Meon Valley Railway Restoration

In a word no, but i dont expect to see any MVR scheme get off the ground, longmoor failed because of local objection,and i cant see any support locally for this , its going to up against the MHR,which is now an established player locally, the council would i expect look at what the watercress line brings to hampshire and decide that any other simular scheme local to it, will not suceed.

 

But what if they started out from the junction near Alton?

 

Unfortunately the lines of rotting rolling stock and derelict locos that can be seen at most preserved railways are testimony to these "dreamers". As has been pointed out earlier the days of "Railway Adventure" are long gone. If these guys have the effort funds and enthusiasm that would be required to set up even part of the MVR then IMHO they would be better occupied in helping to improve an already established line. I sincerely believe that a continued proliferation of schemes such as this will only end in tears. Ray.

 

Would the Plym Valley,Helston and Lynton and Barnstaple schemes not also be examples where the organisations concerned started vitually from scratch? Admittedly the PVR has proved to be a very long term and at times almost stationary project but nevertheless they have managed to get a decent [if short length] railway to Plym Bridge now-the other two are by no means extensive in their distance but they have made significant progress in recent years and out of little acorns do mighty oak trees grow.Good luck to the MVR-even if their scheme does not get off the ground,better to have loved and lost and all that.

 

Then they would need to get across the A31 (difficult as there is a traffic island and a dual carriageway) and then deal with the complete blockage by industrial units at Faringdon 2 miles further on. Oh, and the first 1/4 mile of the MVR from Butts Junction is owned by another railway company.

My perspective on all this comes from experience of trying to run a railway. I'm not suggesting they shouldn't try, but that it isn't at all easy. The aims and objectives of this group (if group it be, for I don't know how many members there are) are not yet sufficiently clear.

I hadn't forgotten the Swanage (perish the thought). But whilst a lot of infrastructure had gone, the preservation group was set up in 1972, the same year as closure, and they ran trains 7 years later. MHR (largely lifted) was closed in 1974 and reopened in stages from 1977. SVR closed in sections 1963 to 1970 and reopened in sections from 1970. Point I am trying to make is that few std gauge railways have been re-opened after being closed and lifted for decades, and that this is not the what was occurring in the early years of the preservation movement as we know it. The model that IMHO the MVR perhaps ought to consider following is not the Bluebell or the MHR, nor even the Stainmore Railway (which is an exception to the rule about long lifted lines, but a rare one) but to emulate the Bure Valley. Far more likely to gain support from the public, cheaper, simpler, faster to build, portable if things don't work out etc etc.

 

Some on here are making the mistake of referring to this as a "project". It is not a project, it is not even an idea. As Paul Hitch and the other realists on this forum have pointed out, there is no business case, there is no analysis, no plan, there is no finance, there is no backing. It is no good saying "Early days", and "just look at so and so.. and how they have succeeded....." because the truth is they didn't just start from this position. Far from it.
So even if you were to perform the due diligence, and somehow run a successful share issue to get started, then even within the confines of this site, everyone is filled with the misty eyed vision of a Drummond 700 wheezing up towards Droxford station on a timeless afternoon with a mixed goods but that is not what you would get is it. We all know what you would get in 2013, and the world of railway preservation has moved on
So would you or I - sympathetic enthusiasts - take our grumbling families to a muddy car park somewhere near (say) Droxford, buy an expensive ticket from the portakabin and climb the "temporary" bare platform for a pointless ride behind an 03 diesel shunter pulling some cobbled together stock for a 1 mile ride to nowhere and back past a sad line of rusting dirty condemned irrelevant stock?
To be frank no I wouldn't, and to be frank, I doubt you would either, no matter how nostaligic you feel, yet somehow the "vision" says that 100,000+ will want to undertake this amble to Mislingford and back or wherever. Who are these mysterious folk who would regard this as being pleasurable, let alone in any way relvant to the real former Meon Valley Railway, when all the lovely views you eulogise are already there today....and these same people can see and have them all for free!!!
Those pioneers turning in their graves at railway preservation today would have also been the death of the movement. TImes change, realities don't.

 

to be fair many of our existing lines are like this " a sad line of rusting dirty condemned irrelevant stock?" What the project needs is a USP... something that will draw in the volunteers,and a dynamic figurehead that will pull the project along.

Will it succeed? who knows,

 

We're probably start to drift OT, but I do get somewhat annoyed by the " sad line of rusting dirty condemned irrelevant stock"comments. The NYMR has a much acclaimed train of teak coaches many of which were could have been described thus. They are about to be joined by two more from the same category, and when they are finished another one will enter the process. There are still a few remaining, but they are gradually being turned into assets, and this is true of other railway's "reserve collections" as well.

I fully agree that there are plenty of examples of items of rolling stock that are probably decaying beyond repair but it is no fair to lump everything in the same category, and possibly dangerous to do so. The fact is that the restored pre-BR stock that everyone admires will almost inevitably have been in "hen hutch" condition at some point because relatively little came direct from operational use. The line of decrepit items awaiting restoration is the price to pay for having those restored vehicles further down the line. It will only take one zealot with the light of tidying up in his eyes to potentially cause a lot of upheaval and damage.

 

Spot on. You can achieve amazing things in the modern preservation era (Tornado, Welsh Highland) but the approach needed is wildly different from earlier times.

