Helston Railway

A 130-year-old railway signal box at Wye in Kent, which was no longer needed by Network Rail and was due to be demolished, has been saved and will be relocated to The Helston Railway at Prospidnick, Cornwall. A grant has been given by The Railway Heritage Trust to cover the cost of relocation and reconstruction. Good news indeed!

 

No steam at Helston this year? Peckett works No 2000 has left the railway for maintenance at Loughborough and was expected to return but, from the Facebook pages;

"Sorry to have to report that the locomotive will not be returning to Helston in 2025. I received a note from the GM of the railway’s operating company saying that the railway did not want to hire P2000 again."

" To hire the Peckett cost us a minimum of 30 guaranteed uses a year at £450 for loco and £350 in coal that's near 25k a year or a kilometer of ballast. Running trains and events is all the Opco relies on for its income. From this we have to pay for electric , water, fuel coal etc. We desperately need funds to continue our plans to expand the railway, after a lot of thought and discussion the directors , which I'm not one, have made the decision that rather than struggling to keep afloat it is better to put the money towards funding ourselves to reach Helston."

The class 10 is to return from hire to the Bodmin and Wenford by Easter so presumably this will be the motive power.

 

Puts into perspective some costs of the running of steam I guess, but honesty and openness with these sort of the decisions seems like the best policy.

 

Looking at the costs it is a wise decision, perhaps money is best spent in getting their own loco back into steam.

 

Very true, but it must be very worrying for the financial viability of the railway if the cost of running a small industrial loco isn't worthwhile for the additional income it would bring in.

 

Probably more worrying for owners of small industrial locos hoping to recoup some of the overhaul costs.

 

Transport costs , which all the way to Helston, are not insignificant, appear to have been left out of the total costs. It will be an interesting experiment to find if £25,000 can still be raised in fares etc. without the use of the steam loco. If it can then it may be the way forward for other small railways.

I understand the problem with their "own" loco is one of ownership ie it's still owned by Portsmouth local authority and until this is resolved no significant spend will be made.