Isle of Wight Steam Railway

Except that for many preserved lines, the traffic requirements aren't for a modest sized tank locomotive any more - taking 6 fully laden mk1s up the bank from Alton to Medstead needs a class 4 at the least, similarly Sheffield Park to Horsted on a busy day needs a decent sized loco - it's often becoming more about finding reasons (such as "branch line weekend" events) to use the smaller locos...

 

Close the line, flog everything to the scrap man.

 

Here we go again. Subject to correction of course, I understood the platforms to be sufficiently long for five only.

Videos show the 2MT heading five.

 

Come on Tom, everyone knows there's a Wight way and a wrong way with regards big chuffers....

 

Fuel, lubricants, overhaul costs and civil engineering wear and tear come to mind.

 

Indeed - so why run anything at all? I'm sure the good doctor had all these issues in mind when he shut so many of our heritage railways down in the first place. Sounds like you might think he was right.

Peter

 

So basically you would put on a bus instead,
Big chuffers used correctly over time don't work out any more expensive than steaming a smaller engine, firstly it allows traffic department flexibility to strengthen the rake, if you have several coach parties booked on an already busy day,
Overhaul costs are fixed don't matter how lightly an engine may be used, , civil engineering, , if your talking hammer blow etc, then yes i agree, but, your PW should be up to a standard to allow you to run even the engines with the largest axle loading, otherwise why have them,

 

..put on a bus.or a PPM!! Automobile ownership and the structure that maintains it is facing steep cost increases. Europeans are restarting night trains in reply to short haul flights. our Heritage Railways might have to embrace some new technology to survive.

 

All of which would increase if you did the alternative, which was to specially steam a suitably small engine for that one-coach load and then run the big one back light engine!

Not to mention the additional crew costs and capital requirement of having an additional loco required to run the service... I'm afraid the financial realities of running a service are far more complicated than your cosy nostrums of "small good, big bad" make allowance for.

Tom

 

There is even less money to waste at present than normal. If comments made to me recently by someone who has visited more lines than me lately are correct, the problem of dirty carriages with worn out interiors gets worse. Resources need to go there. Otherwise the paying customers will be off to the seaside.

As for Dr. B., that well known bogeyman of the starry eyed, had no sentimentality about lines built to serve worked out mineral deposits or scattered villages whose residents now used the bus. He did advocate a modernised freight system. Gerald Fiennes who, unlike us, knew him simply described him as the Great and Good Doctor''.

 

You might be interested that one thing learned from Covid and the encouragement of online booking has been that loadings are evened out during the day. I can't envisage this changing back.

I am sorry but what on earth has this got to do with the economics of running a tourist railway?

 

Totally agree with that

 

As a steam rail enthusiast, with the best will in the world I cannot see a lot of HR operations surviving without some sort of Government assistance. The older founder/volunteers are not able physically to do the heavy jobs once asked of them. The onerous task of track maintenance to current safety standards;carriage upkeep etc etc. If the object is to build back better perhaps some HR could host an amenity service in return for Official help, It might mean curtailed steam services(SA/SO) but it could be a life line!

 

I can. My willingness to have my choices constrained at the moment is conditional upon the knowledge that Covid places absolute limits on what a business can do. Longer term, attractions that organise for their benefit will play with fire when it comes to my money.

 

There's already a degree of providing training opportunities to NR staff on a few lines. I'm always in favour of cooperative effort / mutual back scratching, though it needs a delicate touch. Back on the FfR of the eighties, the then Manpower Services Commission placed several 'trainees', which although some were excellent, others were merely intent on taking the opportunity for a good 'skive', which inevitable led to some tensions.

I don't mention that with any intent to pour cold water on a potentially good idea, just saying that it'd be essential to do so in a manner which doesn't result in any re-run of historic problems, whether they were due to inappropriate management, or perhaps merely unfamiliarity with methodology and/or insufficiently well defined aims and expectations.

It'll be interesting to see how discussions on this one progress.

 

I agree - there are already some railways that have reverted to tickets which do not limit you to a certain seat and train. I can see a hybrid model where prebooking of services is possible (advantageous for something like on the NYMR for the first train out to Whitby) but it not being a requirement, so you can still turn up on the day and travel on any train you like, but you may not be guaranteed a seat if somebody has booked it first.

 

Tom, I know you are playing devil's advocate here, but this isn't a situation that comes up frequently on heritage railways, which we are discussing here. Clearly the mainline is different, hence why we see 66s shunting instead of local 08s all round the place.

Very few heritage lines steam up a small loco just to pop and get one carriage instead of using a big loco. Paul is right in that we generally only steam up what we need, and using the smallest loco we reasonably can is well understood.

All of this is irrelevant when discussing the IWSR where all trains start and end in the same place and we ain't got no big cuffers anyways

 

Pre-Covid, 6 was common, usually including a heavy catering vehicle too. (A mk1 kitchen car is around 40 tons, compared with 26 for an island brake third) While @21B or @Stinch might correct me, I understand the Ivatt can manage 5, but is working pretty hard to do so - increasing wear and tear (and therefore cost) significantly compared with using a 4mt instead. It's by far my favourite of the MHR fleet, hence the avatar, but I recognise that it's often better to use a bigger engine to conserve the smaller ones.

 

Thanks' for your thoughts. You can see the reason for my ''huh'' thoughts about heavy catering vehicles on tourist railways. Mind you, a 2MT shouts vigorously even light engine.

 

So it's not just big locos but selling food on trains you have an issue with??