Lottery Dreams for investing in Heritage Railways

A nice cosy shed for the T3.

 

I'd use it to buy back the short section of trackbed to the west of Alresford station that was sold off to save the line from bankruptcy in the bad old days. Once this reconnects with the old formation the route is more or less clear through to Itchen Abbas.

 

I have a horrible suspicion that £1M wouldnt buy back that strip of the playing fields.

 

A triangular junction for the Embsay and B.A where it meets the Grassington Branch... or failing that a turntable at B.A.

 

A simple reconnection to allow access to Skipton would be a good start..........

 

What about the new houses that have been built on the old track bed at Bridge rd Alresford.

 

Or the ones on the station site at Itchen Abbas. The answer is the same though.....bulldozers.

 

If there's more than one of them, you're going to need considerably more than £1m to knock'em down, even if you could get permission.

Simon

 

I doubt a million would cover it but a 'new-build' 700 class 0-6-0 for Swanage would be nice.

Or finally help the Spa Valley sort out their slip problem...

 

Sheer emotional wishful thinking. It will be more and more difficult to raise the funds to keep what is functional at present in a serviceable condition. That will need plenty of organisations with the same financial acumen as the A1 Locomotive Trust display regarding newbuilds.

PH

 

Would love to see something typically Cambrian - wonder whether a Jones Goods might be closer within the budget than the Sharp Stewart, plus I could justifiable base it at Didcot as they survived into GWR ownership for a while. The problem is that I seriously want to see that Dreadnought in full glory on 8 road behind the Saint and so that would have to have first call on the cash.

 

Or base it at Oswestry, where it probably should be, they need something more than a tank loco to pull in the punters, I'd put the mil towards getting them to gobowen, the money could stretch that far, would be spent on renewals/drainage. Doubt 1 mil could buy the works building, nor would the railway be able to maintain such a monstrous structure, but oh the possibilities.

 

That was sort of my point with my first post ... the knocking down is the easy bit. A survey a few years ago put the cost of reinstating the line from Winchester to Alton (as a mainline diversion) up near £300M I think. A snip.

 

I don't doubt the sentiment but if you look at what is returning to steam it is currently (almost?) entirely without an A1SLT-type organisation - so on the SVR 75069 and 4930 are 'traditional railway type overhauls'; 4150, 13268 and 7812 have a much larger 'loco owning group' input/fundraising but are still 'traditional' heritage restorations/overhauls; and only 82045 comes into the A1SLT-type fundraising. All very simplified (4930 has had a £115k input from its Friends) but the point I'm trying to make is that there is life yet in the old dog of funding overhauls.

Patrick

 

With my £1 mil....just for sh**s and giggles....is there by any chance, some sort of authentic pre 1924 buffet car I could new build and donate to the IoWSR?




Oh, stop it Ross!

 

That would be...NICE!

 

Furthermore, much as I like and enjoy railway preservation, if I did happen to come into a million quid I'm sure that *in the real world* many others reaction would be the same... that it would be used on things much closer to home before any thought of railways entered our heads... paying off the mortgage, keeping a chunk aside for our twilight years, perhaps putting an extension on the house to increase its value, etc.

I know there are some on here 'of a certain age' who will have been lucky enough to pay off their mortgages and have decent pensions, so railways may be uppermost in their minds for that imaginary million smackers.

However, there is an ever-increasing number of us that don't have those luxuries. In our cases I suspect railway preservation would, in reality, necessarily end up with something like a £500 donation.

Sorry to inject a dose of reality into proceedings...

 

I sort of assumed in the spirit of the thread that we were talking about the £1M AFTER all the realities were dealt with.

 

It would only be another tourist railway wrecked by gricers infected by WIBN. Do behave.

PH

 

I'd donate part of the money to help keep the surviving hydraulics going, contribute to a Class 22 newbuild and give part to support the Bodmin & Helston lines in their efforts to consolidate and extend.