Bluebell Railway General Discussion

The latest issue of The Bluebell Times is now available to view for February.

In this issue:

• Don’t get an electric shock – the juice is costing us a fortune
• ‘Fenchurch’ and Bulleid wagon are both in line for top annual awards
• Three visitors announced for Branch Line Gala
• What happens when a train breaks down along the line
• The Bluebell and Southern Railways Archive is soon to open to the public for researchers to visit in person
• Progress on the line’s diesels – and Sir Archie is reunited with its boiler
• Carriage shop donates to the Maunsell Restaurant Car and Horsted Keynes renovation

The Bluebell Times is published monthly on the second Friday of every month. The next issue is due out on Friday, 10 March 2023.

https://www.bluebell-railway.com/bluebell-times/

Tom

 

As ever The Bluebell Times is an interesting read. The new chair has written an honest assessment of what the current finances and budgets look like. £1,000 per day electricity bill - wow!

 

Interesting. The lamp hut at Byfleet Junction outlasted the box by many years, still being there around 1980 when I was acting Track Chargeman there. Inside was a cardboard box with the cast iron letters from the box name plate! Needless to say, I felt the need to save them from whatever the future may of held!
Pat

 

Much interesting material in the Bluebell Times. But I notice some strong views being expressed from the Chairmen about the railway's locos and rolling stock.

In the January issue, Geoff Mee wrote:

"We are also having to examine ways of reducing
the costs of our ongoing maintenance and
restoration activities for Traction and Rolling
Stock. To be very blunt, we have too many locos
and carriages for a railway that is only 11 miles
long and our existing maintenance regime of ‘fix it
, run it into the ground and then stick it in a field
under a tarpaulin until it is no longer viable to
repair’ has got to change."

Geoff Mee has since resigned as Company Chairman, but Paul Churchman expresses similar sentiments in the February issue, more specifically in respect of assets owned by the Bluebell rather than just resident there:

"We also need to look at the assets we own and if a new
home can be found for something we are unlikely
to ever restore and there is no compelling reason
to keep them – we may need to take tough
decisions like we did with the Yankie tank."

Any disposals are bound to be controversial, since it will probably involve someone's favourite. Disposals of Bluebell-owned assets should benefit the cashflow. But in an era of general retrenchment, prices may be on the low-side and there might be no bidders, other than scrap dealers. I think I recall mention somewhere that the Bluebell already has some carriages on sale offer?

I hope that the Bluebell is able to retain the core of its collection of small pre-grouping vintage locos and carriages - surely its USP for enthusiasts. But I recognise that, for most of its normal train operations, the most suitable units are probably mid-size engines such as Maunsell Moguls and BR 4MTs coupled with Maunsell, Bulleid and BR Mk1 carriages (with supporting diesels where appropriate).

It may be more beneficial for some vintage vehicles to undergo only a cosmetic restoration for museum display rather than being brought up to working order. But the problem then is that museum display space is limited. There is no SR equivalent to Didcot and Swindon (STEAM), which provide much space for display of GW exhibits.

 

But if you haven,t got the money or resources to restore them , then they will eventually get to situation that they are only scrap anyway. To a certain extent the Aviation heritage side have been exactly there already.

 

I tend to think that the Bluebell is the nearest thing to a SR dedicated museum. They certainly seem to have the largest collection of rolling stock from the region. Obviously we all want to see it survive, but shame if it has to sell off the family silver in order to do so (Which also raises the question as to who can afford to pay a decent price for such in these uncertain times).

 

Maybe the price isn't as important as ridding oneself of a liability which may only sit and rot, deep into the century. Idealistic as I am, I can see the rationale behind this. The unintentional loss of the Maunsell TK to the scrappers was dreadful. That sort of thing must never happen again, at least not without anything vaguely useful having been removed prior to departure. Learning curve. But that carriages survival was always marginal.
I sincerely hope that a future can be found not just for the Maunsell "long brake" 3724 as an "accessible" vehicle, but also for "nondescript" 4444, as these really are lovely vehicles in their own right, with a lot of punter appeal, witness the KESRs pair.
As for the Bulleids, the lack of a catering vehicle is the big hole in a future complete rake, but as challenges go, it's a potentially appealing one!

 

I thought they were only really talking about rolling stock which were very unlikely ever to be restored. Also wasn,t there a mention recently that one thing they needed to look at was better use of facilities such as the carriage sheds at HK. Didcot solution is to put their rolling stock into what are really just storage sheds but open to the public with one or two explanation boards,

 

I think there are two conversations going on here, and it is probably important not to mix them.

