Bluebell 2009 "Modernisation"

When you consider the main point of this trip is to raise cash for digging out a rather large cutting full of rubbish, not as a normal train, then I don't think £30 is unreasonable. You wouldn't object to paying a premium for a fund-raising trip on another sort of train, such as the Fish and Chip trains running later in the year, or charters.

 

Please get some facts straight here....

Comments were said that IF she was left at EG she WOULD get vandalised and rot.
She is still in top 100%.
The BB were praised and applauded for letting her go to Eastleigh and there was never any mention of the BB being "wicked and evil"!

If you compare the prices for what you are getting, yes the price is on the steep side.
If the market can handle £30 for a round trip well good luck.
But am sure there may be a few who will be thinking.... :-k ...£30.... :-k ...thanks but no thanks but will go to XX railway and spend £20 on an all day diesel gala from 0900 till mid night and get value for money rather than one round trip for £30.

But if the BB get a full train then well done to them....

 

Yep have to agree with the above comment, £30 seems very very steep just for a return journey behind the 73. However the Bluebell desperately need money for the tip removal so if they do sell out the train then well done but I do wonder just how many empty seats there could be in the carriages when people see the price.

 

Apparently, according to someone who tried to book yesterday, bookings were steady and it seemed the train would be sold out, so clearly some people are going in for it

 

Another way of looking at it - a few people have commented on the fact that they couldn't shell out £250 for the minimum number of shares on offer last year. You could argue that here is a way of making a smaller contribution to help the railway get to East Grinstead with what is possibly an unique travel opportunity thrown in. Who knows, the next chance to travel on the Bluebell with a diesel will probably be some while in the future when a '67' lugs the VSOE Pullmans and Clan Line back from Sheffield Park to Victoria. Now that will make £30 for a trip behind 73136 seem very good value indeed.

 

It would be dear if it were but as I read the BB publicity the £30 ticket also acts as a Rover ticket on the other BB services. Perhaps not enough people reading the publicity leaflets ?

 

Sadly the railway has underfunded its loco workshop, so we get a diesel (08) to help with the spoil trains from the tip... We are all told that the diesel was just a bit of plant (like the wickhams) Then because we can't maintain a shunting loco, we need the diesel to do shunts and ECS moves, but we are told once again that it will not be used for passengers.

We wait a while and one 08 goes and another comes, then because the 08 is too slow and the extension needs to be finished tomorrow, we get an ED, but once again we are told...

Now it is going to run its first passenger train... if it raises just some money, it will be likely it will be used again and again. We are also very short of money and the loco crisis is going to continue for the foreseeable future. I know we have been told what won't happen, but the last few assurances have been worthless. Once the first diesel train runs, it is far easier to say hey we have no money / not enough locos, lets get in a Diesel (33) or a thumper to help run the service... "Look at how much money we save"

When the first Mk1 was going to come people said it was the end of the world, well it was not the end of the railway, but it did bring about the demise of a truly vintage railway, now we don't need to worry about the 60 vintage carriages rotting in the sidings because we have nice cheap, easy to fix Mk1s to run the main service... this could happen again but this time with diesels...

 

1084 is so right in what he says, underfunding in all departments and years of incompetant mismanagement have put the Bluebell in dire straights .

There are some that would say that the Directors are also volunteers and that they give their time freely and for nothing and of course they would be right, but at what a cost the Bluebell is facing today. This could have been fixed and can still be fixed with a properly paid professional Managing Director with overall control over these ham fisted ameteurs who seem to think that it is THEIR Railway and nobody elses.

On the face of it, it,s all coming apart at the seams.
Just my opinion.

Best regards
Chris Willis

 

Didn't they last year get a large grant from the lottery for some sort of shed for the coverage of the carriages. From what I remember it sounded like 70% of the cost so surely something watertight if not fully fitted out could be built with that ?

 

Correct. Though unsure how much the funding is from the HLF and from the Bluebell.
Enablisiation work has started, moving the artifacts from the old museum and services on platform two. Construction work should start soon, though I don't have an update on the project.

 

'Operation Undercover' should see a carriage shed and museum complex being built on part of the adjacent timber yard at Sheffield Park. The main benefit will be to bring some of the working fleet of historic carriages under cover to reduce the rate of deterioration compared with open storage.

