Crewe Heritage Centre for Sale

I thought I made it fairly clear in my earlier posting that the problem is with engines that have just been lit up, when smoke can be a real nuisance. Apart from the occasion I recounted, I have never experienced locomotives being lit up just there.

However, once a locomotive is up to pressure the problem diminishes considerably, because the emission of smoke can be more carefully controlled. It's those first hours with a 'green' fire that are the problem.

You may well have seen engines in full steam just there - but you won't have seen one being lit up from cold.

Peter Jordan

Chairman, Exeter West Group

 

I have been reading this thread with some interest, and until now, sympathy for the Exeter West Group's situation. That sympathy has gone completely having read this post. If the old technology of steam is to survive through the 21st century it does not need stuff like this from people with 40 years involvement in preservation.

 

Can you point to anything in my posting that is factually incorrect? If so, I will remove it.

But if you are suggesting that 'old technology' should be preserved at any price, no matter what the risk, and even if it involves illegality, then words fail me.

That seems like the sort of 'gung ho' attitude that caused the problems at Crewe in the first place.

Peter Jordan

Chairman, Exeter West Group

 

I can only say i do feel for Exeter West box and your situation and the broken promises over the years. But CHC never will be a decent place to visit. It is in an awful location, far to small for expansion, and most of all............ PEOPLE IN CREWE DONT CARE. Im sorry but everyone knows that with out the local support of Joe Blogs nothing will ever happen. Last Easter i spent 2 days at CHC they had hired in a spitfire, made effort, but no-one in the local area bothered to visit. it was like a ghost town. And thats pretty much the same as every other event i went to see. The only one that got any support was the model event.

As i say, great respect for you as an individual and what you have achieved but if i look at the two groups based there and had to make a decision as to who is more important to the preservation scene, im sorry but MY opinion is the LNWR.

 

Peter,

Could I ask what you consider as a safe distance for a member of the public to be at when a boiler is being steam tested?
Perhaps you feel steam tests perhaps be conducted in explosion-proof bunkers ?
Do steam tests not follow hydraulic tests at 150% of normal working pressure?
Are not all activities of any organisation subject to risk assessment?

Absolutely I am not suggesting that 'old technology' should be preserved at any price regardless of risk and I am sorry that you think that I am somehow proposing a 'gung ho ' attitude. As someone involved in risk assessment and safe work permitting in the chemical industry for a living I can assure you that safety is always my first consideration.

I apologise if my previous posting in some way suggested a gung-ho approach to safety. What I was trying to say was that steam , old technology or not, can always be safe provided suitable controls and standards are in place and procedures observed. If the steam tests conducted at Crewe did not have these controls in place then they simply would not be permitted because they would pose a risk to memebrs of the public, Exeter West Group or LNWR's own employees.
The challenge to steam in the 21st Century to me comes from a misunderstanding on the part of wider society that just because it is old technology it is in some way unsafe. I believe that everyone on this forum should be doing all they can to better educate people and not further misplaced suspicion.

 

I agree with most of what you have said but not quite the last para. Crewe with 2 or 3 signal boxes is a great opportunity. to LNWR it is just a convenient site. Any modern steel shed would do. As you say though, the locals aint interested.

 

I agree entirely. To begin with i could understand their position but its hard to remain sympathetic when everything from his age to the safety of steam tests seems to be fair game in whats become a PR campaign against LNWR and their owner. I cant help but feel a less combative approach that doesnt involve burning what remaining bridges are left would be a better idea...

Chris

 

But a less combative apporoach WAS tried, on several occasions, over the years. But Mr. Waterman was not prepared to compromise with the Trust, and would not accept anything that did not give him exactly what he wanted. Don't you call THAT combative?

Peter Jordan

Chairman, Exeter West Group

 

Here we go again. Aren't we just going round in circles Peter? Can't you see that your bitter approach is just losing you support rather than gaining it? I can't help feeling that you're going about this in the wrong way and trying to accuse Pete Waterman and LNWR of everything under the sun is making you look foolish.

 

The reason we seem to be going round in circles is because people post comments without having read through all of the previous pages of discussion, where what they are posting about has probably already been dealt with. Thus I have to repeat myself, but I see no reason why I should allow any post that misrepresents the situation to go unanswered.

Perhaps this discussion has gone as far as it ought to now, and should be allowed to rest until there are some new developments to report.

Peter Jordan

Chairman, Exeter West Group

 

Thankfully, where you've just (today) advertised this thread to a newer audience, people are barred from responding for fear of the DIs hobnails on the box stairs.

 

The thread is open to all readers and contributors.

The mod team.

 

Possibly because many people who have been involved with CHC, or been associated with CHC, or have known former volunteers at CHC have watched a diatribe unfolding.

You might give those viewers a little credit for not pointing out explicitly that the main protagonist of this thread has been allowed to spill his conservative vitriol unchecked for some time.

I think that recent posts have rather illustrated an entirely subjective stance by an individual.

And - before I'm questioned - I have a small but relative stakeholding in CHC.

 

Just so that we can be absolutely clear, let me spell out for everyone exactly what the score is.

We (and here I speak not just for myself and the Exeter West Group) want the present Council of Management of Crewe Heritage Centre to be given the opportunity to try and deliver the high-quality visitor attraction we and many hundreds of people were promised twenty years ago. We don't want them trying to do this against a background of continual fighting and bickering with LNWRHCo. and its owner.

All along we have acknowledged that LNWRHCo. provide a service to the railway preservation movement and we welcome the idea that the business can be expanded BUT NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF CREWE HERITAGE TRUST, ITS VOLUNTEER SUPPORTERS AND OTHER VOLUNTEER GROUPS. LNWRHCo. needs to go somewhere else and we would like to see Cheshire East Council acknowledge that and assist it to relocate to a site where it too can work unhindered.

I hope that is clear enough for everyone.

Peter Jordan

Chairman, Exeter West Group

 

Peter

I think you are well up against it on here - despite being first on the site, having both the legal, and moral, high ground and being well sinned against - the rivet counters and excursions at any price mob can't see beyond piles of pound coins that they think will serve their steam mileage needs into the future.

Perhaps when they themselves have been pushed aside by ruthless unthinking financial interests they may feel as you do - but at the moment - as I wrote many posts back - "Money talks - and it talks very loudly"

Sometimes being right can be an uncomfortable and lonely place - but in the end, win or lose, you will be the one that can look in the mirror without hanging your head.

 

First of all, my apologies if anything I say here is a repetition of what has been said before.

We are , of course, all familiar with the old saying, 'Money talks' but in the case in question that doesn't seem to be of great importance. Let me explain.

In the marketing details for the 125-year lease that Cheshire East Council published it says (and I quote

'The prospective lessee shall submit a premium offer as part of the tender with an annual peppercorn rent thereafter for the duration of the term (if demanded.) '

Now, as part of its bid, Crewe Heritage Trust offered a premium of £100, but we understand that PW only offered a nominal £1 - yet he is the 'preferred bidder!'

So neither offer provides significant monetary benefit to Cheshire East Council and, as was said in the BBC Radio Stoke interview, the Council Tax payers in Cheshire East should be very angry about what is being done with their property.

So if monetary profit to Cheshire East Council is not an important issue, what is? It seems to us that there must be a hidden agenda somewhere because otherwise the whole process simply makes no sense.

Peter Jordan

Chairman, Exeter West Group

 

Retaining a succesful and growing business employing a number of local people? Seems a perfectly valid reason to me.

Chris