 

Yes of course but to Joe Public it gives a terrible impression and the object is to portray railways as they were, albeit with rose-tinted glasses. Where possible unrestored stock should be parked out of the public eye. just as at Toddington.
..(the public know nothing about railways, the Lady I was with in Swanage last week asked (loudly) if the train had air-con and was surprised to see a fire in the engine,

 

Very few railways have the space to park vehicles awaiting restoration out of sight. At the LNERCA we try to sheet everything over, to conserve the coaches and at least present a uniform appearance but that is the best we can do.

In reality there are relatively few lines that have significant numbers of pre-BR coaching stock awaiting restoration, most of what is in sidings is goods wagons, MK1s and diesels of the BR era that probably could be thinned out, but care still needs to be taken so that the babies aren't thrown out with the bathwater!

 

They and a host of other fledgling railways had or have access to a site. Its a bit difficult to build a railway without even a toe hold on the formation.

 

Correction, some of the public know nothing about railways.

 

Tom Rolt himself said that the choice for the Talyllyn was between death and a new life. Sooner or later reality has to be faced.

I have had the chance to work on a number of schemes in their early stages over the last thirty years or so, and I would think carefully before doing it again. It is a different world and a different market with very different rules and costings now. The days when you could pick up a Mk1 in full working order for a few hundred pounds are gone. With scrap at around £170 per ton and not £30 it is very difficult to get track given away, which many of the schemes quoted here achieved. Mechanical S & T gear is for the moment at least, very difficult to get. Try and get your hands on a facing point lock or a few pairs of fishplates and see what it costs.

The "new" schemes mentioned have often been building up quietly for ten years and more. They do not magically appear on site and start laying lots of track. I'm not saying it can't or should not be done, but anyone wanting to start from scratch today should take a long hard look at what they are going to do, and the resources they are going to need. A soul full of hope and a website won't be enough!

Tim

 

Apologies 61624 - point taken. I accept that each of those items of rolling stock is a definite project of sorts so it was perhaps unfair of me to use that as a metaphor. We here know how eventually - sometimes after more than 30 years, some of those ugly ducklings turn into swans but here we are in 2013 and many items condemned over 50 years ago are still waiting their turn..... but the average visitor does not. The non-enthusiast visitor sees that line of "restoration projects" as no more or less than I described them - and those are the people who would be funding any enterprise through their revenue contributions, so you have to see the world through their eyes, not yours and that is one of the reasons that many of the original preservation pioneers would be unhelpful in today's "Leisure Sector" preserved railways.
I can visit, walk, ride or cycle the southern section of the Meon Valley railway today and enjoy everything the traveller once saw from his carriage window except the sound of the steam engine, and I can travel up to Ropley to experience that already, so what is actually the "Value Proposition" of this restoration idea? I doubt it has ever been analysed, formulated and committed to paper yet it is assumed it will bring families flocking once more to this place with wallets open when they may go there already with no need to bring their wallets at all. So in a word, Why?
Railway preservationists are no longer seen as welcome neighbours and "good guys" in post industrialised era. It is far from likely that the county Council would look kindly on any plan to relay rail lines on this bridleway and I'd lay money on Meon Valley residents being violently opposed to any such move.

 

yes I think you are right, and I believe most people would object to their sleepy village being full of the sound of restoration and the attendant traffic etc. I have a long-closed rail line behind my house and I'm sure all my neighbours would object were it to become a preservation line (and I might be a bit nervous about it also)

 

First posting! I've been following this topic with interest. I'd say it's far too early to judge if there's much chance of it going ahead. My gut feeling is decent idea, great line, but it's probably too late. However, the prophets of doom have been attacking any new scheme since before Michael Draper's day. I believe the Severn Valley and NYMR were both condemned as wasteful schemes that could only dilute limited resources - much better to concentrate on the Worth Valley, Bluebell and Welsh narrow gauge. Yes, things have moved on since then, and we can't reopen every line, but surely one should give something a chance before taking a negative view? Like I said, it's far too early to judge this scheme fully. We need to hear more, preferably from a properly constituted society.

If a part of the Meon Valley is to be revived, would another standard gauge line be sensible? As pointed out, the Bluebell and Isfield co-habit quite nicely, each offering a different experience. There must be room for the smaller outfits, where one could argue that lower overheads mean less commercialism is required. Yet the Meon scheme seems to be based on reopening a fair bit of line.

I think really the best chance here would be narrow gauge. I'm not sure about 15 inch. You'd need to build some new locos before doing anything (or ask the Ratty, Romney and Bure, etc, very nicely, and then expect a big no). Wouldn't one of the larger gauges be better? Locos wouldn't be too hard to come by. For example, last time I looked there were four very interesting Luttermollers for sale from Preston Steam Services, Kent. Perhaps the Hampshire Narrow Gauge Society could get involved?

Would another narrow gauge line cut it, though? Perhaps this would need a special selling point. To my mind the obvious gap in the market is for a 3 ft 6 inch gauge line. Some locos are in this country. Others are still in SA, assuming the scrap rats haven't got to them all yet. We're still talking big money, however.

Anyway, those are my thoughts for what they're worth.

 

Ah, yes; the doom and gloom of Michael Draper (and others before and aftert him)!
Didn't SRUBLUK (Society for the Re-invigouration of Unremunerative Branch lines in the United Kingdom) have something to do with an earlier attempt to save the Meon Valley in the 1960's?

I'd have thought that you could have re-built most of the Meon Vallety for the price Preston Steam Services charge!!

 

oooh ya bitch. meow

 

Hi Steve,
Despite some natural scepticism, it's clear that quite a lot of people are interested in your scheme. Is there an mailing or email list to keep interested parties up to date with developments? (Please no Facebook or Twitter!)