Manod).

Moreover the strangest part was about the benefits they think their line will bring to the area. They seem to still believe in the old "commuters will use a heritage line" plan, and even that it will lead to new housing developments being built alongside the line, or new commercial development! Particularly as about half of their line runs through a national park, it really does seem extremely unlikely. They might not be planning to have trains running "this time next year" as Colin Dale said year on year for many years, but they're still running to an extremely tight timescale - they say they want to be ready to open negotiations with Network Rail this year and start surveying the line next year, but they're still trying to find someone who knows how to do the latter.

I'm sorry: in some ways this document is promising, but in others it just seems to highlight how unfeasible the project is.

 

Should have added the word Heritage or Preserved, shouldn't I?

 

Still gives you the line serving Berkeley and Oldbury, potentially!

 

Posts 562 & 564 read as though he has nothing to do with the project, so just for clarity - "railmedic" is Shane Barry who is Chairman of the group.


Keith

 

Being in direct competition with one of the best Heritage Railways in the UK, as well as being in an area with a glut of family friendly tourist attractions is going to be a huge uphill struggle.

Some of the route is scenic but it basically goes in the wrong direction. If they can't get into Bleanau Central they will struggle to attract passengers. So I'm surprised the report has little to say about that other than some wishful thinking. The FRs idea for a cross platform interchange was for the Conway Valley, not the Traws branch.

Tim

 

Hmmm...in that case it seems a bit strange that in this post:

he doesn't seem to realise that a joint marketing scheme has already been in place for nearly 50 years - it's hardly a state secret!

 

I confess that rings alarm bells to me - I'd expect someone directly involved to declare their connection, even if they are then clear that they're writing in a personal capacity.