Bluebell Motive Power

No, surprise surprise we did know that we were going to get to EG, though worth remembering that until about a year ago, the exact date wasn't known - even, in extremis, whether it was going to be in 2013.

As for the impact that getting to EG would have on passenger numbers, loadings, timetable etc - that wasn't known. There weren't really any good models to base any predictions on. What appears to be happening is that we are getting a jump in passenger numbers, coupled with a shift in pattern from being a "southern-ended" line to, well, not exactly a "northern-ended" line, but no longer a line with the bulk of traffic originating all at one end. But we are only two months into operating, so even now, we don't know if what we are seeing is permanent, or just a blip - probably a bit of both. If anyone definitively tells you otherwise, I'd ask on what basis they are so certain!

Given the lead time in getting sufficient locos of sufficient time in place, that is really a multi-year project. So had we started putting things in place in terms of volume and size, it would have been a big leap of faith to have put those building bricks down in, say, 2008 or 2009. Moreover, for the last few years, the railway (in common with most others, I'd suspect) has traded at a small loss: that tells you that even if a looming loco shortage was staring everyone in the face, having the money to do anything about it wasn't necessarily available - the PLC wasn't making a big surplus to plough into loco restoration, and the focus of external fundraising efforts was, naturally enough, directed mostly at the extension. What I do know is that the restoration of the two P classes (for example) was in the low five figures, and they have more than paid their way as being ideal when we could couple a 100 seater and a birdcage brake behind them and pull 150-odd passengers up and down the line on half a ton of coal all day. But now we need to pull 300 people in every train to cope with the numbers...

But, that was then and this is now. The current situation is that we are in EG; have what looks to be a big increase in passenger numbers (that hopefully will be sustained); will probably have rising income this year after 6 years of basically static income (equal to a real-terms cut) and we have no debt. That's a good basis on which to build, but it will take time. At a guess, I'd suggest we will probably start to direct extra resources from the increased income into deferred repairs especially of infrastructure, and also target fundraising efforts on locos and coaches to build up to a more sustainable future. Which means 73082, 847, 541 as the new "bread and butter" locos; 34059 hopefully as the "prestige" loco with greater reliability; 592 and 263 likely dealing with dining trains and our "shoulder" seasons when four coaches suffice; I'd suspect a hire loco for most of 2013 at least; and, if Roy Watts has any influence, probably a big push to restore 488...

Tom

 

The easy solution if not very popular would be to retain Swordfish for the next few years and use this as thunderbird or use it for off peak passenger services as even the Severn Valley have started to do on there mid week timetable.

 

Not quite the panacea it sounds. Leaving aside the impact it might put on cardio-vascular units across southern England, if you go down a diesel route, you have to build up skills and infrastructure to maintain them, which would inevitably draw resources away from the core steam fleet. Plus, as BR found, trying to maintain diesels and steam in the same depot is not necessarily a good idea, and I can't see us getting a dedicated diesel depot elsewhere. Also, at least the way our rosters work, not all drivers are passed for diesel traction, so you would end up with standby-duty disproportionately falling on some drivers, which I doubt would be popular.

One can never say never, but I don't see a diesel as a route out of a temporary motive power shortage. Just my opinion, as always.

Tom

 

It would seem that the railway wasn't prepared for a major increase in traffic as a result of the opening of the extension?

 

As so often, Tom, your posts seem to summarise what I would suspect to be widespread thinking on the Bluebell, even if they are only your opinions. The use of a diesel for shunting has upset some people on this forum, who say that the Bluebell has lost its USP of 100% steam. I personally don't have a problem with this, nor with making the best use of 33103 Swordfish while it's on the line and giving it a special passenger turn as well as using it on engineering trains - after all, there are probably enough people who would like the chance to enjoy "Crompton" haulage from SP to EG and back to fil the trains and make it a winner - indeed, some diesel enthusiasts may not otherwise be particularly keen to visit the Bluebell at all. Likewise, an "absolutely no diesels" policy would severely limit the scope for incoming charters until a turntable was installed, which is not going to happen any time soon.

