Bluebell Motive Power

Steven (and Pete T earlier) - I wasn't really thinking in absolute number of turns, nor whether we were diagramming them as efficiently as possible. Rather, I was just amused at the frothing that goes on. I think this year we have probably had about five or six steam diagrams that had to be hauled, in full or part, by a diesel on account of non-availability of steam power (mostly on account of an issue with copper supplied by a third party that wasn't to spec). A similar record of six steam diagrams in a year that have to be pulled by a diesel would go unremarked on any other line. Yet to read this thread, you'd think the world had ended, with allegations of mismanagement, and more or less everyone back to Horace May being blamed - a man who, not only wasn't around when I started volunteering, but wasn't around when I was born (!), yet is somehow to blame for our current shortage of locos ...

As for an absolute number of steam diagrams in a year: I'd have thought the SVR and NYMR, which have more daily diagrams, probably do have more steam diagrams in a year than we do.

Tom

 

Actually, I don't think an E2 would be a very sensible prototype. Firstly, there were only a small number built, so they are hardly a loco that is widely missed. Secondly, in pure "oomph", they are probably somewhere round about the H or E4 class, so would be limited to about 130-140 tons at most. That's OK for our shoulder season and vintage trains, but not enough for our peak trains. And the small bunker would mean almost certainly you would need to come in for coal at some point in the day (as the H class generally needs to on a three-trip diagram, and certainly on a four-trip diagram). They also have less water capacity than either the H class or the E4.

If we were playing fantasy new build, then I'd have thought a Stroudley D tank would be a better bet if the objective was to make a small typically Southern tank engine for use on vintage trains (100+ made and used everywhere all over the 'Brighton for a long period - they are the archetypal Sussex branch line loco); or a K class mogul or (we can dream...) one of the big Lawson Billinton express tanks (class J 4-6-2T or class L 4-6-4T) if we wanted a loco to cope with any load we could throw at it.

But in any case, the next new build has already been stated and it isn't any of those...

Tom

 

Actually, not many other pressure groups for those with smaller machinery. With the exception of Normandy (which is owned, oddly, by the Bulleid Society, who own 21C123, so doesn't add another owning group to the mix); 65 (which is owned by a private individual) and the C class (owned by the Wainwright 'C' Preservation Society), all the medium and small locos are owned by the Bluebell Railway PLC or, in one case, by the Bluebell Railway Trust.

Tom

 

You are confusing Billintons. E4 was Billinton pere whereas E2 was Billinton fils.

I am not particularly concerned with "worthiness" more with "utility". An express locomotive with large driving wheels and limited adhesion in relation to its overall weight does not seem particularly useful for a 25m.p.h. tourist railway. It has to haul its own weight around before it does a morsel of useful work at the drawbar. A K class would be more to the point if a Brighton prototype is an essential. It is not as if the Atlantic boiler is actually authentic for a Brighton machine, merely very similar.

Tourist railways have too many large wheeled engines as it is.

PH

 

(Deleted - duplicate post).

 

A progress update on paulhitch's favourite loco has been posted http://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/locos/atlantic/latest.html

 

Would be even more interesting seeing one pull into Wooton for the first time "Havenstreet, we have a problem ..."

Tom

 

Little bit of tongue in cheap as I'm guessing it was a gift.
The VEP which the bluebell owns/cares for according to the plates I've seen on it at swanage and the mid hants. What are the railway gonna do with it regards use of it, I'd heard it was only wanted to be used as a ticket office at EG.
It's in a terrible state none of the toilets worked while it was at mid hants or swanage. seat covers are ripped or missing. The guards compartment is full of spares but it just seems like its been dumped at Clapham junction in the yard. With no diesel on the line are you really gonna use it as hauled stock behind the c class, a railway like swanage could get a lot of use out of it with they're 33 into wareham while the 4tc being restored.
Seems a strange decision for the bluebell to say they want it.

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I was always led to believe 3417 is looked after by fitters at Wimbledon depot.

 

Can't see Swt wanting to foot the bill for repairs if bb won't stump up cash to pay for them. The vep was back at home for 3 weeks between mid hants and swanage and the issues with it were just left for us to endure in swanage.

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It's in the care of this group at Clapham http://www.setg.org.uk/

 

That's my understanding too. Not really my field of expertise, but I understand such units are best stored where they can periodically connect to a third rail - which clearly isn't on the Bluebell.

Tom

 

Thanks Matt - knew there was a group and couldn't find it.

