Bluebell Railway General Discussion

In a perfect world, ex departmental Mark 1's or odd air braked refurbished examples would be released for glamping and the vac braked, complete ones transferred to other heritage lines building up their MK1 rakes.

But that's not always how the world works. We now have the situation where in several cases vac brake steam heat complete Mk1's go to higher bidding glampers whilst railways such as Churnet Valley (just one example) have been purchasing incomplete wrecks and having to build interiors for them. I suspect (but not 100% sure) that railways such as CVR are being pipped because the budget is necessarily smaller.

People have suggested that the glampers may make the stripped out parts and interiors available to preservation. I've approached three such projects with that in mind, two didn't want to know and the third wanted thousands of pounds for every single piece of semi rotten woodwork he'd pulled out of the interior. In all three cases all of the parts not retained for their operation were simply skipped. To quote the Facebook warriors: "what a waste". It would have cost the glampers nothing to let us take stuff away.

This is not a knock at Bluebell for selling the Mk1's by the way, more of a comment about the general glamping vs preservation debate for surplus and complete Mk1's.

The simple economics speak for themselves. I don't begrudge anyone for selling their assets to the highest bidding applicant, but it's still odd to watch person A putting an interior in a skip and person B down the road building an identical one!

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Before this clamping idea goes too far: 4824 has definitely been sold to a heritage railway. The only reason I haven't said where is because it has only been in our chairman's update; and the railway concerned may wish to make its own PR capital out of it. But the update is available on the Unofficial Facebook page for anyone interested, so has had wide circulation.

For the other one - I have no reason to suspect it hasn't gone to another railway; it just wasn't mentioned where. I don't see any sinister motive in that - simply that the chairman's update is written as a diary, and so the schedule of what he did encompassed his meetings about 4824, but not the other. So one got mentioned and not the other.

Both Pullman's remain for sale - see https://www.bluebell-railway.com/bluebell-railway-stock-for-sale/

Tom

 

A quick question, more out of curiosity rather than anything else - is there any news of the rebuild of 27? The websites associated with it that I'm aware of haven't had much in the way of hard news for sometime, unless I've not been looking in the right places. Thanks in anticipation,

Steve B

 

There seems to be more about sales stands at present particularly on the Facebook page. Latest though not much is http://wainrightsfinestsecr27.blogspot.com/2023/04/april-progress.html

 

Just quoting my own post again - my understanding is that the second Mark 1 has also been sold to a (different) heritage railway.

Tom

 

Thinking about this part in particular: I don't know how much the Bluebell ones went for, but a few years ago, I seem to recall the Llangollen carriages went for about £30k - £40k, when times were probably a bit more propitious. Let's say that is towards the upper limit of what a good Mark 1 would cost. A lower limit is presumably scrap value minus transport and other costs, maybe as low as £5k.

So if the overhaul costs more than £25k - £35k, buying an incomplete wreck is a false economy if you have the option on a good quality vehicle. That's before you consider the time to get them into traffic (one of the Bluebell vehicles was still in use until a month ago, so is pretty sound condition).

If it is true that "railways such as CVR are being pipped because the budget is necessarily smaller" then I'd suggest thinking a bit deeper about budgets is in order: I can't see it makes sense to save £25k or £30k on purchase price by getting an incomplete wreck and then have to spend easily £50k+ (and many years) turning it into something useable.

If you want to construct a heritage train of Much Meddling & Little Snoring Victorian 6 wheelers: buying a complete wreck may be the only option you have. But if what you want is a Mark 1, buying one that is fundamentally sound is almost certainly going to come at a discount relative to what buying a wreck and making it sound would end up costing.

Tom

 

Anyone hazard a guess how many mk1’s survive in preservation.

thanks

 

Interrogating the Railway heritage register online, a search of all rolling stock built between 1951-63 and then a search within those results for 'Mk1' gives 1518, minus GUVs and BGs gives a total of 1257. That figure will include things like BSKs and SKs converted into departmental vehicles as they're a bit trickier to filter out in a quick search, it doesn't include Mk1 based EMUs or DMUs.

