Project Wareham

I've used the chain ferry thrice and you'r dead right, when the weather's bad, so's the crossing.

From personal experience of puce faces and steam escaping through various cranial orifices, I'd suggest many queuing drivers seeing the bus boogie on past the stationary line of cars is somewhat more stressful and on t'other side of Swanage, on summer weekends, the road up through Purbeck is best treated as a Zen exercise!

Even for those unaccountably immune to the charms of heritage rail, the train to Swanage has much to commend it!

 

This Friday to Sunday there were daytime DMUs, which could have run to Wareham.
It's possible there may have been some Roads to Rail attendees who might have had tents in backpacks travelling on the SWR mainline arriving on Friday and returning Sunday? (rather than by car reducing road congestion).

 

We will of course never know but they message given out last week by the rail industry was that even on non strike days things were likely to be impacted. How many would have bothered on an perhaps suspect hourly service?
What I can say is the roads have been far quieter Friday and yesterday than I would have expected for a normal year. People not driving because of expected congestion or economic climate? who knows. At 15:30 yesterday there were at least 13 empty spaces in the NT Car Park at Corfe and Friday morning when I had to take my wife to Wareham when her car would not start I came back to Corfe and watched the first couple of trains and the car park was still almost empty when I left about 11:15.

 

I suggest that admittedly by chance the Swanage Railway has possibly dodged a bullet with no Wareham service this year

 

Really?
Yes, it would be very nice, but one slight problem though, Like SR are STILL waiting permission from NR/ORR to run from the boundary to Wareham station.

 

That statements rather suggests that SRT SRC have submitted the licence application in full and that all the requirements for a licence to be granted have been complied with.

Does anyone know if that is indeed the case?

 

I have no idea but I did not read Andy' reply as an application has been made. If you have not yet applied then you are still awaiting permission in my view.

 

I beg to differ. In my view an application is seeking permission (to be allowed to do something) and thus awaiting permission suggests that an application has been submitted.

 

I think you can read it either way - “awaiting permission” could equally mean “application submitted but no decision reached” or “not submitted, but in the expectation it will be”. In either case you are in a state of “awaiting permission” before further steps can be taken.

Tom

 

Assuming I am looking in the right place on the ORR site, I can not see one pending.

 

Unless the process has changed, or my memory is deceptive, from the moment the licence is granted the obligations of being a licenced operator come into play immediately and are continuous (unless the licence is surrendered). If this is still true then it makes best sense to make sure that everything is in place, due diligence has been done and the application has been pre-vetted - but not to submit until the latest reasonable time in relation to the start of operations. Being granted a licence now would result in a significant increase in SR overhead (insurance, management time of maintaining the SMS etc.) with no prospect of balancing income. Much better to wait until later so that the loss-making gap between the licence being granted and revenue being accrued is as small as possible.

 

No it doesn't, I know as much as anyone else.
I do, However know that their have been multiple visits by the OR&R to Swanage over the last couple of years so I guess progress is being made.
Certainly our Safety Management system has to be one of the best in UK Railway preservation (Subject no doubt to further debate!)
It might be a good time to pay tribute to all the SR Directors, Managers and staff who have and are putting an awful lot of work behind the scenes to project Wareham,
No doubt when the license is granted, everybody will know.

 

You will without doubt be quite correct there. After being involved in one of the preserved lines who have operated some services over Network Rail metals, the overriding conclusion is that it has changed just about everything. It is not (as many would think) a separate "bolt on" package that is built and then sits next to the well established and unchanged system that runs the "domestic services". Regrettably the "gory details" of the upgrade cannot really be discussed here but hopefully folks get the idea.

I have personally been surprised at how much change is required to the entire system in order to show to a regulating body that a heritage railway is capable of operating just one of their trains "over the fence". If Swanage are going down this route, which is my understanding, then they will have already completed huge changes to SMS, staff competency, rule books, rolling stock restoration documentation and maintenance levels. All of which will deserve credit where due.

Sent from my moto g(8) power using Tapatalk

 

To which point, it's worth noting that the Spa Valley were unable to operate on strike days, because the operating rules require contact with the signaller over the section of parallel running - and if the signallers are on strike, that contact isn't possible. Just another hidden impact of "heritage" and "big railway" engaging with each other.

 

I also believe this will be the first heritage line operating services over a third rail system. I remember during the trail year chatting to a couple of guards and asking if they were looking forward to Wareham who said they were quite happy guarding on the SR, but did not want all the extra that goes with the NR stretch even if it is a relativly short distance.

 

Precisely why many of us think this trial is high risk and likely to demonstrate that routine through running will be a net drain on the SR's resources.

 

Exactly!

SRC SRT are committed to operating the 90 day trial service as a condition of the 2014 lease with DCC (now DC) for the lease of the trackbed as far as Nor.

It is imperative that they maximise "Wareham" revenue and do all they possibly can to reduce "Wareham" operating costs. Two of the more hidden risks are that (1) Wareham services will abstract revenue* from the core heritage railway operation (2) the incremental revenue gained from a Wareham Passenger will be less than the incremental costs of operating a Wareham service.

*If the railway benefits from 20,000 Wareham originating passengers but loses 20,000 Norden/Corfe Castle originating passengers then the net result may be less than satisfactory.

Whilst it is generally accepted that the DMUs have low running costs (no lease/ hire charges, lower maintenance costs, lower fuel costs ) there are the costs of track access, Wareham station access, mainline insurance, commission / sales fees by third parties for the sale of tickets at wareham Station (if this facility is provided).

One can only hope that SRT SRC will gather excellent market intelligence and have a robust and defendable methodology for the allocation of both revenue and costs associated with the Wareham service so that in the final reckoning as true and accurate account as possible can be given.

 

Not getting on the treadmill again but 2023 will be momentous
1. Carriage Shed built
2. Project Wareham trials
Is it not a fact that HR numbers are dropping, mostly due to the grim reaper. Instead of being a negative is it not quite possible that "the link" might prove to be literally a "lifeline" for the SR,
Everything is just conjecture until the trials have happened and the results evaluated