Regards,

Dan

 

Arguably the "rot" (if such it be) set in at the Bluebelle when the decision was taken to extend. The expense has led to a lot of other decisions that seem a bit regrettable.

In truth Mk1s aren't much cheaper to repair than anything else for a given level of delapidation. I suspect that the Bluebell simply found that the Mk1s didn't need as much repair as they were newer, and so that was cheaper.

IF the extension to EG causes the loss of any of the magnificent collection of vintage coaches the BB owns, that will be very sad indeed. It is already sad that the only steam only line is no longer steam only. Not because I have anything against the diesels per se, but it was just nice that ONE railway in the UK didn't use them. That said use of steam only isn't as important as the vintage carriages and the rest of the fabric of the railway.

I used to have friend who reckoned that the optimal length for a heritage railway was 5 miles. He had a point. Long enough to be interesting without excessive costs. Personally I think 5m is about 1/2 the optimal length, but the expense of the extension needs to be taken into account. The MHR nearly went bankrupt as a result of a far less complex and ambitious extension. The BB isn't going to go bust, but it is having to make some hard and probably long term damaging choices. Will the EG extension be worth it? I hope so. I hope it gives them the traffic boost they will need to play catch up on all the other arrears they are building up for themselves. Frankly the MHR has really only emerged in the last 5 or 6 years from the problems it built up from its extensions back in the 1980s. I hope it doesn't take the BB that long, especially with the current economy!

 

21D makes some very good points.

Mark 1s are probably cheaper to repair than restoring an incomplete pre-BR coach, but a proper rebuild of a Mark 1 will probably cost more than an overhaul of a complete wooden framed coach that had been in service. In both cases, apart from reupholstering, a lot of the cost is labour - actual materials are quite small compared with time spent. If volunteer labour is being used, an advantage of timber framed vehicles is that rather more people have woodwork skills than have metal work skills, and I would suggest there is more even new, inexperienced volunteers can do on a timber framed coach. I am not an expert on coach restoration but know the money side and plenty of people who are experts in this area, as well as having helped with the restoration of the Thompson CL onm the NYMR a number of years ago. Ine the case of teak coaches, they also last a lot longer between major work than many Mark 1s, although that depends upon the thoroughness of the Mark 1s last overhaul. I suspect the Bluebell Mark 1s may be viewed as "disposable" - once in need of work, they will be scrapped. Many railways have done this in the past 30 to 40 years.

On the matter of the extension and optimum length of line, I don't think there is a single answer as it depends on your market. The General Public make up between 70% and 90% of the passengers on most heritage railways, and they probably don't want to be spending all day just haing a train ride. Hence, 5 to 10 miles gives a decent run and plenty of time to do other things, as well as allowing a decent length of journey to and from the railway for the day-trip market.

If, however, the railway is in an area where people will be spending short breaks or longer holidays, runs through attractive scenery and that can be used as the "back-bone" of a full day out, a longer journey with people joining and leaving the train and visiting attractions along the way, a much longer line can work very well.

I know the West Somerset has a considerable "bucket and spade" market who leave the M5 to join the Railway at the Taunton end and combine a steam train ride with a day at Minehead. This is "tourist transport" or the line doing what it was built for.

On the Moors, we have had this for years with Goathland and now adding Whitby to the mix means we have a run of 24 miles taking just over 1 1/2 hours yet carrying considerable numbers of people despite an early start (09:00) and late finish (19:30 peak season). Many passengers will break their journeys at Goathland and Whitby and possibly Grosmont as well, making pretty well a full day out (11:00 ex Pickering, hour at Goathland, 13:35 into Whitby and 18:00 back out after fish and chips was a regular pattern last year, or 09:00 ex Pickering to Whitby, 14:00 back to Goathland and continue on to Pickering aafter an hour or two in "Aidensfield").

This also impacts on the financial viability of extensions. Costs are very much per mile run - a long run uses more coal, needs more locos and carriages and gives more permeant way to maintain. What usually is not possible is a proportionate increase in the fares that can be charged - for many years, the lowest cost per mile on heritage railways was to be found on the two long lines I have mentioned about - the WSR and NYMR. SVR is now amongst the "best value per mile" also but Bluebell will probably not be able to able to increase the fare in the same proportion as journey length. There are exceptions to this rule - on the Moors, until this coming year, Whitby was 1/3 more distance than Pickering to Grosmont and the fare was more than 1/3 more. The only main fare being increassed in 2009 is the Pickering to Grosmont so that Whitby (which is unchanged) is exactly 1/3 more. Again, a slight premium seems possible where the destination is an attraction in its won right.

