North Norfolk Railway General Discussion

This coming weekend is the M&GN Members weekend. 90775 running with Mark 1s, D5631 with Quad Arts and Wissington shuttling between Weybourne and Holt with the vintage set: https://nnrailway.co.uk/day-visits-mgn/

Also more details added for Britannia's visit during October half term.

25th-31st October: 4 round trips for 70000, also another steam and DMU in operation.
29th& 30th October: Evening Fish and Chip train hauled by 70000
1st & 2nd November: Fiftieth Finale Weekend with Deltic D9000 also running, frequent departures from 9:30 to 16:30.

Looking like a great finish to the main running season and a fitting celebration of the 50th anniversary.

 

I think there is some hard thinking to be done about oil firing.

The primary benefit seems to be about reduced risk of starting lineside fires. In today's (changing) climate, that is certainly an important consideration - how important depending to some degree on what sort of landscape you go through.

On fuel costs though, oil firing is rather more expensive than coal. And given the fact that most railways struggle to overhaul even enough locos to run the service, you really need to maximise mileage on the locos you have - the days of the 1980s when a railway might have plenty of operational locos and only do small mileages on each are long gone. So if you do convert a loco for oil firing, potentially you either end up only running it when the fire risk is high, and have an expensive asset unused for much of the year; or else you use it even when the fire risk is low but at higher running cost than if it were coal fired. (And then, sods law says that having run it for a few weeks, it is in the works for a washout just when a heatwave strikes, such things not generally running to neatly predictable schedules ...)

Potentially oil firing allows you to maintain steam haulage even during heat waves, but it seems to me that it is far from an easy decision to make.

Tom