Swanage Railway General Discussion

I was under the impression at the time that the movement and re-erection was to be largely paid for by the Railway Heritage Trust, or a similar organisation, withthe SRT making a relatively minor contribution - can anyone clarify this?

 

Who says the T3 will only get used occasionally? The T9 seemed to get plenty of use?

 

when they started they said it would be only used occasionally

 

Those clay workings may be precisely why the restrictions on the oil site are so much tighter - it started much later, and in a different era of environmental awareness.

You also omit to mention that it takes at least two to tango. The MP may well be right, and may even have been prodded to get involved as a way of moving things forward. But if Perenco and/or DC have other matters higher up their priority lists, the SR may just find itself stuck in a queue. As @Gladiator5076 says, council budgets are extremely tight, while demands on them are continually rising. In negotiations I’m involved in, it’s frequently better to give the other sides a bit of time rather than hustle them - because hustling can easily provoke the wrong answer.


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Don't assume that everyone invariably assumes that steam railways are an unalloyed good thing. On a railway forum you might expect to find an overwhelming majority in favour of the proposition that the site should become an engineering base for the Swanage Railway, but outside this forum that could well be a minority view. If you put a proposition that the land had to be returned to a pristine natural state and turned into nature reserve, many might find that attractive - perhaps sited mid-way along a nice long distance cycle track from Wareham down to the coast at Swanage ...

Tom

 

Do I recall the FfR saying that about Welsh Pony? Not that anyone's complaining, mind.

 

AFAIK the SRT treats donations in two ways: Firstly restricted funds. These are donations which have been made to the SRT for a defined specific purpose for example the T3 restoration. Or a legacy where the legator has specified that the legacy must be used for a specific defined purpose. The funds can only be used for that purpose. Secondly unrestricted funds. Where the donation can be used for any purpose deemed suitable by the SRT Council of Management.

One of the issues that many heritage organisations face is that many projects relate to the restoration of old rolling stock or old buildings. It seems almost inevitable that when "investigation" work is carried out the condition of the item is far worse and requiring more work than first envisaged.

 

The challenge that all councils face is the meeting of their statutory obligations. These are the services they are legally obliged to provide including for example adult social care. Over the past few years demand for (and the cost of providing) statutory obligation services has increased very significantly to the point where many councils have very little money left over for non statutory obligation services. Take a look at your council tax bill and see where the money goes.

 

Dorset Council's budget is online. Note in particular that they spend ten times as much on Adult Social Care, which I suspect is largely invisible to most users unless they are directly affected, as they do on Travel, which is very visible. As you say, once the statutory services are paid for, there really is nothing left - made worse in an area like Dorset with areas of disproportionately elderly population that tend to be high users of statutory services.

Support for transport is a long way down the priority list.



Tom

 

Which of course means that when one considers any possible financial support for a Wareham service, even what may seem as a relatively modest level of support (say £500K) is in fact a significant % (C4%) of the total transport budget.

If DC decided it wished to spend £500K on improving public transport between Wareham and Swanage, it would be interesting to see what both SR and GSC (GoSouthCoast / Morebus) would say they could deliver for the money.

Somewhat bizarely there is a paradoxical issue here. If GSC said they could increase the frequency of the 40 service to every 30 minutes, and then if more ENCTS card holders travelled, paying GSC to improve the service could cost DC "twice over", once for the service enhancement, once for the concession fares. It may also impact car park revenues negatively!

 

Although the Diesel and Beer gala date has been announced for May, no details yet, and if there will be a DMU train or bus service from Wareham station for those arriving by train.

Is this the ex Salisbury LSWR water tower which is in storage awaiting to be reassembled on the concrete pad?
http://amodelrailway.blogspot.com/2011/08/lswr-water-tower-salisbury.html

Looks like there might be at least 3 parts to the project.
1. Reassembly and plumbing. Could initally still be topped up from water mains.
2. Will allow the platform extension to take place.
3. The digging to link to the spring water source, which now looks expensive than planned, could be under taken at another future date?.

 

"All we are saying,is give us the news! (Good or bad!) ..and on that note ,what of the Herston Carriage Sidings??

 

Isnt there a 4th element? The granting of a water abstraction licence?

 

Check out the impressive speed at which the Rother Valley Railway has located a site for its turntable which is now being installed(National Preservation site) . SR have one squirreled(!!) away somewhere and i believe it was penciled in for those oh so elusive Perenco sidings!! What a boon that would be for Steam charters not having to send the locomotive to turn around at Eastleigh

 

It's been mooted for many locations, on the floodplain at Herston to provide a connection to the works has been a dream of many. Personally it should of gone "over the road" at Norden by the loading pad; charters could of arrived, locos swapped and whilst a member of the home fleet takes the train to the seaside the charter loco could be serviced / turned and meet the charter ready for the return. Could also be used for turning vehicles before/after arrival of loading depending upon requirements. Hey-ho, there's more than one way to skin a cat and whichever choice is made will always be wrong in someone's eyes...

 

Interesting that the water tank article dates from 2011! when one considers that this great piece of Victoriana from the 1860s. was restored both internally and externally some years ago yet SR cannot give even a projected date for its installation! Make great match up with the T3 Y/N??

 

I'm led to believe that the RVR have some wealthy backers, which goes a long way to explaining the rapid progress.

 

Not to mention that the constraints at Robertsbridge may be very different from those in Purbeck

 

You mean something like some allegedly English Football teams? The point i am trying to make is,that as a very long time SR supporter, some of these projects, for which donations have been canvassed and given do not seem to have moved on from the WIBN stages. If we have these artifacts(The Tank and the Turntable),and have had them for some considerable time is it surprising that given the dearth of news of same that the occasional question is asked. I have asked here and on Facebook whether Herston Carriage Sidings initiative is going ahead .((another Big Appeal).does anyone have an answer on that?