Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

No railway ever is Colin, most railways never made a profit back then either if you take into account land acquisition etc.

But, we ain't gonna be any dinosaur, we will make progress, I'm sure if it, just a bit slower than we would have liked.

I'll keep the optimism if none others do.

 

Who else was going to buy it? As soon as the vendors thought that LBBC would pay whatever it took, the cost became astronomic; there is always a price at which you walk away, esp as there was no other credible purchaser.

Once acquired, there is businesss risk inherent in running it. Far better to let it out and take the rent.

 

Hi Dave

Sadly I think the feeling has become that a railway will be built at Blackmoor asap however since we don't have any money right now to make that happen, I can see that a lot of members are going to be very disappoint over this and rightly or wrongly the trustee will get this in the back of the neck from the members who will quite rightly feel they have been let down.

You are correct about OSHI having to make money and hopefully clear the slate, but if it does, then it will be a long time coming. it is only right to support it when I do get to Devon again.

Once we can (excuse the pun) get back on track and the great unwashed and also those that wish to be seen as a philanthropist are willing to put money into this project then we can start to look toward the long term.

Personally I think the next five years will need so much work to be done group wide, that unless we set up a trackbed purchasing scheme like EA have done in the past to obtain all and any trackbed that we can get between Woody Bay and Lynton I cant see anyone holding on to the dream of an extension happening in their life time.

It may not be the direction we wanted to go in, but every bit that we can open and join up will have a positive effect on the rest of the project.

OSHI I am afraid needs to be left alone for now and it needs to concentrate on being a successful commercial enterprise.

So where does this leave the railway? well I would suggest that if we can start to work together as one team, then I could possibly see a Snapper to Bratton Fleming (a 5 mile) section happening and say a Woody Bay to Lynton (a 4 mile) section as well.

Of course to make this all happen will require money and lots of it (a big fundraising effort will be required) and only by using joined up thinking and having a working business plan in place will this happen.

 

The hinges were of a type common in the 60s, but not now, not so much springs, more with slight interference to movement to enable the seat to be lifted to the stowage position without falling down with the weight. I have no idea if there was a clip at the top. The transcript of my drawing in M & D page 52 looks a fair representation. These hinges were used on public toilet half double doors I recall for the same reason. Unfortunately the examples went with the seat before I could photograph it. In view of the doubt about the screw it was not included on the final drawing, but was on my pencil originals - at the risk of boring readers, attached below. As you can see it was about a 3" screw driven in at an angle, which suggests it was part of the arrangement when the railway was operating. Its purpose could have been to attach a moulded handle, rather than a leg which would have to have been hinged, and therefore surely too delicate to have survived long in service without breaking. Either way you'd have expected two screws - a puzzle unlikely now to be solved. Re the carriages built every one now has an example except observation cars 1 or 2 (as at York), planned as the next one, and 3 and 4. The last 7ft ends of No 3 and 4 were rescued in the 80s, but No 3 was very frail, and I thought was incorporated in No 7, No 4 which came from Shirwell (see below) and still existed not that long ago.

 

I agree it is an expensive hobby as I recently spoke to a guy who I have know from sometime, I asked him for a ball park figure on rebuilding an infrastructure project such as a railway, he reckons if we used volunteers we might get away with £5 to 6 million per mile. If however we have a lot of civil engineering that can only be done under contract, his estimate go from £10 million pounds upwards per mile.

I can think of at least four places along the line that will need new road (over or under) bridges to be built each costing £1 million pounds +. Assuming the worse I reckon that we may be looking at worst £200 million. Like I said before if you add everything up that we have spent at Woody Bay, I don't think you would get much change out of £10 million.

 

That's fantastic!

What an extremely odd angle.....

I'm going to go with immediate thoughts that come to mind.....

I don't think that was originally there when the carriage was built as fixtures and fittings back then tended to be pretty robust, I would be surprised if something like a leg purposely made as part of the design would have failed. Probably added at a later date and I bet it was a quick fix work around for either a/ the seat getting wet, and so had a cloth hung on that screw to wipe the seat down when needed, or b/ for comfort and a cushion was hung by a loop on it, take the cushion off the hook/screw, put the seat down and then put the cushion on to sit on?

The design is exactly as we make them, I am currently half way through doing the ones for Carriage 9. If I get the chance I will take some photos of the components this coming week.

The hinges I can get spring loaded almost exactly the same pattern in your sketch, quite a bulky knuckle with the spring mechanism inside and you can adjust the power of the spring by turning the end of the knuckle, usually with a little Tommy bar. I think with today's passengers having the seat auto tip is probably better than one you have to tip manually via a friction hinge, otherwise they would never get put back upright.

The only other major change we have done is instead of the two flat steel corner bracing on opposite sides we now have a steel brace that goes all the way round and inlet into the seat after someone broke one. I expect you have seen them.

Thank you for sharing the drawings!

