Llangollen Railway

The LR Trust has said that sale prices were much higher than expected. Were they really? I’ve seen coaches change hands in recent years for £3ok + and the prices achieved were pretty much what I would have expected.

Good the Trust have obtained several items they wanted.

All this talk of coaches, but I see that Davy also sold for over £10k. I wonder where that is destined for?

 

The prices achieved for the coaches, were much, much higher than I was expecting, especially when you consider the auctions fees plus VAT on top. Perhaps it is that we are more used to seeing basket case projects change hands rather than coaches in ready to run condition and that is what caused the greater interest. Would I pay such prices myself with my own money. Definitely no.
Will be interested to see who has bought them, I don't think it will be private individuals, perhaps even a mainline operator like Saphos trains or railways that have received Covid recovery cash.

I don't think the high prices are a good thing because now owners of coaches will all be thinking their heap of rust is worth big ££££ and thinking they can cash in.

 

I hear rumours two of the coaches were bought privately with the intention of keeping them at Llangollen. Will be interesting to see if true.

 

I was wondering yesterday if that was possible. Deep pockets if so.

 

I quite agree. It would a lot less profligate to spend that money on a railway's existing mark 1 fleet in terms of rebuilding the and pillars, securing the an existing fleet for the future.

 

I agree they all went for what received wisdom would have said, before the pandemic, for individual coaches on sale once in a while. I found it a little surprising that they went for quite as much as they did given the pandemic and the flooding of the market, but remember there was a significant body of opinion on here that worried some wouldn't be bought at all and would sold for scrap! I think we can pretty safely say that an operating Mk1 will always be sold intact, no matter the circumstances.

Depending on who's bought these coaches, we could well see a trickle down effect with some basket cases previously grudgingly held on to considered essential to the future being moved on. I could imagine a few private owners thinking their rust bucket might suddenly be worth loads, but hopefully railways will be less silly. The former is not a new phenomenon anyway, I think it was only last month there was a typical Mk1 needing lots of work up for £25k, all the comments agreed it was too high, which it was, by about £5-10k probably.

 

According to comments on Facebook it was TSO Lot 10.

 

That's rather an uncharitable view of vehicle owners, given that the returns on railway preservation are rarely financial.

 

Sorry Pete to be slow in replying...... but if the railway has extended then I'm sure they will have thought about the need for suitable stock.....and if the money is available there are one or two companies set up to restore coaches if the job cannot be done "in house".

 

If you have the time, facilities and able volenteers to work on mk1 coaches then buying 3 serviceable "basketcases" at £5k to £6k each seems a good long term investment.
There are several MK2 and MK3 coaches available (some at Dartmoor), but not so suitable for heritage railways and more likely to be scrapped.

 

Given the total lack of structural timber in all that modern stuff, never mind the price, I'd have been very surprised if you had!

I sincerely hope the monies raised at auction are sufficient to permit a reconstituted LR to resume operations, at the earliest opportunity.

 

The monies raised are all going towards paying off creditors of the Llangollen Railway PLC. Not a penny is is going towards the LR Trust and their efforts to reopen the line.

 

What’s a “serviceable basketcase”?

I wouldn’t underestimate the work needed. Some while ago there was a big WSR hoo-har about spending a six figure sum overhauling a mark 1. The scandal was supposedly that a carriage nominally worth £25k had six times that amount spent on the overhaul (I think probably at contract rates, albeit internal). But I suspect that actually for a thirty-year overhaul it was probably not too far wrong, certainly right order of magnitude.

The key in your statement is “time, facilities and able volunteers”. How many railways actually have that? I don’t think overhaul of a basketcase - serviceable or not - is something you can do outside (just think of the tasks - rebuilding the structure, doors, locks, windows, wiring, trimming ...). So some railways have good indoor maintenance facilities (but are probably maxed out just maintaining their current stuff, rather than taking on a basket case). For those that don’t have such facilities, there are contractors - such as Cranmore - but then the £5k to £6k acquisition price you suggest will pale into insignificance.

Tom

 

Worth making the point that 'Waverley' had a major 'Millenium' rebuild over 2000/2001 and the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society are looking at the next one.

Thinking about it, if you get a MK1 back to 'as new' condition which presumably will keep it on good order for the next 25 years or so, £5000 pa 'depreciation' doesnt seem unreasonable - even if you did a 'straight line' depreciation of many new cars isnt far off that.

But of course it doesnt make paying for it any less of a problem.

 

I'm aware Alan, I was thinking more in terms of removing the biggest substantive impediment to resuming operations at the earliest opportunity, which I assume will be rendered less problematic by these sales. If I'm reading the runes correctly, there seem to be indications the Receivers are amenable to getting the wheels turning again.

 

That's always been the sort of ballpark figure I have in my mind, probably a little more than that in reality.

On the Bluebell, we have a maintenance plan that calls for every carriage to have a complete overhaul once every thirty years; an intermediate every 15 years and a door lock overhaul every 7.5 years. Plus you'd have repaints, tyre turning and the normal mileage-based maintenance tasks in that. The challenge of doing so - and that is just to stand still - should not be underestimated.

The incident some years ago on the SDR should have been a wake-up call to the essential nature of having a robust maintenance plan in place for carriages, but I fear that it probably not fully taken on board. As always with heritage railways, doing something new is easier to fund and resource than just keeping on top of what you already have.

Thinking about the need is the easy bit. Resourcing to provide it - maybe less so. Say you have five locos and 20 operational carriages. Then you extend your line by 25% but with the same number of days and departures each day. It's actually not too hard to keep running for a while still with five locos and twenty carriages - until the 25% extra on the annual mileage starts to bite in terms of mileage-based maintenance etc. I suspect in many cases extensions are followed by catchup, not the other way round.

Tom

 

A new set of tyres for a pair of Mk1 bogies can cost 16K and reupholstery can cost6K so a coach with both in a good state is worth 20K for those two items alone and if the bodywork is in good order that's another hike to the value, so the prices commanded by these other virtually obtainable vehicles are perhaps not so surprising. These lines fortunate enough to own large fleets of coaches together with several engines might be cash poor but they are asset rich.

 

Never, I don't believe you!

 

Only one?