However, for the regular timetabled services, I cannot imagine it being a popular move with the volunteers or the general public to hire in a diesel. It's unfortunate that the push to complete the extension has meant that funds for loco restoration have been short, but now it's open and boosting traffic figures, I can't imagine anyone saying that the focus on getting to EG was a mistake. The problems with 592, B473 and 34059 have all been unfortunate, and I would not be surprised if a hire loco or two was needed into 2014, or even beyond. Still, it's good that the revenue from the extension has enabled 73082's restoration to be speeded up. It's so ironic to think back to 1968 when newly-arrived 75027 was felt to be too big for the line! However, while the need for several locos of class 4 and above is now self-evident, it's good that there will still be opportunities off-season for the older locos, even down to the Ps and Terriers, to play a role.

 

Neil - try re-reading what I wrote, especially the bit about the fact that we still don't really know whether it's a real increase in passenger numbers or a blip; and the bit about money. All the predictions in the world are no use if you don't have the money to do anything about what you predict - which until this year, basically we didn't.

Tom

 

On a positive note. Hiring in loco could also help bolster passenger figures. It always adds extra interest in having hired in locos. So offered visiting loco only visit for a few days at galas and then they are off again. I would much prefer to visit a railway on non gala days. This surely must increase passenger figures .

 

I found your post a bit naive to be honest. Name me a railway that saw no increase, or a decrease, in passenger numbers in the short and long-term after an extension was opened. It seems odd that the Bluebell didn't want to see what effects opening extensions had on other railways, I don't really understand why you couldn't find a 'model' to look at. In the last 15 years there have been plenty of extensions that have opened and the long-term effects can be easily understood.

As regards the locomotive policy I refer you back to my original post: for the last few years we've heard how the Bluebell had got it spot-on by running small engines because they saved coal, water, maintenance and overhauls but now the railway needs bigger engines to cope for heavier trains on a steeply graded line - all of which could have been easily predicted.

 

Further to Tom's post in which he mentioned Camelots bolier being sent away,

From the latest News from the Bluebell Railway email : -

"The increased income following the opening of the line to East Grinstead has allowed Camelot's boiler to be sent to the London and North Western Heritage Railway at Crewe in order for the rest of its overhaul to be carried out. The boiler departs on 12 June, and it is expected back in early 2014."

 

Not quite - the policy has always been to have a mix of medium and large locos. As for predicting that we would need bigger locos - if we had failed to predict that fact, how come we have 847 about to have a steam test, and 73082 and 541 not too far behind? Those are the results of decisions taken several years ago, not six weeks ago.

But the fact remains: restoring locomotives is an expensive business. If you don't have any money (and your external fundraising is concentrated on other things), then how do you restore engines? The solution we chose was to concentrate on smaller engines, for the reasons that they gave the best cost / income ratio when our typical train was about 150 tons on a 1:60 line. Now our typical train is over 200 tons on a 1:55 line and we have to bite the bullet that the mix of locos will become a bit more biased towards class 4+ rather than class 2-ish. That doesn't alter the fact that for the last four or five years, a mix of class 0 and class 2 engines has worked very economically during a time that was very tight financially. And when all is said and done, we still aren't regularly using diesels on service trains - how many other lines in the country can say that?

Tom

 

73082 is hardly the benefit of excellent planning if the income has only just been delivered to allow the boiler overhaul to progress, that's a coincidence. Having hire-in engines on a line which has plenty of class 2-4 engines out-of-use is not an indicator of a policy delivering results, at the moment, either.

I admire the Bluebell spending money within its means but the sudden nature of the change of traffic suggests that some of the money spent on the smaller engines may have been better set aside for spending on some of the larger engines that would be ideally suited to the challenges of operating a longer, steeper line with heavier trains.

Plenty of heritage railways don't use diesels, the Bluebell is hardly unique in this respect.

We may be better to agree to disagree?

 

Fair enough

 

This outsider doesn't see what else they could have done. AIUI much of the extension work had severe time constraints which would have led to a big increase in costs if they had delayed the cutting work. Thus if they'd delayed building the extension in order to have more steam locomotives ready for when the extension opened the result would either have been that the money to work on steam locos would have swallowed up in the extra costs on the infrastructure, so they wouldn't have had the money for the steam locos anyway, or else there would have been even more delays of the infrastructure, in which case the steam locos wouldn't have had any work to do anyway. Sometimes you just have to pick the least unsatisfactory option, and from where I was standing the other weekend (opposite an empty water tank wagon waiting for a delayed train!) it wasn't immediately obvious they'd got it wrong...
Apropos of that, its striking how much effort East Grinstead town council or whatever it is has put on signing up the town to promote the Bluebell. Its really good work on the part of the railway to promote that relationship: I was very impressed.

