Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

I think it’s potentially one the more important books written recently tbh - turns a lot of ‘what everyone knows’ about the near term picture on its head.

when a large number of baby boomers die (again, not all) they’re going to create a large number of seriously wealthy people in their 40s and 50s (sometimes just by selling their late parents’ home) with very liquid - cash - assets, and interests to pursue, and maybe the ability to do that for the first time.

Again, there will still be people who don’t have that happen to them. But there will be many, many that do. Because the wealth held at the top of the age profile (currently) isn’t going to vanish when those people do.

this isn’t just railway preservation, it could disrupt loads of assumptions.

 

that’s my point really - we can sit around lamenting that the money’s going to run out and we need to cut our cloth, or we can recognise that there is going to be a new generation of seriously wealthy middle aged people and work out how we get them involved.

The only thing that we can ‘guarantee’ is that the former approach will probably ensure failure.

the challenge of the next ten years - never mind buying trackbed or arguing about liveries - is for the people with experience and ten years left in them to set things up so that they carry on afterwards.

engagement with children is relatively easy - I don’t think there’s a railway in Britain that’s actively bad at it. Going after legacies is something many lines are on top of.

those, frankly, are the low hanging fruit and should now to an extent run themselves. The target IMO should be working out a strategy to go after people aged 38-50+, who are the near term future and some of whom (many in fact) are going to experience life changing boosts to their finances in the next decade or so.

 

We have rebuilt original carriages, and a replica loco, how closer to the original can you get.
Looking for other stock from elsewhere which never ran on the L&B is a step away from the heritage, not closer.
As for BW&CW, our carriages carry the name on the brass thresholds, and on the name plates inside, they all contain original parts. The exception is carriage 17 which is Pilton and that has 17' of the original carriage at the guard/luggage end.
I can accept someone who may not understand the railway, or not even wanting anything to do with it, being mistaken, but come on, how closer to heritage can we get with rebuilt carriages and a replica loco?

 

Sorry Colin, but are you seriously suggesting that the solution to “not having any original rolling stock” is to bring in rolling stock from elsewhere with absolutely no connection to the L&B?
That sounds like you’re trying to find a way to accommodate your own fantasy of collecting locos and rolling stock from around the world.

Surely it is better to promote the point that Lyn and the MWs are/will be replicas of what operated the line, and the carriages contain some original material but are otherwise faithful reconstructions of what ran on the railway?

 

Is the highlighted bit true? It has been said upthread that the planners are concerned with the fixed structures. Everyone (or almost everyone) seems happy with the Welsh Highland, which runs through a national park on the original route (plus part of the Afonwen branch) but mostly with completely different rolling stock. Modern comfortable trains on the L&B would be better at persuading visitors to use the railway rather than the roads.

 

reading what they’ve said, and how they’ve said it, yes.

North Devon is not Gwynedd and one way (other interpretations are also reasonable) of reasonably reading it is that ENPA favour restoration of what was there, with deviation from that only where it really can’t be otherwise.

whether therefore you do 1935 or WHR Devon AGAIN comes back to two valid options, each with their own backers, and endless bickering because progress has been so slow no one’s ever been definitely told which of them is what we’re doing.

Twenty years of the same length of line has fostered the creative dissonance where everyone thinks their mutually contradictory way forward is *the* way forward and sooner or later there is going to be one almighty row if it isn’t managed properly and consultatively.

 

IIRC one of the 'selling points' to the ENPA to support the Tea Room application was that it was designed to be demountable and relocated to Blackmoor at a later date.

 

No, sorry Keith, I am suggesting they if they could be obtained, they would be an addition to what we have, and they could help create a stronger bond with the railway's manufacturing heritage

 

But @DaveE and the carriage group are already rebuilding the original carriages-how much more of a bond can you get?
Please also explain what you mean by “the railway’s manufacturing heritage” - the railway was not a manufacturer, it bought its equipment from elsewhere so it doesn’t have a manufacturing heritage.

 

I don't disagree with what you have said, and to be honest, that is the only way we are going to replica the old Railway. That said, when I have looked for funds in the past, the question of originality always crops up. So, having something that we can legitimately trace back to the manufacturers does count to some people.

 

OK, I mean the likes of Manning Wardle, Bristol Wagon and Carriage, Evans O'Donnell & Co, to name but three of the suppliers to the Railway, if at a push, I suppose that if BAM wanted to donate something to the railway, such as a redundant item of civil engineering railway rolling stock then that too could be considered a link to Nuttells. I hope this makes it clear

 

We can legitimately trace back our carriages to Bristol Wagon & Carriage Works, and also through 17 to Shapland & Petter in Barnstaple and also Pilton Yard. All directly and absolutely track back to the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway.

