Swanage Railway General Discussion

It would be interesting to know the financial projections for these three projects particularly on the basis of ROCE - Return on Capital Employed.

My gut feel is that:
Wareham will be cash negative (ie additional operating costs exceed additional revenues),
the Water Tower will save money the day it is brought into use. If the water bill is paid monthly then the savings are realised virtually immediately.
the Carriage Shed will also save money the day it is brought into use but the savings will be much harder to quantify and are realised in the form of deferred expenditure / expenditure reduced over time.

An analysis of the ROCE would indicate which of the water tower or the carriage shed gives a better financial result.

It is also worth noting that whilst Project Wareham will occupy many of the sr management team and staff on a daily basis, the other two projects are very much discrete projects with a much smaller draw on staff.

 

Surely you work out a potential team to do a project and have a basic plan before you start fund raising ? And sure the cost analysis is done before you fund raise also. That's what other organisations seem to do anyway. So once funding is there you can go and get it done subject to unforeseen issues not being found .

 

That somewhat presumes that the analysis done is not invalidated by changes in external conditions afterwards. Like Covid, tight supplies of building materials, etc.

 

Well known that Covid created a building material shortage. This will be a small project to suppliers who will be pressurised by the big house builders and developers to make sure their orders come first.
I know when I had 50 aircraft sets of aircraft seats on order I took a very dim view if it was suggested some airline with a couple of aircraft got their seats first. Volume and hence spend counts for much in times of shortage.

 

Back in 2014
https://www.swanagerailway.co.uk/ne...linking-swanage-and-corfe-castle-with-wareham
"Thanks to a £1.47 million Government grant from the Coastal Communities Fund, a trial two-year passenger train service linking Swanage and Corfe Castle with the main line at Wareham is set to start from late 2015 and run on 140 selected days over the following two years."
There should be money left from the grant to help pay for the delayed 2nd year trial. (But may have been used for renting in crew and stock for the first trial as the DMUs were delayed?).
On the positive side from the Project Wareham thread the DMU testing and training is doing well, SWR are starting to see lesiure journeys increase.

 

I was under the impression - perhaps wrongly - that the £1.47M grant had all been spent on the refurbishment of the DMUs and other associated costs. I may have assumed this wrongly because of (a) the grant from other sources for the building of the DMU servicing centre at Corfe Castle Station (b) the decision not to operate a second year trial with hired in rolling stock.

 

May stay that way for a while whilst diesel is 10p a litre and petrol 6p a litre more expensive than the two Harmans Cross petrol stations. I suspect it will take a while for them to burn through the high price stuff.

 

...and we have a turntable to work on as well!. The installation at Robertsbridge looks to be going well, no locos to turn on it yet!! note that HRs are cancelling "wartime" events (good thing!!) but is SR overlooking a potential gold mine in connecting events with the Mowlem. I am old(enough) to remember a Bulleid Pacific rolling towards London with Bill Haley and the Comets aboard. Big Headboard of Bill on the front! So....a train comes in to Swanage.tribute artist(Elvis??) aboard. walks down the street and puts on a great show at the Mowlem "Dinner (on the train) and a Show". Sounds like a good substitution for the "getting past its sell by date" war stuff!

 

but an operating coal mine in the UK will bring jobs, jobs,,jobs. We know that coal is terrible stuff to mine. handle and convey ,Modern Health and Safety can doubtless reduce a lot of the risk. As Mrs T one said TINA!

 

TINA ?

 

There Is No Alternative!

From the First Book of Thatcher. Verse One !

 

Still controversial, for Cumbria for a new coal mine for steel production
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-56023895
Boris Johnson has said he does not want a planned new coal mine in Cumbria to go ahead.
Speaking at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow he said he was "not in favour of more coal".
The government is awaiting a report from the Planning Inspectorate, but the final decision lies with Communities Secretary Michael Gove."
(he still has not given a decision and the alternative is to buy more coal from Russia)
and
"Unemployment in the area is lower than the national average, but over 40 Conservative MPs have signed a letter in support of the mine."
There is an ongoing thread in the General Rail discussion forum about coal
https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/the-threat-to-coal.1417743/page-17

 

As I understand it, the Cumbrian mine wouldn't produce steam coal so this is not particularly relevant for heritage railways, except the general point that the UK government would rather increase the country's carbon footprint and expose it to greater risk of energy supply interruptions by relying on imports rather than digging it out of our own hillsides

 

AH The coalminers friend ! There was an alternative, He was called John Major.
Please can we get back on topic !

 

Changing tack a bit, as they were the majpr suppliers, do the Russians still use a lot of lump coal if so for what?

 

With 31806 now appearing to be fitted with a different tender after the day of mega shunting yesterday, does that mean the loco is currently not mainline compliant as I was under the impression that some of the mainline required equipment was fitted on the tender.

 

31806 has been running with the tender originally behind the N, she now has her own tender back which I believe is also fitted with all the mainline bits and pieces.

 

I know you can get bags of it in the supermarket. My friend got a few bags for the BBQ. he could not work out why his "charcoal" would not lite. I took a look and realised it was coal, not charcoal. It was smokeless, so BBQ was ok! they use it for heating in their datchas, if there is not enough wood. Not sure what the big industries use, like cement, Iron etc.
Something to remember is that all Kazakhstan exports of coal, oil, and some urainium are via Russia. So these may be hard to get as a replacement as the ships are loaded at Russian ports.

 

Steam coal is just a term. It has nothing to do with whether it is suitable for use in a steam locomotive. Coals can be broadly split into coking coals, which can be used for making coke and steam coals, which is all the rest. Because it can't be used to make coke, it's prime use is steam raising in power stations or, in times gone by, industrial boilers. The coal planned to be mined at Woodhouse Mine is a metallurgical (coking coal). The coal mined at Ffos y fran is a metallurgical (coking coal) and a lot of people will tell you that it is eminently suitable for use in a locomotive.

 

A couple of images from DMU training and taster runs over the past two days. Interesting lamp position on the Prairie.