The Mid-Hants is probably the best guide for the Bluebell as to the value of reaching a Network Rail connection, and the longer run may make visitors from a distance more likely to travel, but the finances of running the extension could be just as challenging as the finances of building it!

 

But how many visitors actually come to heritage railways via their main-line connections?

As the heritage lines operate mainly at weekends (particularly Sundays), it's not always that easy to get there by train due to engineering work and less frequent trains. I wonder if it's the extension itself, rather than the main-line connection, which pulls in more traffic.

Richard

 

Hmmm, I wonder whether the fare rises if the Bluebell get to East Grinstead will possibly pay for the extra maintenance of the track, locomotives and Carriages. The extension to Kingscote certainly has not...

 

As this is about BB modernisation I am supprised that no one has commented on the arrival of two MK1's painted in blood/custard (shades of rainbow train sets again) but with the loss of true vintage coaches ie the Brighton Bogie coach Maunsell BCK a Bulleid SO and not forgetting the SECR 100 seater now this is very sad but this is modernisation so in the near future when can we expect a Hampshire Unit to arrive, incidently how long does it take to undertak maintenance on an 08 shunter as I believe that is why the 73 has arrived to replace itm, surely it dosen't take that long and the spoil tip removal requirement has not been required for a considerable time so what was the problem
Engineer

 

It was covered on these forums at the time of their arrival and entry into service. The thread might be in the archives now.

Regards,

Dan

 

A fair number arrive at Alton by SWT - I'm not sure of the split, but with the RAT it must be nearly half some nights.

Bean-counter is spot on in his comments, which mirror my thoughts. I doubt that the reciepts from the extension will fully cover the increased costs and therefore the overall fabric will be degraded.

Perhaps as important though is the number of volunteers. I am willing to bet that the number of members and volunteers is not at the same level in terms of number per mile as it was once. As a measure it is a crude one, but there is bound to be a correlation between the physical state of the railway and the number of volunteers available per mile length. Think about it, the longer the railway, the more people you need to keep the additional stations, track, signalling, locomotives and rolling stock. The BB volunteers would have to practically double to keep pace - well that is probably over egging it, but 25% to 30% more? Does anyone know if the numbers have increased since the Kingscote extension?

 

The Brighton Bogie (7598) is out because of a damaged tyre / gibbson ring, It should have these fixed soon, as some money has been found after all the adverse reaction. How the carriage has stood up to the weather (it was left outside) remains to be seen, but several doors are broken, hopefully some much needed tlc will come its way.
The Maunsell (6575) has been out of traffic for some time, it needed some minor repairs when I last saw it, but I have a feeling that when work starts they will find all sorts of problems (rotten bottom rails, rot in the roof, weak or damaged framework) since to repair these quickly requires very skill full joiners the Bluebell C&W will take the easy, long and expensive way and it will be rebuilt over up to 10 years as 1336 has been (I believe that 1336 is back in the works to have a number of problems fixed)
Vintage carriages need skilled people, money and time to keep in traffic, things that the department at Horsted are rather short of. The easy way around this is to focus on the Mk1s, with the skill of Steve ex-lovers walk they are quick and easy to repair, as can be seen by these two extra carriages, and the further delay to the start of the restoration of the maunsell dining set that has been rotting in the Ardingly siding for many years.
At the present rate I can foresee the use of the VEP and / or thumper / hastings unit being used for the services in the medium term. While the 40-60 vintage carriages stored continue to moulder, all very sad.

 

The volunteers working in the C&W at Horsted were counted by Peter Milnes around 5 to 10 years ago, and he came up with over 100-130. Ok some of them only came once a month, but it still equals man hours. A count by a member a year or so ago came to around 30...

Reading the Bluebell news magazine and website can show the slowing down of progress over the last few years which seem to show the above figures to be some what close to the real situation. The lack of official news about progress is quite worrying for the future, but good for the modernisation!