One is about whether there is rolling stock that has a better restoration future elsewhere. The other is whether there is rolling stock that could be sold for a worthwhile amount of money. They aren't the same argument.

For the latter point, I don't think there are any non-operational vintage (non-Mark 1) carriages, vans or wagons that could be sold for anything beyond a very nominal sum. An unrestored wooden carriage on a steel under frame is probably worth scrap value of under frame minus transport costs minus any concerns about asbestos: realistically it is very doubtful that any of the vintage carriages could be sold for more than a few hundred pounds at most, and realistically that is hardly an existential level of cash injection. So while conceivably there might be an organisation out there that would be prepared to take on a carriage as a restoration project, I can't see any sensible prospect of getting rid of vintage carriages unless that was the case. The MHR did indeed take on a Bulleid coach on those terms. But I can't see any advantage in having a mass clear out of, say, Maunsells or pre-group bogie carriages as a cash-raising proposition because the money raised would be trivial; yet I don't see a big queue of railways that could honestly say that they could provide a better future. (For that to be true: can you restore them in a defined time frame, and store them under cover until that happens? Thought not. If you can't do that, you aren't offering them a better future than they have now).

Think the unthinkable: if we wanted to dispose of carriages as a fund-raising proposition (rather than to enhance their restoration prospects) then the obvious ones to me would be Mark 1s. Do we need two rakes of operational Mark 1s? The LTP only calls for one set; in recent years we have only needed one set at Santa time. (The other Santa set has been vintage, and could easily be Maunsells / Bulleids). So there are opportunities there; and the maintenance resources freed up would potentially enable more effort spent on Bulleids / Maunsells. Three six-coach corridor sets might represent the maintenance limit of modern carriages (in addition to the four wheelers, Mets, pre-group bogie carriages, Pullmans and a dining set) but if so, how about those three sets being Maunsell, Bulleid and Mark 1; rather than the current two sets of Mark 1 s and one set of mixed Bulleid / Maunsell? That to me looks like the best bet of disposals that might not be massively controversial and for which there could well be a market willing to pay well over scrap value. I don't think you'd do it all at once (you want Bulleids / Maunsells to come in to replace Mark 1s you wish to dispose of) and I think there is some sense in maintaining duplicates of the RMB and wheelchair accessible carriages for resilience reasons, but as a medium-term strategy, it might make some sense to thin out the Mark 1 fleet.

Personal view as always (and also not from a C&W person).

Tom

 

The market price of mk1s may not be as high as it was a couple of years ago of course. The Llangollen auction was very surprising for the values that the coaches went for particularly given the condition of some of them. At that point though there were several buyers with cash in the market (not all of them railways) and that drove the price up. Given how economics have changed I am unsure the same prices would be achieved now, but all that said a Mk1 in decent condition has got to be worth £35k or more, so selling 5 or 6 does bring a reasonable sum. Is it an existential sum though?

 

The Terrier looks and sounds fantastic. A credit to all who worked on the overhaul. It's nice to see a resident Terrier in action at the Bluebell again.

 

I have to say that she looks stunning in her new, or is that old, guise. There is only one thing that could improve on this and that is having her stable mate restored to play with. I don't suppose it will happen in my lifetime but you can't stop an old git from dreaming.

Peter

 

The future's bright, the future's orange.

For those wondering, the white plate on the solebar reads "To be returned to Angerstein Wharf" which was a complex of sidings in south east London in which the SER - and later the SR - had a major p/way depot. https://maps.nls.uk/view/104194833#zoom=6&lat=1332&lon=4139&layers=BT

Tom

 

Some of us younger gits like to dream as well Peter.

 

I didn’t know the SR non revenue wagons were orange, you live and learn or did you just get a job lot of paint from EasyJet!

 

@RichardSalmon would be best placed to say, but AIUI, the colour was based on paint samples of engineering wagons taken many years ago when the wagon was previously restored. The original basis of the pigment would probably have been "red lead", or Lead (II, IV) oxide.



Tom

 

When will it be out on a drainage job carrying wet sloppy clay?
Doing what it was built for.

 

If 62002 is what was known to BR as a Tunny then I doubt it would ever have carried spoil. Sleepers were the staple fare, I believe.
Pat

 

Re the colour maybe as Easyjet fly from Gatwick perhaps sponsorship and a bit of money into the kitty ?