Tom

 

From my understanding its ment to be undercover and has been out side since may as for hooking up to the juice it doesn't have shoes on to do that they were taken off cause she blew up trying to get to swanage so they took them off and they haven't been returned

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If you're talking about shunters, then fair enough but using a steam loco wouldn't be practical most of the time. As for service trains, we advertise in advance the Timetable A and C diesel turns and then if there's a failure, well's then that's an emergence so anything is better than nothing.

 

Very much aware of that Mr Hitch - hence "Billinton Development".

The GNR Atlantic boiler is as near as makes no difference identical to the LBSCR Atlantic boiler in terms of dimensions. It's a good bit of recycling for a boiler that would have otherwise been scrapped or left to rot. I wholeheartedly approve of recycling and British preservation has a habit of doing that remarkably well when it wants to. Recycling that boiler has, crucially to the new build argument, saved a great expense and gave the project an early head start on many of the other groups.

The draw of the only working Atlantic in the United Kingdom would be greater I suspect than a semi-authentic Thomas the Tank Engine replica. It's not just about, as you say, "utility" but the draw of bringing in the punters and enthusiasts with your wares. The locomotives are part and parcel of that.

I would concede a K class, however, would be a bit of both there. A sensible prototype for running on the railway, an interesting locomotive and a missing link for the enthusiasts, and ticks all of the boxes for the general public too. However, like the E2, a complete build from scratch whereas the Atlantic had a pool of components made available including tender axle boxes and wheel sets.

 

So what? One just cannot preserve everything and one of the biggest black marks about railway preservation is that it appears to want to do just that and does not always do it very well. Hence the piles of grot that are apt to accumulate. In this instance a nice job is being done but the end result won't be allowed on the main line so what is the point. It won't do the job required as well as a small to medium 2-6-0 and there is 31sq.ft. of grate to keep covered. (I have been over this ground umpteen times before so apologise for the repetition.)

PH

 

But the appeal of railways isn't always rational. I don't disagree on a technical level that a small to medium 2-6-0 and 4-6-0 (as has been proven in railway preservation) is perfectly adequate for pulling trains most efficiently, but the heart rules the head where the big draw is concerned.

As for the "won't go on the mainline, what's the point" - that sentence could be aimed at so many different locomotive projects, and time and time again I am glad people go ahead and do it all the same. Tornado's main USP is the mainline, but is that so of Planet, Firefly or Catch Me Who Can?

Building a new LBSCR "Beachy Head" will provide a powerful set of USPs for the Bluebell - not only another "Lazarus" locomotive, but the only working standard gauge Atlantic in the country. It fills a gap in preservation, can appear in a multitude of liveries, and will be a draw for the enthusiast and will do so time and time again. Going on the mainline is irrelevant in the case of the Atlantic project, because it has more than enough going for it on its home railway.

 

Here we go again! Gricers do not have a similar mindset to the general public. On my own last visit to the Bluebell I overheard passengers complaining that the train had stopped so the crew could put out a potentially very nasty fire. At another line I was asked by a not unsophisticated couple if the 100+ year old loco. was a diesel got up to look to look like a steam one!

A high proportion of the general public can tell steam from diesel but what the wheel arrangement or the origin of the locomotive is will be of ****all interest to the great majority of them. Just like motor adverts on the telly. Nothing at all about numbers of camshafts, turbochargers etc. but all about lifestyle. It's absolutely the same with tourist railways, it's an image thing and I don't believe that, within broad parameters, most of the people who pay the bills will give a damn.

If steam hauled tourist lines are to survive and it is a big "if" for we don't know, for instance, if there will be any fuel available in future years they are going to have to become much more sensible. Costs will get more and more difficult to contain and overweight trains with overweight locomotives more and more unjustifiable.

Keeping overheads down is as important for tourist railways as any other business. Gricers please heed.

PH

 

What your venom against the Beachy Head project completely ignores is that the people who wanted to build it have done just that - and raised the funds. All of them have contributed enormously to the Bluebell for decades and this was their pet project that started way back in the early eighties. After all that I don't think a numbnut decrying their legacy is really going to stop them.

Let's face it. The majority of preserved railways have no practical use other than amusing the people who who are minded suitably to join in or can't find a girlfriend. The paying punter is only invited in to help pay the bills. Looking at them in a purely practical way as you suggest, the materials that constitute the infrastructure and rolling stock would be recycled and the land turned over for housing and mosques.