Swanage Railway General Discussion

It rained heavily overnight and it appeared Swan Brook may have broken its banks as well.
Hence I ventured out for the first of the Christmas lunch trains (which unusually contains a green coach in the set) to a flooded King George's Field.
Whilst waiting a slight reflection shot of 33111 seemed too good to miss as well.

 

THEY CALLED BACK _and we managed to book - IMPRESSIVE and now all sold!! Perhaps more days or is something preventing making more money from this?

 

Activity at Corfe tonight that I only stumbled on as we passed over the train on Nursery Bridge coming back from Wareham, and the webcam showed the train there some time later.

 

Filming I believe, started about 5.00pm. Man with a drone and a number of others taking photos and movies.

Sent from my SM-T820 using Tapatalk

 

Good afternoon everyone,

So.....this is it, the final video in our SOS appeal series. We are less than £24,000.00 away from achieving our goal of raising 360k to help save and secure the future of this wonderful railway.

Please, please, please give the video a watch and share the video as much as possible to help spread the message.

Thank you so much to everyone that has donated or supported us by donating to our appeal this year, its means everything. If you would consider helping us out one last time to help achieve or go beyond our target, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,

Josh.

 

Excellent news regarding the Swanage Steam and Lights events. <BJ>

'Unprecedented Demand' leads to Swanage Railway adding more Steam and Lights trains (railadvent.co.uk)

 

Good to see these have sold out and pleased that extra services have been added, but can anyone explain why these are now T&T please? Doesn’t this add to the cost / crew requirement ?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Loco's unable to run round six coaches + Queen Mary brake van at Swanage, Run round loop not long enough.

 

Thanks, but the first trains ran with just one loco (the U Class). Were they shunt released at first and why was this discontinued?
I saw a 33 added to the service on Thursday last week (10th) and the Bulleid over the weekend.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Presumably it is undesirable to run round as it would mean disconnecting the lights on the loco.

 

Do not know but normal Santa's have been T & T the last two years due to the Swanage run run issue.

 

Through the trees something stirred!
1715 lights train taken in isolation from the park across the road from my house

 

The Mid Hants are running similar trains, and manage to easily run around. The lights on both the loco and train remain illuminated whilst doing so. So I doubt that’s the issue at Swanage.

 

Different systems. Very different systems.

Sent from my SM-A405FN using Tapatalk

 

Maybe so. However given the technology involved, the ability to unplug and plug the loco into the lighting supply to run around should surely be quite simple.

Anyway as has been stated, it’s the size of the run round loop that necessitates top and tailing.

 

The first trains ran with just one loco which ran round - initially a trial run with a single 33 and then with the solo U.
Then on Thursday 10th a 33 was added at the Swanage end of the consist before the current formation of a steam locomotive at either end.
I was just curious what had happened to change the plan.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

The train is too long to run round at Swanage, A diesel shunter (and crew) would be required to shunt release the train via the main line while the incoming train locomotive either went to shed or into the sidings.
The current arrangement is much more simple.

 

Would the 33 be able to heat the stock more easily too? (ETH being a bit more instant than steam heat)

 

Its a combination of two factors all about passenger comfort and convenience.
1/. The shunt release operation at swanage & the RR at Norden were time consuming and made it very tight to get the second trip away on time. You have to get the passengers from the first trip away before you can allow the second lot on the platform and coronavirus crowding is an issue.
2/. There is a makeshift steam heat hose through the Queen Mary break van that doesn't have much capacity when supplying in the down direction. Combined with the amount of time the steam loco was off the train after arriving at Swanage between trips for the shunt release and the doors open for changing passengers made it impossible to keep the train as warm as we would like. You can get the loco on the train early before the first trip and warm it up nicely but it was cold again for the start of the second trip and never really got warm enough before the loco is on the QM end again with the poor SH connection.

The end result was the second tripp was a bit chilly and pressured for passenger changeover.

As we have to have a second loco in light steam as a standby anyway the logical thing to do was T&T. Extra crew not an issue. In a year where we have run much fewer services than usual people were champing at the bit to get the extra footplate time.

Its been a runaway success with extra dates still being added. I'm sure we will offer it again next year, hopefully in addition to the Santas if Coronavirus is sorted by then. Important then to ensure happy passengers for repeat business.

If only all our stock were dual fitted for ETA and Steam heat,,,,,,, Mostly one or the other. Very few both! Steam heat stock was chosen to be fitted with lights.

 

Thankyou Mogul. Makes perfect sense keeping the SH on and uninterrupted.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk