If you register, you can do a lot more. And become an active part of our growing community. You'll have access to hidden forums, and enjoy the ability of replying and starting conversations.

Bluebell Northern Extension - so what's occurring then?

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by domeyhead, Feb 17, 2012.

  1. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2008
    Messages:
    26,103
    Likes Received:
    57,432
    Location:
    LBSC 215
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Indeed. It's about ten feet, though it will probably fluctuate up and down a bit[sup]*[/sup] over the next day or so while the final alignment of the track in the cutting is adjusted, before the final section is put in place.

    [sup]*[/sup] Not dramatically, possibly not even visibly from the bridge, but enough that you don't want to cut the last two rails to length until you are absolutely certain how long they need to be.

    Tom
     
  2. jnc

    jnc Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 3, 2012
    Messages:
    1,511
    Likes Received:
    2,706
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Western Atlantic
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    Yes, very exciting - after all these years! I can only imagine how the people at the Bluebell feel!!

    So I wonder what's the next heritage line to watch/wait as they connect themselves up to the national network? The GWSR are quite a few years away, I gather (they're not even to Broadway yet). Anyone else?

    Noel
     
  3. Martin Perry

    Martin Perry Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Moderator Friend

    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2006
    Messages:
    16,510
    Likes Received:
    7,753
    Location:
    1012 / 60158
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Kent & East Sussex / Rother Valley possibly?
     
  4. athelney

    athelney Member

    Joined:
    Jan 9, 2009
    Messages:
    504
    Likes Received:
    172
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Retired warranty administrator
    Location:
    Abbotsford , BC. Canada
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Swanage railway - back to Wareham
     
  5. Martin Perry

    Martin Perry Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Moderator Friend

    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2006
    Messages:
    16,510
    Likes Received:
    7,753
    Location:
    1012 / 60158
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Isn't that already connected ... !
     
  6. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    This is where the fun begins! In other words "were we better off financially when we didn't have the extension"

    P.H.
     
  7. frazoulaswak

    frazoulaswak Member

    Joined:
    Mar 25, 2009
    Messages:
    778
    Likes Received:
    1,862
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Retired (at last!)
    Location:
    Hartford
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    The Great Central - only the small matter of a bit of embankment, a bridge over the Midland main line and half a mile of track to go...
     
  8. domeyhead

    domeyhead Member

    Joined:
    May 16, 2007
    Messages:
    396
    Likes Received:
    161
    Of course we were Paul! By the same token the members and enthusiasts would have been better off had the Bluebell not existed at all. We would all be better off had Dai Woodham scrapped all his engines and we had never paid to ride behind one of them...........
    It's not really an argument. The extension is an adventure, a dream, an ambition, an endeavour against time and the elements......and when it is complete it will be enjoyed by thousands of enthusiasts and travellers alike.
    I can't imagine how any enthusiast would oppose a plan to extend the Bluebell - their is more financial danger in entrenchment and isolationism.
     
  9. frazoulaswak

    frazoulaswak Member

    Joined:
    Mar 25, 2009
    Messages:
    778
    Likes Received:
    1,862
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Retired (at last!)
    Location:
    Hartford
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    The Bluebell are to be congratulated wholeheartedly on the culmination of over 50 years effort to reinstate the line through to East Grinstead and I will certainly be paying a visit in the not too distant future.

    I'm pretty sure that my first ever visit to a preserved railway involved this line. My parents and I had a week's holiday at the Butlitz establishment at Rottingdean in 1963 or 1964 and I successfully pestered my Dad for a visit to the line. I have no recollections of what was running that day but I do remember that the third rail was still in place at Horsted Keynes, so that may make the year 1963.

    It would be interesting to hear of others' recollections of their first visit to the Bluebell, or indeed any preserved railway.
     
  10. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2008
    Messages:
    26,103
    Likes Received:
    57,432
    Location:
    LBSC 215
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Oh Paul, I'm going to have to add you to my "little ray of sunshine" list :smile:

    The proof of the pudding will be in passenger numbers. Crucially, we now have a destination in a real town, and a walking distance link for rail passengers coming from London; as such probably the most comparable project elsewhere is the extension of the MHR to Alton. So we are confident that the extension will lead to enhanced passenger numbers. Significantly, it is an extension to a real destination; it is not like we have just added two miles of track to terminate in yet another middle-of-nowhere field. Whether it provides what a city slicker would consider an acceptable return on investment on what is probably, at today's prices, a 7 figure sum spent getting there is another matter. Almost certainly not, but then I don't suppose anyone is in the preseravtion game for money.

    Yes, you have to stay solvent, but ultimately the Bluebell's members, shareholders and supporters and friends have contributed upwards of £10m to get to EG for no greater reason than they would like to see it happen; and the volunteers put in what is probably a low 6 figure sum every year to keep the trains running. And we do insist on doing financially ridiculous things like restoring 100 year old goods wagons and perservering with ancient signalling equipment and locomotives...

