Bluebell Railway General Discussion

You also need to bear in mind having a RMB also allows the general public another way to connect with members of the railway. The people who work in the RMB are also a mind of information about the railway and are a traveling information centre for the railway.

 

That's a good point.

Anyone who wants to eat in something more interesting than a Mark 1 RMB, but less pricy than a Pullman, could do worse than support the restoration of the last surviving Southern Railway catering vehicle, Maunsell dining saloon 7864. See http://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/pics/7864.html

Tom

 

One way of supporting that project is by buying the excellent home made jams and chutneys which are usually on sale in the carriage shed.

 

Now the East Grinstead extension has been open for 5 months and the summer season has been and almost gone, I am intrigues as to what life is now like at Kingscote. Pre-1955, I believe the station once went down in history one year for recording the lowest receipts for the whole Southern Region/Railway. Hardly surprising given that, apart from the few railway cottages in the vicinity, it's in the middle of nowhere. When there's a two-train service, the trains pass at Horsted Keynes, and there really seems now little reason for anyone to de-train at Kingscote now it is no longer the terminus. I'd love to know from Tom or some other informed person whether it has now reverted to its pre-1955 tranquillity. Does anyone get on or off? Have any tickets been sold since March?

 

Extract from Friends of Kingscote Newsletter


"However until Condition 9 is released, the public (there being a distinction between passengers and public) are no longer allowed to
enter the station or buy tickets.There is also a prohibition on the use of the Well House kiosk and Picnic Area by both Passengers and
Public. Both have been closed until further notice.These disincentives to leave the train are probably combined with inertia, leaving passengers content
to view the station as they pass through, rather than break the journey. In this sense the Bluebell has joined the likes of the Severn Valley Railway and West Somerset
in having a sleepy station that sees little passenger use. Until such time as the idea for a Goods Yard display reaches fruition and assuming the Picnic Area and
Kiosk re-open there is no particular reason for Passengers to leave the train.There are mixed reactions to this state of affairs. For the connoisseur of backwater stations then the lack of passengers is an attractive proposition with the sounds of nature filling the gaps between trains. A nearby field of bleating sheep, combined with birdsong and
humming bees brings a pleasantly soporific pre-Beeching feel to the station on a fine summer’s day.This tranquility is broken at intervals
by approaching trains with the occasional novelty of seeing some arrive from both directions at the same time! On the other hand some of the workforce feel this is much to be regretted, because visitors will be missing out on Kingscote’s subtle charms, whilst the Catering Department lose income from Kiosk refreshment sales."

 

Can someone explain this? Because it seems very strange.

 

The original planning consent (back in about 1985) was for an extension between HK and EG with no intermediate "stopping places" (or some such wording - can't remember exactly now).

The various termini (first Horsted House Farm, then New Coombe Bridge, then Kingscote) were allowed under a temporary exemption all the time it was obvious we were making progress towards a final terminus in East Grinstead. However, once we got to EG as our planned final terminus, the exemptions lapsed, notably the exemption to use Kingscote as a "stopping place" (or whatever the wording was). So now there is a planning discussion to be had to allow it to function as an intermediate station (with the facilities you'd expect, i.e. the ability to sell tickets). Until that is resolved, it is effectively not acting as a station, though we have got the ability for existing passengers to break their journey there - but we can't sell tickets that originate or terminate at KC, nor sell food etc. The distinction between "passengers" and "public" essentially means that an existing Bluebell passenger (who has presumably bought a ticket elswhere and travelled by train to Kingscote) can leave the station, go for a walk and come back and re-enter to board a return service, but a member of the "public" (without a ticket) can't enter the station with the intention of buying a ticket and boarding a train.

The reasonable expectation is that eventually it will be able to function as a normal station, but until such matters are properly resolved legally, it isn't. There is a certain caution from the railway because they do not want to end up in a situation whereby its use is allowed, but in a way that limits operations further north (for example, if a limit were placed that restricted nightime departures from Kingscote, it might make operation of Evening Golden Arrows very complex even if there was no similar restriction at East Grinstead). So the negotiations are ongoing, but potentially delicate. I'm sure in due course things will resolve in a way that is acceptable to all parties - after all, I wouldn't have thought it was in the interst of the council to curtail the operations of what is its biggest tourist attraction!

Tom

 

Thanks Tom and Paul for the update about Kingscote. I hadn't appreciated that Kingscote was not actually functioning as a proper station at the moment. I hope the planning issues are resolved in due course.

 

Tom: Is this essentially because the station house is a private residence, and the conditions were to respect the owner's privacy?

 

I don't thinks so. As I understand it, one of the significant concerns at the time from local people, especially some of the farmers, was to do with an increase of traffic on the narrow country roads. So by making the extension just from HK to EG with no intermediate stopping places, it was a way of showing that we wouldn't be contributing to traffic by having lots of people drive to, and park at, Kingscote, West Hoathly etc. To this day, you still can't park at Kingscote (and I assume that, whatever the outcome of the planning discussions, that restriction will remain) and we haven't opened a station at West Hoathly, despite the fact that, East Grinstead excepted, it is the one ex-station on the line that is near to a significant population.