 

Deleted: @flying scotsman123 clearly had more time on his hands than me to filter out extraneous results!

Tom

 

Just a lot of experience of using Ctrl+F to find what I want quickly!

 

I remember Stephen Middleton once claimed that, by adopting his "pragmatic restoration" techniques, he'd managed to restore some of his wooden-bodied four- and six-wheelers for less than the cost of refurbishing a bad Mk 1. If Mk 1s are now in demand for glamping, maybe time to pull the tarpaulins off some of the vintage coaches in the sidings and take another look at them? Perhaps even investigate whether it might be possible to get grant funding for them - which I suspect would be more forthcoming for an unusual vintage coach than for yet another Mk 1.

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A post in the Swanage thread prompted me to remember the band "After the fire" asked on FB if anyone had photos when they played on a train at the Bluebell many years ago, they had no replies on FB, maybe someone here has photos for them?

 

Catching up on a few things ...

The chairman had given a reason a few weeks back (and I think at the Society AGM) warning that they would be late, and the reasons why. However, in today's weekly update, he stated that they are now with the auditors and should be filed this week or early next week.

On the financial picture, two straws in the wind. The first is that 2022 will show a loss which was reduced primarily because the railway received a number of grants; 2023 is projected to show a smaller loss despite there being no equivalent grant income this year. So the financial picture from a trading point of view is better this year than last. A second straw - anecdata I know - for the first 17 days of August 2023, revenue is 20% up on the same period in 2022. Things could always be better, but the strategy seems very much to trade our way out of the current financial situation, and that appears to be working.

Meanwhile, Flying Scotsman is due to arrive tonight ...

If you are at the FS gala any time, the Project 27 stand will be out and I believe they will have some new display boards detailing recent progress. But briefly:

• The frames are almost completely back together, just the spring hangers and firebox support brackets to go
• Valences fitted
• Sandboxes renovated and rear ones fitted
• New running plates, steps being fabricated
• Frames are now in SR livery, inside and out
• A lot of machining etc. has taken place on the new cylinders and the motion parts. New valves are being produced.
• One wheelset is painted; the others are being prepared for painting.
• There's a decision to be made about axle boxes - renovate or produce new.

I'll leave it to visitors to the gala to discover what the options and projected timescales are around re-wheeling; tanks and bunker; and what the possibilities are for the boiler.

On other locos, most effort in the workshop is going into Archie. When I saw it on Sunday, it is substantially complete; I'll put an update in the next issue of Bluebell News. I believe the current intention is that it will be available for Santas / SteamLights in a mechanically complete, but not completely painted, state; and has a slot in the paintshop at Horsted booked for early in the new year. The H class is progressing slowly but most workshop effort is focused on the final assembly of Archie at the moment.

Tom

 

From the chairman's notes looks as if Bluebell have found a working model for survival. I note hos comment about some criticism of theme park but somehow you have to the young 8n and give them a good time a long as you don't forget the heritage and history bit, steam works etc always seems to me a good way forward, not over the top but enough to keep oeople intrigued. A number of museums also seem to do this well and keep the young interested. So yes can't see anything bad about a combination of the child friendly events and the heritage side myself and if it strengthens the survival story even better. Keep up the good works and the chairman's weekly reports!

 

I enjoy reading the chairman's weekly report.
A link for others as to where they can be found https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/download/updates/

The reports also highlight that a number of people are covering multiple roles, including the chairman.

 

Thanks Paul - I knew they’d been published somewhere but wasn’t sure about the recent ones as they hadn’t been notified on the what’s new page!

The vacancies is a worry; it is interesting that in one of the recent updates Paul had noted the idea of another look at Governance that sounded like looking at reducing the number of boards.

Finally - one of the famous pies last Sunday. Beef and mushroom …



Tom

 

If you read the Chairman's report the pies are well advertised !

 

I plan to try one at the Beer Festival.

 

Apparently there has been a big green thing at the railway today, but away from that, the Goods Division put out the following update today, a kind of mid-year score card on the plan they put out at the beginning of the year of their forward plan.





Tom