Midland and South Western Junction Railway

No guarantee at all against the dreaded "W.I.B.N." alas! I can think of at least one such scheme that has local authority backing. Politicians can be at least as naive and sentimental as the most starry eyed gricer.

PH

 

One wonders if the Museum of Army Flying, just south of Andover, would be a suitable existing venue rather than create a new one? It's a fine museum, but last time I went, it seemed half empty. Co-locating, say, the Museum of Army Transport would make it a bigger attraction; would have at least some logical coherence; and all the paraphanelia of visitor handling would already be in place. If there is a desire to move the Beverley collection, that could be easier than a purpose built new museum at Ludgershall or elsewhere.

Tom

 

i give up , rose tinted glasses?? no, but i do believe the movement cant stand still, it needs to evolve visitors need attractions, even museums need to take a critical look at how they educate every now and then, as regards the army museum of Army Flying, is it a private , ie non Army funded? organisation something tells me its not actually funded by the MOD, i just think given the range of items the RCT have in its time had use of, and beyond d day to the 1960's, that its a story that should prehaps be told in a fuller way, maybe instead of thinking about specific museum, prehaps its something the NRM should look at, as a one off display, call it the story of railways at war, Gordon, is i believe owned by the transport trust? not the SVR, But would the SVR want to place it on tempory exibit at the NRM , along with say FDR if she was repainted either in longmoor, or USAT colors etc? alongside the likes of the Q1,

 

My first thoughts on reading this were "Blood and sand here we go again"! Yet apart from the implication that yet another separate railway site would be needed there is little I would disagree with. However Tom is surely right that a separate site is not a good idea. Indeed I would go further and say that IMHO the Museum idea is being used as an excuse to start another "preserved" railway.

As for joint financing this is not of itself an obstacle. Well apart from railways I know of the Plumbers Company exhibition at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum. I did actually know someone who was a member of the Company but alas did not talk about details of financing with him.
PH

 

I'm afraid you're wrong there. Gordon was gifted to the SVR somewhere around a decade ago. It is an SVR owned loco now, along with 4930 and 45110. I can see little motivation for the GM to be in favour of donating a popular exhibit, which is currently securely stored, displayed and well cared for, not to mention with a place in the overhaul queue, to the NRM, MOD or any other organisations, unless something of equal value as an attraction was loaned ad replacement.

 

Sound idea for some of the MoAT collection. I think Royal Artillery Museums Ltd have settled on Larkhall for the relocation of Firepower (www.salisburyplainheritagecentre.com)

 

And you believe that reopening another stretch of railway near an already existing site (the Swindon & Cricklade, as PH has already mentioned) is the way to achieve this, with the dilution in manpower, tourist spend, potential local funding and all the rest that entails? But it's a good idea because you're "old enough to remember.." etc etc.

Probably for the best

 

and not far from the Swindon and Cricklade is Steam , and also Didcot, so which of those going by your thinking should close ?? once again if you had bothered to read, down, the point i am making is that it may be a good thing to have some way to tell the story of how the military railway, and the whole network worked to provide the goods to enable D day, and the post war rebuilding of europes bombed out railways, i was not actually saying there should be another preserved railway, as such only that if it was at luggershall and it happened to be rail conected, it may make changing of rail bourne exibits easier assuming other organisations wanted to get involved, of course another option may be for the NRM to have some kind of display to tell the story, as it has several exibits such as the Q1

 

Absolutely, utterly, classically pure guess what? Yes of course. "Wouldn't it be nice!"

PH

 

Very reasonable sentiments BUT such a project requires to be driven by military enthusiasts - NOT railway people.

For example Beamish Museum has a railway on site - but the site as a whole is primarily set up to illustrate something bigger, the railway element not being the defining feature of the setup. Similarly the Amberly museum does have an extensive collection of narrow gauge stuff on site, but again the railway element is only a small part of the entire experience.

Yes the NRM and other railways may have out of use military related equipment that could be loaned - but why would anyone remove Gordon or the Q1 from their current under cover, visitor friendly site for a start up railway / military museum with little in the way of facilities.

