Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

I think Toby's response is the start of a very good arguement to the question you posed.

There is another point to add to his response...

The L&B is one of the few narrow gauge railways that wasn't an industrial/mineral run to begin with, it was built for tourists with the destination being Lynton and by extension to Lynmouth via the Cliff Railway. That destination, Lynton, expanded hugely once the railway was built with some notable buildings such as the Town Hall being constructed.

The heritage of the L&B goes beyond just the railway, it is only a part of the heritage of the area which includes not only the railway, but also Lynton, Lynmouth, the Cliff Railway, Sir George Newnes' story, etc, back to Barnstaple and the links with the heritage of Barnstaple station and the line to Ilfracombe.

The potential is not just in the railway, but the whole area. The start of the journey in Barnstaple, a lazy narrow gauge working it's way to Lynton, them a. short walk to say the top of the Cliff Railway or St Mary's Church yard and at 500' up look out across the Bristol Channel and across to Countisbury. A world away from the hectic madness of the modern world.

 

My understanding of the economics, @ghost was that it would be preferable to run fewer, longer trains (see: WHR). All of this will come out in a proper business planning exercise, and I'd be very happy to be wrong.

 

I agree, but to me the question about demand has to do with how many bums you can get in NG carriage seats. After all, an NG carriage will not take the 64 of an MK1 TSO.

 

I guess five narrow gauge carriages would have fewer seats than five standard gauge ones though. So a given number of fares would require longer narrow gauge trains.

Even so, I agree with the general premise about trying as far as possible to stick to heritage roots.

Tom

 

As far as I understand, 762/Lyn is capable of pulling an eight carriage rake but the biggest problem would be platforms.

Woody Bay is currently about 250' and can take five carriages at 40' each plus one loco...two locos and it straddles the crossing.

For a rake of eight plus loco....that's 350' or more and I don't know hardly anywhere on the line which could accommodate a platform of that length apart from maybe Barnstaple if somewhere suitable could be found.

Personally I would say five carriages rakes are about the limit for the L&B.

 

Let’s work out the answer to the question. Then sort out what that means in terms of what the railway has to deliver, which will answer the question about what service it has to run. THEN, we can worry about how many carriages should be in each train.

 

I am not sure if this is still relevant, but an older version of the trust's objects was to rebuild all of the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway. Now I suspect that much of the misunderstanding relates to the following, which needs to be agreed upon before anything else can move forward:-

1. What is the current vision, and does it need updating? Who are we trying to reach out to?

2. What is the Mission? I am sure it was to rebuild the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway, but is that still possible? And what does that mean?

3. What are the objectives? Well, we are stuck with those from when the Trust was set up, and for good reason. They are very wide to give the trust a lot of wiggle room. Many of them are bog standard and are based on the model version held by the Charity Commission.

These are the fundamental bricks on which the whole project is based, so unless we can agree and also be clear on them, then it is going to be difficult to make any progress.