Bluebell Motive Power

Not have a desperation to see criticism of the Bluebell in everything I read it seems to be pretty light-hearted to me

 

I have heard worse from colleagues - just a normal bit of ribbing. Incidentally I am also a long term armchair Bluebell member

 

Ah I see

Chris:

 

I keep having to remind myself just how perfect in every the Bluebell really is, therefore I must mind my fellow volunteers at the MHR to stop having an opinion of the Bluebell.

Seasons greetings to you Chris Ward.

BTW where is Chuck Norris,s beard these days.

Chris:

 

Chris, I'm wondering quite what happened at the Bluebell to make you so consistently critical about them every time you hear the words Sheffield or Park? I don't know about everybody else, but I can't help feeling its time to either let it go or keep it to yourself?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I may be wrong, but I don't think I've seen anyone from the Bluebell having a swipe at the Mid Hants.

 

I do enjoy the Mid-Hants blog, and (personally) take the comments about the Bluebell with the humorous tone of the rest of the blog.

Vince (Bluebell loco dept volunteer)

 

If you can see Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris can see you.

If you cannot see Chuck Norris you may be only moments away from death.

 

Although there does appear to be an awful lot of pirouetting around the "elephant in the room" on here. At least someone on the Bluebell's own Yahoo group will say it:-

"we can not really blame them, our track has caused so many spring failures on our own engines, its not surprising their 9F suffered"

Perhaps someone can fill us in on what's going on?

 

Not a very objective, or informed, source, though! I've not seen any objective evidence to back that statement up, though, i.e. rate of spring failure per mile run, or something like that, showing whether it has changed over time.

As I recall, there was a spate of spring failures some while back (can't remember when, but in the last five years); that was down to a particular faulty batch where the spring material has not been properly manufactured. I believe we changed suppliers after that.

I think this is simply an example of when something is pointed out, you suddenly start noticing it more frequently. It doesn't mean the actual rate has gone up, simply that people are noticing it more. As others have pointed out, spring failures are an occupational hazard of running a railway, and occur on all railways.

Tom

 

Deleted - Tom got there first.

 

On an entirely different note: the Keep Up The Pressure appeal is currently at £112k. Next in the queue is Stowe, and the latest appeal video, narrated by Nicholas Owen, is here:



Tom

 

Tom: Your comment about a "spate of spring failures" and changing suppliers. Exactly the same happened on the SVR and suppiers changed. Probably says more about the quality of the goods supplied--to each railway, rather than the state of any particular p-way.

46118

 

What's coming after that and whenabouts do you think they will be back in service?

 

In all honesty, it must be said that the P-Way between SP and HK leaves a lot to be desired and is probably a contributing factor in the spring breakages that do occur. Substantial work on the P-Way is in the pipeline, but as Tom has said previously in the other Bluebell thread, it's difficult to schedule such work when the line operates almost every weekend through the year and every day from April to October.

 

At the moment it looks something like:

2014 - B473, 73082
2014/15 - 541
2015 - 34059

Beyond that: 65, 80151, 928 but I wouldn't like to say in which order. 32424 will also likely be finished within that sort of timeframe (ie in the next five years or so).

Over the same period, we're like to see the withdrawal of 55, 592 and 1638 and then 178.

Tom

 

Yes, but there is a shadowy northern / western conspiracy out there to prevent a Schools ever returning to the mainline on the grounds of the acute embarrassment it would cause other locomotive owners...

Tom