 

No, we may not have alot of money, I don't know, but as with many times in the past and will in the future, we just start a fundraising campaign.

I am mindful of how is the optimum way to fundraise too.

If we start a huge campaign to raise millions or tens of millions in one go, are people likely to be put off by the fact hat its a big number. People like to feel they make an impact even if they only put a few quid in.

By doing a series of raising funds, with targets which are smaller and linked to sections rather than the whole people will feel their money is making a more immediate effect.

It also means you future proof your fundraising abilities further on. If you say you need 10m to complete the line, but it takes say 5 years longer than expected due to an obstacle or block, you will be returning to ask for more than the initial 10m because prices have increased, maybe further financial upsets in the world have happened too, and so on. It may not go down too well that you are now asking for more than you first requested.

Fundraise for the bit you are doing, complete that, consolidate, then fundraise again, and so on, you are then never so far ahead of yourself that the numbers are essentially pure guesses.

 

Not so sure, WHR cost £28m.

Just over £1m per mile, even if we were to look at a 5% increase in prices for 12 years we would only just be touching £2m per mile, £38m from Barnstaple to Lynton. Let's add a war chest of £5m to solve the WLP and A39 to Caffyns problems. £42m...a guess...and may change in the future... Up or down.

The money spent at Woody Bay cannot be taken as how much each station is likely to cost, things like rolling stock has to be shared across all stations not just one. Additionally many of the costs there are because it has become the main focus of operations for the time being.

 

To a point we can't compare ourselves to the WHR since they only had the one track bed owner, where as we have more than a few, as for a warchest I would personal be more happier with one of £10 million pounds since we might have to purchase not only trackbed but also the odd property and to carry out any major civil engineering projects that need to be done before we get to lay any more track.

Out of interest will you be going to the heritage show the week after the AGM?

 

Not sure this year whether I will be able to fit it in.

Normally it's the Weds/Thurs before the AGM, I travel down to that on the Weds, stay overnight in Kensington, then back to the show if there is anything else of interest on the Thurs and then travel on to Barnstaple. AGM for the weekend, back on the Monday for the main Volunteer Tuesday at the workshop. I don't miss either Tuesday then when the bulk of the volunteers come in.
It's the other way round this year.

If I go to Barnstaple on the Friday, and then do the show on the way back I miss that Tuesday.

Will have to have a think on it.

Is anyone else interested in going? I must admit I haven't looked to see what the talks are this year.

 

This is a really interesting, useful and timely discussion - mirroring the one on Exmoor.NG.

Fundamentally, we are attempting to answer some separate but interrelated questions, which all come back to this:

'What sort of railway are we trying to build?"

There are a range of possible answers to this, ranging from a facsimile of one day between 11 May 1898 and 29 September 1935, with everything as it was on the chosen day, through to a WHR-style reinstatement largely operated by modern rolling stock and with larger steam locomotives and longer trains than would have been dreamed of on the original WHR, with a kinematic envelope, platforms, loops and signalling to match.

Everyone will have their own view, and I am probably persuadable to one of a number of options, subject to two critical criteria. First, it has to have a credible plan to reconstruct it. Second, it needs to be economically sustainable over the long term.

For me, this means that we need to focus on the customers of today, tomorrow and a decade from now. As well as reflecting on our current experience, I'd love to learn from WSR and other attractions in Exmoor what their customer base looks like in terms of duration of visit, time of year / seasonality, and visitor expectations. My hunch is that we're looking for north of 100,000 passengers a year for an extended L&B, and that whilst large parties (e.g., coach trips, school parties) will have an important role to play, our key market is going to be day trippers either from the SW or holidaymakers looking for something family friendly for two to three hours.

All of these groups have one crucial thing in common: the steam train trip is the point, rather than the railway actually being a method of getting from A to B; though there will doubtless be some who use the railway as a jumping off point to explore Exmoor and hike / bike to another station and get the train back, this seems likely to be a distinctly minority pursuit.

So on this basis, a trip of 60 - 90 mins from place-with-a-car-park to somewhere else, and then back to a parked car seems the most likely model.

Thoughts?

 

Just had a look at the schedule of talks at the Heritage & Museums show.

Is a few that could be interesting. You have to filter out the ones for the big guys like V&A, IWM, etc, talks on huge digital displays, high tech archiving etc, they are way beyond us although can still be interesting in their own right.

Have marked, Lottery, Kids in Museums, Visitor trends, Accessibility, YouTube Tank museum income generation via Content Creation, talk by Castle Howard, School Visits, and one on Memberships so far.

Then there will be the trade stalls for trends on things to sell etc.

It's easy to be side tracked by the big stuff though.

 

Toby that is pretty much my feelings as well. Today passengers will demand to have comfort equal to that you find on a tourist coach today. I am sure someone will tell us what is currently on offer, there is also room for a heritage set or two, but looking at the WHR do we want or need to follow suite?