    Tom
     
  11. steamdream

    steamdream Member

    Joined:
    May 5, 2011
    Messages:
    285
    Likes Received:
    15
    Occupation:
    Teacher
    Location:
    Avranches(france)
    This link was never severed as far as Furzebrook (for the oil fields closed some years ago))
    regards
    noel
     
  12. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2008
    Messages:
    26,103
    Likes Received:
    57,432
    Location:
    LBSC 215
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Would have been to the Bluebell round about early to mid 1970s, when I would have been about 5 or 6. I remember looking through the windows of the booking hall at SP (which seemed very dark) and seeing what looked like a huge brass dome on an engine (so I'm guessing either the H or the C). I was distinctly scared at the prospect, because it seemed huge and I thought I would have to sit astride it, since my only previous experience of trains was sitting astride the carriages on our local 3.5" / 5" gauge line round a local park! We had a great uncle and aunt who lived near the Rainbow pub near Chailey, and trips to the Bluebell always finished off with going to visit them and having a huge slap-up tea of great hunks of bread and homemade strawberry jam, and then going out to feed my uncle's chickens and pheasants. Happy days. Oh, and it was always sunny...

    Tom
     
  13. steamdream

    steamdream Member

    Joined:
    May 5, 2011
    Messages:
    285
    Likes Received:
    15
    Occupation:
    Teacher
    Location:
    Avranches(france)
    as usual excellent reply Tom!!!!!!!!!!!!thanks
    I too I await this happy event, moment since a very long time
    Now I can say that it is one of my brightest day in ma poor life devoted to my passion
    regards
    Noel
     
  14. timmydunn

    timmydunn Member

    Joined:
    Aug 6, 2007
    Messages:
    396
    Likes Received:
    299
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Trains and data
    Location:
    City of London
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    I live in central London; I don't (currently) own a car, although I can easily hire one by the hour.

    The opportunity to visit the Bluebell is now unmissable: I can get to East Grinstead from Farringdon (my local station) in 1hr 15min. I can see a few more visits coming now. I know there's been a connecting bus, but the directly connecting train makes such a difference.

    It's going to put it on the map for a lot more Londoners.
     
  15. sleepermonster

    sleepermonster Member

    Joined:
    Jun 19, 2007
    Messages:
    919
    Likes Received:
    1,024
    First Visit to the Bluebell

    Around 1971 I think. We were on the way back from France and got the Dieppe-Newhaven Ferry overnight. In those days the ships often had notices saying they had been at Dunkirk and I remember ordering bacon and eggs from a waiter in what seemed to be very grand dining room. Dad was exhausted after a very long drive and wanted to rest somewhere, so we stopped at Sheffield Park while he had a nap in the car. I seem to recall travelling in the LNWR observation saloon, but the highlight was to see an engine delivered by road. Later knowledge tells me that was the Wainwright C.

    Congratulations on your triumphant reconnection, I shall have to get down some time later this year.

    Tim
     
  16. WSR hire in as required (several times a year) and one has been here for the last few weeks working on two relays and the Norton Triangle. And the machine has just left the WSR for the Bluebell :)

    WSR :: West Somerset Railway :: Snapshot

    WSR :: West Somerset Railway :: Snapshot

    Steve
     
  17. seawright

    seawright New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2012
    Messages:
    169
    Likes Received:
    26
    The CVR via MCR to Stoke?
     
  18. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2008
    Messages:
    26,103
    Likes Received:
    57,432
    Location:
    LBSC 215
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    The Bluebell via Ardingly ...

    :smile:

    Tom
     
  19. domeyhead

    domeyhead Member

    Joined:
    May 16, 2007
    Messages:
    396
    Likes Received:
    161
    If the MHR extension beyond Ropley to Alton can be taken as a reasonable template, the yearly visitor figures on the Mid-Hants prior to the opening were around the 80,000 mark. Once the extension opened the visitor figures rose to around 100,000 and climbed steadily thereafter to around 110,000. I believe the BLuebell visitor numbers are historically around 33% -50% higher than the Mid Hants. I don;t think it would be safe to apply the same percentage growth projection (25%) to the entire visitor count but it is entirely reasonable to assume the same 20,000 pa step increase and then apply the uplift to it, which suggests the Bluebell could benefit by 25,000 - 30,000 visitors. Each vistor may provide an average of £10 in cashflow or £2 in net income.....it's good business by preservations standards and provides a number of intangible benefits that will see the BLuebell's profile rise yet further.
     
  20. Martin Perry

    Martin Perry Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Moderator Friend

    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2006
    Messages:
    16,510
    Likes Received:
    7,753
    Location:
    1012 / 60158
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    My first and .... Ahem .... Only visit was in 1972, on a rail tour from Plymouth:
    The Railtour Files
    The Bluebell train was headed by the 'C-dog' :)
    I seem to remember that the BR driver on the return trip was enjoying himself so much that he didn't bother stopping at Dawlish :)
    Must get back to the Bluebell soon ...
     

Share This Page