Great Central Railway General Matters

Interesting comment the "train’s brakes were not performing in a consistent, predictable manner"

Sounds like a maintenance issue?

 

Paragraph 65 in the full report.

"Subsequently, the train was examined and a spindle in the locomotive brake combining valve was found to be sticking. This caused the locomotive steam brakes to remain applied after the driver had stopped demanding braking."

Full report available at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...-from-a-train-at-loughborough-central-station

Sadly the gentleman involved has now passed away, though I don't know whether that's as a consequence of the accident.

 

Hi all.

Is there a winter gala next year? The event is conspicuous by its absence.
A lot of people I know have booked up to visit the new Severn Valley gala instead.

 

January 26-28; listed on a new page for 2024:

https://www.gcrailway.co.uk/whatson2024/

 

Fab, thank you.

 

Alternative footage of 92214 in recent photo charter action

 

This information has been given to Boscastle Shareholders and BOSClub members

"Boscastle insurance claim update....
The Board of the Boscastle Locomotive Ltd. are pleased to be able to announce the following: “Following the major theft last year, of parts and material, from our storage container on the Great Central Railway, a claim for the loss has been pursued and, it is with considerable relief, that a down payment has been received from the insurers to enable us to start placing orders for replacement parts, particularly for the inside motion.
There is still a lot of money needed to complete the work on the boiler and then the final assembly of the locomotive, but the day that Boscastle returns to steam is getting closer. Thanks are due to many people from the GCR, Boscastle Locomotive Ltd. and the Loss Adjusters, who have worked very hard to quantify and process this complex claim."

 

As a picture has appeared on one of the unofficial Facebook pages of the first unit arriving - the GCR has acquired for "next to nothing" a pair of Class 153s, to help continue to provide crew training to a couple of operators. Apparently one of the resident diesel railcars had previously been used for this, but obviously doesn't provide much of a relevant experience these days! The internal newsletter I saw this news in, mentions that they're primarily not for passenger use, but may make an appearance at diesel galas, and as testbeds for other technology testing contracts.

 

Deleted

 

It makes all the previous double track talk pail into insignificance.

 

Unfortunately I can see this same scenario being played out at quite a few of our preserved lines and centres, paid staff, being lost, and an expectation of volunteers filling the roles, which is fine, if you have a good team of volunteers, but i think longer term, things will become harder..

 

And projects will get slower as volunteers will have to fit in project managing, negotiating with the various authorities and outside suppliers in what spare time they have rather than being 100% available day job pais staff.

 

It seems @waterbucket was a little bit ahead of the game with their now deleted post over the weekend.

 

Here are the two class 153's mentioned in post #908


And there is the sad news about voluntary redundancies in order to reduce the financial losses. A very difficult time for all concerned.

 

This is very sad news for the GCR, i think it is reflective of another railway not changing their business model to suit the current climate (or post covid climate) and are now paying the price.

I generally visit twice a year when i am in the area and their USP of running 3 locos a day from early season doesn't equate to bums on seats. Also running huge locos on a flat line with 5 or 5 coaches can't be too cost effective.

I sincerely hope they turn it around.

 

I think that so much of this was in the cards before the current crisis. It is just that things have been accelerated. This is not the end of the world but the end of the world as we have known it. Things change we often forget that.

 

I have held the opinion that since Covid, Galas I've attended at GCR have been as busy as I can ever remember. Escalation of spiralling costs rather than lack of footfall?

 

Probably a combination of both? I wouldn’t use gala days as a barometer of success though.