One USP would be to recreate the Southern narrow gauge railway feel as it simply can't be done anywhere else.

If we wanted or had to build tourist carriages, then there are a number of prototypes about that we could look at first of all, I think the one thing they all have in common is large panorama windows and dare I say it air con a bar and a WC.

I have often wondered why a lot of standard gauge heritage lines have never tried to build up there own heritage coaching stock (sure I understand that they many not be as lucky as we are in having someone like Dave E building them) but the use of ex BR MK1 stock has become the stock in trade even the bluebell has some, I am sure there are lines that don't have any Mk1 in use the IOW comes to mind for that.

Again we need to carry out some market research to find out what it is that makes people come to visit the L&B in the first place it could be it is somewhere to go while they are in the area there is a lot to think about in the coming months.

Colin

 

In my view we need to make our own way and not follow the WHR. We are quaint, we are touristy, we are little short trains ambling through the Devon countryside, we are that lazy afternoon stroll.

Many of our station cannot take long trains a d any other engines other than L&B just won't look right especially those ugly Barrett things. WHR have done that, we don't need or really want to copy.

We need to run with the notion that we are unique, we are a narrow gauge railway built for tourism, we were never a mineral run, we have the vision of Sir George Newnes and we need to honour him and that vision by truly recreating and reinstating the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway.

Just before the heritage carriages were delivered we had roughly 33,000 per year. Directly after we hit near 50,000, this has now settled to 40-50,000 per year (not sure of the figures last year).

Extending to CFL I can see that increasing to maybe 60,000, with a year or two of higher due to the novelty.

BG begins to see the big numbers, 100-125,000.

Once we get to BG and WLP we can have School Packages, with 2 classes per day being shown industrial and tourism at Blackmoor Gate, which will include the pub and explains income streams and learning about museums, and also a mobile classroom carriage which runs to WLP for nature, flora and fauna and also learn about the reservoir itself. If we are really smart we also look to link up with local farmers and have learning days on Exmoor farming.

We can also tap into the Dark Skies events on Exmoor by having facilities to gaze at the stars, this can be done in conjunction with Exmoor National Park... When it's not damn well raining anyway!

All based around the quaint, little narrow gauge railway, and that vision of one man in the late 1800's.

 

Hehe, I disagree, the whole thing about the L&B is it's charm and quaintness, it doesn't need modern stock, the heritage is what people most comment on.

As for recreating the Southern branch line... It might be NG, but you can go experience Southern elsewhere, there is only one place you can experience the L&B

 

Whilst the WHR might be a useful comparison in terms of the magnitude of the challenge of rebuilding a railway, it doesn't have to be the example for everything. In terms of carriages, I don't really see why you'd need to go to all the bother of spec'ing up a different design of carriage. What problem are you trying to solve? Leaving aside the already created luxurious first class compartments in recreated L&B coaches for which no problem is foreseen by anyone I imagine(!), currently third class is wooden bench seats. Vale of Rheidol, also running similarly spec'd heritage coaches day in day out on 1 hour each way trips, just pop a cushion on top, which seems like a very acceptable compromise to me for today's passenger once you're going more than a mile or so:



Photo source

 

If we are the L and B experience and not the Southern had we Better repaint 762 then?

Honestly @Tobbes is raising a valid point one that needs more discussion.

I cannot for the life of me see how adding an expensive and problematic 500m extra run will add one single additional passenger let alone 10,000 per year. It’s frankly not credible. It is also a waste of money because everything done at CFL will have to be undone. It WILL antagonise locals and it neither enhances the visitor experience nor taps into a new source of traffic.

Extending the railway has to bring with it a realistic and sustainable source of new traffic. Looking further ahead the railway needs to be developed in a way that ensures that it can attract the numbers needed to be viable.

At the moment it has 40k visitors per mile (roughly). As a rule of thumb we should be aiming to maintain over 10,000 per mile. It will drop off as the line gets longer, just as the prices will have to rise.

At 10 miles length that means attracting 100k visitors or more per year. That’s half of the WSR. And let’s not forget that most railways have been fighting like hell to maintain visitor numbers.

Getting the experience right is going to be essential. That means knowing what will attract 100k++ and doing so at an affordable cost.

 

The Southern era is still part of the history of the railway, but not the L&B, the company ceased to exist when the Southern took over and it became a branch line.

That said, you do need a nod to that era, which we have at Woody Bay and maybe somehow in rolling stock in the future. But primarily, the railway should in my view be L&B, as it is the unique part about the railway which is hugely marketable and is it's origins.

 

It's really all that needs to be done I agree. This fad for air con, flashing lights and screens, loos, and all sorts.....many tourists love to travel on heritage railways because it gets them away for an hour or so from modern living with all that tech and attention grabbing fancy stuff.

 

Im sure the L&B had cushions in cattle class, @Michael B will know for sure