Heritage railways killing the world...yeah right

I thought it was disposable babies' nappies which were doing that!

The other day I had to laugh, though, when I saw a tourism trade magazine which had a picture of a narrow gauge steam loco on the cover, promoting a feature article on green heritage!!!

 

Can I respectively ask that members of this forum do not contribute towards the Facebook petition highlighted in this thread. Whilst you may not agree with it, the originator and supporters thereof are perfectly within their rights to post objection. The counter comments, however well meaning towards the railway, only help to inflame the situation further. The railway works hard to have a good relationship with its neighbours and we will address this directly with them.

Thank you

Tim Beere
Marketing Manager
The Mid Hants Railway 'Watercress Line'

 

Thank you Neil , that is most appreciated. I think we can safely say that is the end of it although with hindsight peraps just the E-Mail address removed would have been sufficiant.

Kindest regards
Chris:

 

Chris,

Apologies for not contacting you earlier, it was myself that removed it at midnight last night, just as I was off to bed, I alerted it to the moderator team and intended to PM you this morning.
Today I had a much busier day than planned and have only just finished work (1040pm), sorry for not PM'ing you in the timely fashion I intended.

As you so eloquently asked in the forum directly, I assume a response here is fine.


Let the railway deal with it.
Dont take matters to your own hands
Dont publish personal emails
Dont promote a riot against another individual.

Personally, I believe Tim Beere's request is the most reasonable here.

Which was why your post was moderated.


John

 

Judging by recent statements by a member of the group in question it started as a genuine concern of the amount of black smoke drifting over his fence ( perfectly reasonable) and he is in fact a fan of the railway and is happy for it to be there. However other people in the group just want to cause trouble and are responsible for the more unrealistic complaints. Also i did not create this thread in order to start trouble or harassment, that's why a link was not published, and anyone doing so is just giving rail preservation a bad name.

 

Our preserved railways by and large do attempt to not be bad neibours, no one on the footplate likes to black out stations but sometimes it cant be helped, some coal can burn very dirty, during my time on MHR, we used to be very carefull about smoke, often not building the fire up too soon and doing everything we could to reduce smoke and i would expect the same can be said of any railway.
but you will get the people who dont like the railway and will not accept any good will offer no matter , but these are the minority even if they are a very vocal minority. i guess that all you can do is to not give them any extra reason to complain

 

I don't know about other railways, but the Swanage Railway has actually been awarded a bronze award in the Green Tourism Scheme.

 

Not everyone is a puffer nutter and they do have a valid complaint if smoke is a nuisance. What the railway can do is to emphasis to the Town how important to the local economy the railway is and what measures are taken to minimise nuisance., attack being better than defence. The railway would also be wise to take an active part in Town affairs,supporting local events etc rather than being thought of as an interloper, it being hard to attack a friend...( they may already do this of course.)

 

Thank you John for your honesty, most appreciated.

Ralph I received your private message and will reply in due course after a good nights sleep after a day of volunteering

Kindest regards to you both
Chris Willis:

 

I don't see railway preservation and being green as necessarily antithetical. For example (and this isn't intended as Bluebell-bragging; simply that I have the information. I'm sure many lines could post similar stories):

(*) the railway routes themselves act as a quiet haven for wildlife to a much greater extent than roads (less litter; less general disturbance etc). As an example, the Bluebell contributed over 120 different varieties of seeds of wild flowers, including rare orchids, from along its lineside to the millennium seed bank
(*) preservation necessarily promotes an ethos of re-use / recycle (for example, some of the Bluebell's vintage carriages are using teak from recycled laboratory workbenches that otherwise would have been thrown away).
(*) many railways encourage use of local foods (particularly local beer, but we can work on the rest...

Yes, we burn coal (and so release CO2) for what is essentially a frivolous activity (e.g. travelling from A to A). But on that basis any leisure pursuit is a frivolous activity; I wonder, person for person, which is worse for the environment - travelling on a preserved railway or people travelling from one end of the country to the other (or even piling onto so-called lo-cost airlines to travel to other countries) just to watch a football match. Even weighting the numbers to normalise for the number of people taking enjoyment from the activity, I'd wager that a season of a premier league and champions league football is a lot more damaging than a local heritage railway.

Which isn't to say we shouldn't take such concerns seriously - we should - but should give confidence that we can mount a rigourous, intellectually coherent counter argument.

Tom

 

I was down at the railway yesterday, and to say that the trains were creeeping out of Arlesford is an understatement! it was quiet strange watching rains depart rather quietly.

The powers that be are obviously doing the damnedest to appease the situation.

The one question i have though - Is this arrangement only in place for the summer months, so that we will see 'volcanic' departures the rest of the year, ie at the galas?

 

All vehicles in the UK have to have an annual examination to check they are fit for public roads. This is called an MOT test and includes a measurement of the exhaust volume.

Anything over a set decibel limit results in a failure and the vehicle rightly cannot legally be driven on the roads.

Andy (happy biker)

 

"failures" seem to be the norm for UK motorbikes since a too long time
noel ,unhappy victim of illegally noisy bikers who have a racing exhaust in place of the brain:moony:

 

I didn't come on for an argument mate, as long as your comments about noisy bikes are the same for noisy cars and lorries too. We'll agree to disagree or the thread goes off topic.

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I can see far more complaints from people living near steam railways will only go up from now on, especially as many railways aspire to go from somewhere to somewhere and have stations as near as possible to big tourist towns. Dirty washing and the like will not be tolerated in the way the were years ago. It is outside the experience of new generations of people. The complaints may not have a legal basis (the railway was there first), but they do impact on extension schemes and the like if planning permission is required, have any railways had conditions put on them such as not running trains after a certain hour in the evening?