 

The mayor took part in the Track Trek to raise monies to pay for the extension and she raised the second highest amount.

 

I was in East Grinstead last friday and it was really nice to see the number of shops that have either 'Welcome to the Bluebell' posters or timetables in their windows.

 

Maybe, but it will increase costs so it's a balance.

 

How about the Tal-y-llyn? Unfortunately.

 

I suspect the real picture is rather more subtle than a simple black and white "hiring = extra cost" argument.

Firstly, you have to set the hire fee against the cost of restoring one of your own locos. If doing a "ten yearly" on a suitable loco costs X, and you put in on average Y per year of running maintenance (repaints; new springs; new brick arch / baffle plates; other minor repairs; insurance; etc) and you get Z days per year in service, then the daily cost of your own loco is (X + 10Y)/10Z. You have to compare the daily hire fee against that cost to really see if it is expensive or not. Putting in some notional figures: if the ten-yearly is, say, £250k for a large (but not mainline) loco; you spend £5k per year on minor repairs and get 100 days steaming per year, then that daily cost is £300 per day. But on the Bluebell, that level of traffic would probably see the loco racking up something like 80,000 miles in ten years which is quite a lot, so it may not actually last ten years before being mechanically worn out. If you withdraw it sooner to protect it mechanically, then you get fewer days steaming, so the "equivalent daily rate" goes up. On that analysis, the kinds of figures talked about as a daily hire fees start to look a bit more realistic. The fact that most "locos for hire" seem never to recoup their overhaul costs from hire fees alone suggests to me that actually hiring an engine in is probably a good financial deal for the host railway.

Even if the daily rate of the hired engine is more expensive than the "equivalent daily rate" of one of your own, it may still be financially in the interest of the host railway, if it allows a service to be run that couldn't otherwise be steam hauled. If a loco shortage potentially forced a railway to cut back on otherwise lucrative services, the opportunity costs incurred would make it worthwhile hiring in a loco.

I suspect the best deals are those in which both parties get what they are after: in other words, the loco owner gets a deal which which pays for the next overhaul, while the railway gets a price that is competitive when compared with internal and opportunity costs. It's also probably worth remembering that for an owner, cutting the daily rate may be favourable if it comes in exchange with a guaranteed number of steamings: with the boiler clock ticking, it is probably better to have a guaranteed 80 days at, say, £400 per day rather than go to a line that will pay £500 but only offer 40 days.

Ultimately, our model is a mixed economy - probably like many larger lines:

- We have Bluebell-owned locos that are restored in-house largely by the paid staff and paid for from the PLC money (such as B473)
- Bluebell-owned locos restored in house but paid for by the Trust from donations (such as 263)
- Bluebell-owned locos restored largely by volunteers - this is slower, but cheaper in cash terms (such as 323, 178, 592)
- Group-owned locos restored and funded largely by the group concerned (such as 847, which has largely been a Maunsell Soc project until the last few months)
- PLC or Loco-Owning Group funds for external maintenance (such as the work on Camelot's boiler and wheels / bearings), both of which have been funded by the Camelot Soc and the boiler will now have additional PLC money used to send it to an external workshop
- Hired locos where you pay extra money, but someone else picks up the bill (and, as importantly, space and labour requirements) for the overhaul.

That looks quite complex (especially as in practice locos tend to shift from one model to another) but is probably less risky than relying solely on one model, such as hiring everything in with minimal workshop capacity; or owning every loco and not therefore being able to draw on the strength of owning groups to fund and repair their own locos.

Tom

 

The brown tourist signs were paid for by the railway - which I believe is the normal arrangement for such signs. That said, both East Grinstead Town Council and Mid Sussex District Council have been very supportive of the railway returning to East Grinstead.

Tom

 

Many lines have suffered from falling passenger numbers but that is outside of the scope of my argument. My point is that opening an extension has a short and long term increase in passenger numbers, usually to a new plateau but what happens after that is anyone's guess. It's probably fair to say that some railways haven't got to that point yet while others have.