I don't give a nod every work day to a photo on the mess room wall of one of the joinery teams in the mid 1890s at BW&C works for nothing, it is not inconceivable that the men and boys in that photo worked on our carriages originally, all I do is in honour to them and what they built for the railway.

 

Not really.
What you’re describing is just a slightly modified version of “Colin’s collection”.
The ENPA have made it very clear that they are looking for a recreation of the railway as it was, not random stuff from around the world with extremely tenuous links to the L&B.

As Dave has said, the provenance of the carriages is there. If it is raised as an issue then the railway needs to have a rebuttal explanation showing their history. The idea that if someone questions L&B history, then the solution is to acquire more rolling stock, is ridiculous.

 

I must admit the WHR leaves me somewhat cold, the Garretts do nothing for me in that setting.

More significantly though, it's not as simple as saying "providing the built environment is right, it doesn't matter about the stock". Factors like clearance and length of passing loops will have a constraint on what trains you can run in the future. You can't just extend platforms and loops to accommodate longer trains without making a fundamental change to the built environment. So as far as I can see, even though as a planning authority, the ENPA can only legitimately comment on what is built, the more closely they stick to the "recreation" stance, the more it will in essence also constrain rolling stock in that idiom as well.

Tom

 

I'm not sure the assumption the planners will only sanction an authentic recreation should be accepted. Planning and building conservation are essentially a vast exercise in horse trading and compromise, and I speak as someone who works in the sector. There should be a compromise out there, particularly given the principle is established in the statutory development plan.

The Section 73 application to create a temporary terminus at Parracombe was rejected because of perceived unacceptable impacts on highways and neighbours, whereas the new station at Cricket Field Lane application appears to have been rejected as there is a presumption against new development in the National Park, and impact on a listed wall.

If I were the L&B I would be pushing for an extended railway towards Parracombe but with no infrastructure other than a single track, with no loop using push-pull/battery loco on one end. This would require no additional development but would demonstrate the intent, and galvanize supporters. It could also demonstrate to the residents that an extended railway need not impact on their amenity.

 

So far as the latest planning refusal is concerned, the main reason seems to be the brand new 50 metre long, up to 2 metre high embankment that was required, rather than the specific details of the rolling stock to be employed on it. I personally don't think the style or origin of the stock is a prime concern of the ENPA, and we are getting a bit bogged down on this aspect. Whilst I want to see more L&B stock, I accept that there's a place for SOME non-L&B, and they do enhance the line's educational and tourist potential, but before we can run any stock on it, we need to build more railway...

 

Absolutely the last thing the L&B needs to do is start collecting rolling stock with zero relevance to the area, that is over and beyond what it needs for operational purposes, and thereby create a linear scrapyard high up on Exmoor. It is the weakest of weak justifications to say "there's a connection because this is a Manning Wardle, and MW once built locos 300 miles away in Leeds".

From what I have seen, there is the capability and resource to construct high-quality replicas of appropriate locos and carriages. It seems there is no capability to build a railway. If the latter point ever changes and the line expands in some significant way, I think the supporters will still find they can construct any required locos and carriages quicker than the railway itself can be built. Rolling stock isn't going to be your problem (but just make sure when you say "heritage", you understand that to mean "L&B heritage", not just "this looks cool").

Tom

 

Agreed, from my perspective. However the inner circle of trustees are probably quite happy. Rock up to a gala & live the dream driving Lyn & a few of Dave's lovely coaches. Chuck a bit of red meat to the members every now & again in the form of a pub or putative extension....

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Further in this regard, I'd suggest anybody wondering just how much you might have to 'muck about' with an existing trackbed to run larger tourist trains on it would be well advised to find a copy of Gordon Rushton's Welsh Highland Railway Renaissance. If there's one thing I've taken away from that, it's that rebuilding the WHR to accommodate Garretts was more akin to building HS2 over part of the GCR trackbed, than restoration or preservation.

I get the feel that something in the nature of a WHR-style rebuild would be a very difficult sell to the neighbours. A more genteel reinstatement of what was torn up, would possibly be better received.

 

While it is true that the ENPA don’t rule on rolling stock used, if the railway can show that it is recreating the railway with replicas/rebuilt rolling stock, this will help to dismiss the accusations of “toy railway”, disneyification, or playing with trains. As Tom has mentioned, the ENPA restrictions on the built environment will place restrictions on the kind of trains that can be used, which original rolling stock will satisify.

There is a grave danger of losing the charm and character of the L&B, if it becomes about ever increasing passenger numbers and therefore larger carriages, bigger locos, modified bridges platforms etc.