One hope is that resolution of the issue at Kingscote would open up the possibility of re-instating a station at West Hoathly: I'm not exactly at the epicentre of things there, but I'm under the impression that local sentiment towards the railway there has shifted in the last twenty five years. But no doubt it will be slow and delicate progress, mostly conducted in council committee rooms and solicitor's offices out of sight of most people. As with all such matters, physical infrastructure work is the visible and glamour end of such projects, but has often been preceded by years of unseen and unrecognised work behind the scenes getting to a point where the diggers can move in.

Tom

 

At the time of the planning application, Bluebell didn't own Kingscote and it was a private residence. Ironically, by the time the railway received permission for the extension, it owned Kingscote. The lack of station at West Hoathly is due to local opposition to the railway at the time of the application. As a result, the station has never been rebuilt, and it was known as New Coombe Bridge when we did run round there(there wasno platform and passengers couldn't leave the train). For those confused by the names, West Hoathly was the name of the original station, built in the then hamlet of Sharpthorne to the north of Sharpthorne Tunnel. New Coombe Bridge is immediately north of the goods yard at West Hoathly, and was the first really serious engineering job on the extension, as it was the removed after the line was lifted, and had to be replaced by Bluebell, hence stopping at that point between 1992 and1994 when the railway opened to Kingscote.
Daniel

 

The last time I was at the Bluebell I wanted a photo of the train coming in from EG, so I did indeed get off and wait for the train to come back. Very quiet, very peaceful, very pre-Beeching atmosphere (not that I'm really old enough to have experienced that).

 

I visited the West Hoathly station site in the late sixties as a teenager, as far as i can remember i"m pretty sure the old footbridge was still in situ, might be wrong though, But i do remember a couple of old Ford Anglia"s there that looked like they were in need of a touch of restoration themselves, the site was a mess though, but access to the tunnel was there and you could see the trees and vegetation at the other end. I wonder what happened to the Ford Anglia"s.

 

The footbridge went in late 1964 (or possibly early 1965) when the track was lifted. It had been earmarked for the Bluebell for use at Sheffield Park, but on the day in question, a crane that was supposed to be helping with track lifting didn't arrive. The foreman therefore got his men to demolish the footbridge so as to keep them occupied, and by time word could be got out to stop them, it was too late. Shame, as it would mean we wouldn't have to be thinking about a modern replica at SP! So just another of those things (like the Atlantic, K class mogul, the Lancing Belle works train, the LSWR Gate Stock and so on) that can be added to the "one that got away" file...

Tom

 

Thanks for the info Tom, I must have the footbridge mixed up with another line as i visited quite a number of them in Kent and Sussex on my much travelled
Royal Enfield Motorbike in the late sixties.

 

A few photos of West Hoathly station here http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/w/west_hoathly/ what a great looking station. A shame the station was demolished. Maybe one day the station can be reinstated.

 

Given that Hornby's otherwise excellent 00 scale Maunsell carriages are crying out for a catering vehicle, I wonder if Hornby might be persuaded to tool up the same kind of vehicle as 7864 and sell it as a premium-priced, limited run collector's item, with a cut going to the restoration fund?

I only say limited run because standard runs of model catering vehicles don't tend to sell in anywhere near the same volume as things like SOs and brake carriages, most trains utilising multiples of the latter types but only a single catering vehicle. So selling it as a limited run at a premium price would virtually guarantee a sell-out to both modellers and collectors.

 

The station building at West Hoathley looks to have been quite substantial and near other housing - does anyone know why was it demolished instead of being sold off as a private house?

Steven

 

It's an interesting question, and I don't really know the answer. The original schedule for demolition contained a list of structures (including Coombe Bridge, just north of West Hoathly, the re-instatement of which effectively opened the way to Kingscote); Kingscote and West Hoathly signal boxes, and the footbridge at West Hoathly. But the station building was excluded from the demolition schedule, and was left intact, only to be demolished about three years later - and, sadly, about eight years before the Bluebell bought the site.

I can only assume that BR must have made unsuccessful efforts to sell or lease the building. After a few years with no success, you can imagine how an un-lived-in building with plenty of wooden structure would have started to decay, and ultimately BR may have felt it easier to demolish the building rather than repair it, especially if there was any risk of liability caused by the building being unsafe. I guess in those less enlightened times, ex-stations were not seen as the desirable properties that they are now. But that is all conjecture, not definitive fact.

Fortunately, Kingscote did find a new owner, which was why it still existed in the mid-eighties when the Bluebell was able to buy it, though by then it too was in significantly run-down condition.

Tom

 

Apparently it's been reported on the A1 Trust Facebook page (I'm not on FB, member, so can't see) that Tornado has been successfully gauged to travel to East Grinstead, so touch wood, the September 10th rail tour from Victoria should be on.

And apparently on the Steam Dreams website (but that is currently crashed, so I can't see that either!) some revised timings:

d. Victoria 09:45 (was: 09:43)
a. SP 12:00 (was: 12:30)

d. SP 17:40 (was: 16:40)
a. Victoria 22:15 (was: 21:30)

Four and a half hours from SP to London? Where the hell is it going en route?!!

Tom