S&D Railway Trust

Yes this is all very plausible and true to a large extent but the last half century has really had its fair share of "the years which the locust hath eaten" where rolling stock restoration is concerned. There are some exceptions but basically the same equipment is found at tourist railways from Thurso to the Nore. Too late to rectify now I think.

 

I didn't know that there were any tourist railways anywhere near Thurso - indeed it must be about as far as you can get on the mainland of the UK from them.

As far as the Bluebell is concerned I have always felt that their C&W Dept lost its way when it decided to start restoring these four wheeled bugboxes. With so many interesting and unique Southern bogie coaches to hand you would have thought that efforts would have been concentrated on their restoration, rather that abandon them to the elements which is what seems to have happened in the drive to restore hen houses. One railway that could possibly have had no more than a token Mark 1 or two now has a sizeable fleet of them as a result of this. Give me a birdcage bogie coach set over the four wheelers any day.

But look, this is just my personel opinion and I fully respect that if this is what the C&W volunteers wanted to do all credit to them. It just goes to show that you can't do everything you would want to in the preservation world. And just in case anyone thinks I am having a popularist pop at Mark 1s I must stress that I regard them as by far the finest general purpose coaches ever built for this country and without them we would have a much leaner heritage railway scene.

Peter
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Going OT, but I would challenge your description of the Mk1 as the finest general purpose coaches - I would rank the Mk3 as superior in all regards, although by no means steam friendly.

 

More like the railway equivalent of the contemporary Ford Popular.

 

You need a railway policy for what is needed to support operations which I thought Bluebell now had, I don't believe restorations are now done at the whim of particular people but properly planned.

 

I think you are contradicting yourself there. It may be superior in many ways but as you say it is not steam friendly, it has gaugeing issues and has always been seen as an intercity vehicle. By general purpose I mean a coach that can be adapted to work in almost any railway environment from main lines to light railways, be hauled by steam, diesel or electric traction and can be either vacuum braked, air braked or both as well as either steam or electric heated. That to me is a true versatile general purpose vehicle.

Peter

 

The Mk 3 has an interesting history with steam traction.

 

Really? Please do tell then.

 

Zilch !

 

Why say so then?

 

Congratulations, you've just won the prize for the most pointless, idiotic posting of the year.

 

Must have taken a while to judge that award on Nat pres...... But GM has so many entries for it he was bound to win..

 

Meanwhile, back on the railway. . . I received a link to the following Video of 53808's Special Train which many of you may also like to watch.


Looks like it was a great day (which make me all the more frustrated that I was ill* over that weekend and therefore unable to make use of the tickets I had booked ).

* Fully recovered now, but some friends I saw at the end of last week have since tested positive for Covid, so I may have had a minor dose of that, or it may have been something else. Local chemists have had no testing kits for weeks so no way to tell.

 

Because GM is most likily trolling, posting remarks they know will inflame others. ignore such postings, and the troll will starve of the attention they crave

 

Nice video, but why hasnt the shed code been changed to 71G Weymouth, as the S&D at bath, was an out station of Weymouth until the WR took over the Line,

 

Just as a point of information: Contrary to the impression given in a recent article in Steam Railway, the LSWR coaches from the Pontypool & Blaenavon Rly are not going to the MHR. They've been acquired by a separate group (The Titanic Boat Train Heritage Trust) that happens to include some MHR stalwarts and they are going to a private site for restoration. The Watercress Line is supportive of the new trust's objectives and, reading between the lines, may well provide some assistance along the way. However, there's a long way to go until there's any point discussing whether / when / how they may run at the line.

I get the impression that Steam Railway's sloppy journalism has resulted in a lot of extra work for the MHR management in recent weeks ;-)

 

Times move on. Ropley is now a major shed with Eastleigh as a sub-shed ;-)