Swanage Railway General Discussion

"So what’s the M7 bunker doing at the Dean Forest Railway? Is it lost? No! It’s there so that Western Steam Engineering can build a new one."

I'd imagine they mean a new bunker, rather than a complete M7!

 

That's more than enough for a new-build....

 

Thanks for the link to the newsletter. Hope to visit Swanage in June.
Notice there is talk of an evening DMU service which will be good.
No mention of the Wareham service which might be due to the ongoing survey/report, hoping there might be test runs soon with DMUs, and maybe the 33 and 31806?

This presumably is a photo of the work on the class 33 cab in Eastleigh?

 

Indeed. Also more photos on the 71A loco group website. Corrosion looks pretty severe in places, but I’m sure they’ll do a good job at Eastleigh.

Is the owning group doing the work, or is this a contract job?

 

http://www.carlswatson.com/Trains/Galleries 2021/G202102/20210203ArlingtonEastleighWorks/index.html

That should be the correct link to the photos.

 

Class 33s are notorious for extreme rust. The joke is that BRCW stands for "Birmingham Rust and Corrosion Works".

 

Is Hot Dog OK then as I notice she a bit faded...

 

The two class 205 units at Dartmoor have now been put up for sale. Any chance one of these might come to Swanage I wonder?

 

What for?

 

Class 104 DMUs are the same....

 

Sales page here https://rmslocotec.com/for-sale

 

Did the 205s not work the branch in BR days? They would represent part of the line's history the move from an M7 and push pull to DEMU. Of course, it depends on whether the line has the money or space for a 205 and the state of the 205s.

 

Monkey Magic has answered that quite well.

 

Can’t believe I’m saying this.

Smacks of WIBN!

 

Is that any reason not to discuss it. It’s not outside the realms of possibility it might happen. Remember, A class 483 coming to the IOWSR was once described by someone as WIBN!

 

1. Is it available?
2. Do you need it? (Either for an operational requirement, or to meet some heritage outcome)
3. Do you have space to store it?
4. Do you have the necessary skills to bring it into operational condition?
5. Do you have the skills and facilities to maintain it?
6. What is the consequence (delays, lack of suitable storage, people, money etc) on existing projects caused by the resources diverted to a new project? Are those consequences acceptable?

If you can give a satisfactory answer to all of those, go for it. But my experience is that the clamour from some for "we should obtain ..." tends to gloss over those questions, especially Nos. 2 - 6 ...

Tom

 

Agreed, that would be for the Swanage railway to decide and in the current climate the answer would probably be a no.

No harm in putting the idea out there on here for discussion. Who knows, there might be a Swanage railway supporter out there with enough cash burning a hole in their pocket.

I wonder what the going rate is for a 205?

 

Add in 7: Does it tick the boxes for the railways/charity objectives....

 

Swanage may turn round to said deep pocketed person and say, can you give the money to the Covid survival fund instead?

Alternative, the argument might be that a 205 is not likely to come up again for a while.

Third argument is that if this is WIBN then what is 563?

Two questions - what is their condition? Are they basketcases or are they ok? Also, (and I was never quite sure about how Dartmoor fitted in the railway network) are they able to run on the national network?

 

I’m not against WIBN projects per se, there have been many that have made a great contribution to the heritage movement. But the killer question that rarely gets asked in such situations is about opportunity cost: if we do X, what doesn’t get done because of the diverted resources? If you could restore a 205 with no impact elsewhere, then great, go for it. But if you said “taking this on means we set back our heritage carriage project by five years and lessen the chance of those vehicles ever being under cover” - well, fine if that’s what the members want, but at least ask the question in honest terms.

I’m not really an expert on such vehicles, but from what I can see, they have an awful lot of doors, and doors are a big driver of cost in carriage restoration. So you are looking down the road at a high per seat cost of maintenance.

Tom