I'm sorry, but I cannot escape the feeling that what we have here is a bunch of enthusiasts wanting to preserve a line and looking for anything that they can use to support their desires - however tenuous (a.k.a as a solution looking for a problem to solve). These days such an approch is not appropriate (however valid it may have been back in the 60s & 70s), with ever increasing competition for visitors money ranging from retail parks, to stately homes it is important to have a clear and concise plan of what any group wishes to achieve and how they will get there. Things like rolling stock provision and station / maintenance facilities are far too important to leave to others and simply suggesting the thing can be run with other peoples stuff is simply not on - once a site is up and running then you go asking for loans, not before.

With Didcot, the Swindon & Cricklade plus the Mid Hants not far away, Luggershall can hardly be compared to the situation a Withrope on the ex Borders railway, which despite its eclectic colletion of kit and non authentic station sort of works because it is a long way away from any other Heritage railway and thus doesn't have quite the same level of competition as would be present at Luggersall.

 

The problem is Martin that many of your schemes seem to find inventive ways to move other people's assets around, without ever really considering exactly how those asset owners would benefit. A military museum in a small town on the fringes of Salisbury Plain might be nice to visit, but what exactly is in it for, say, the owners of "Gordon"? The SVR is notable amongst heritage railways in having developed considerable undercover storage - so it is not even as if you are bringing an "at risk" object in from the cold. Making a putative military museum rail connected doesn't make it easier to bring in "dead" vehicles by rail; the costs are such that moves will nearly always still be cheaper by road. In the circumstance, you may not like the phrase, but it is very hard to get away from the conclusion that you are imagining schemes you would like to see, and then trying to fit the facts around the scheme to try to make it viable.

Thinking about a person - whether potential visitor or potential volunteer - living somewhere in the vicinity of Andover - Salisbury - Marlborough: within about an hour's drive you have military museums or collections in Salisbury (military museum); Old Sarum aerodrome (Boscombe Down collection); Middle Wallop (Army Air Museum); Blandford (Royal Signals); Yeovilton (Fleet Air Arm museum); Bovingdon (Tank museum); Gosport (submarines); Portsmouth (various ships).; potentially soon the Gunners museum at Larkhill. For railways, you have the Swindon and Cricklade; Steam; Didcot; Mid Hants; Gartell; Swanage. I may have missed some. It's hard to imagine where either a new railway or a new military museum would fit into that mix.

Nobody is denying that the heritage industry must adapt to survive; nor that education is an important part of their remit. But surely the answer has to be helping existing sites improve, rather than instantly imagining that there is a niche for ever more specialised schemes in ever smaller pockets of the country?

Pesonally, I have my own "WIBN" scheme, which is to recreate the Fovant Military Railway. Railhead at Dinton station (which would have to reopen, natch); a stiff climb to Fovant to a site overlooking the Fovant Badges, where I would recreate a World War I camp as a living museum. Rolling stock would be a train of restored LSWR four wheelers and a suitable military loco. Pending Euromillions, it will remain just a pleasant day dream.

Tom

 

Without wishing to be personal, you would make your point an awful lot clearer if you used paragraphs, your use of punctuation and capitalisation wasn't so random and you didn't, well, ramble on.

I know we can't all be brilliant at the lingo, but please don't complain that readers aren't 'getting your point' if you're not presenting it clearly.

 

How many times do we see that on NatPres? And how many times do they get the hump if the response isn't "Wow, yeah, what a BRILLIANT idea"? A solid 100%.

 

These forums can get very bitter and unpleasant sometimes

 

Bitter and unpleasant? I disagree. I would call it symptomatic of an ever-increasing weariness of a continually repetitive pattern of posting. Every single time the latest protagonist pops up with what they believe is a 'great' idea about the latest fantasy reopening or museum, they (a) take no account of financial or economic realities of 21st century railway preservation, (b) always rely on 'But back in the day...' and 'We need to be a 'can do' nation' and (c) invariably want to realise their fantasy with somebody else's money, skills and assets.

And every single time that people more rooted in reality make constructive criticisms or point out the flaws in the latest 'WIBN' plan - indeed every time anyone says anything other than "What a great idea. We should reopen this railway as soon as possible for no other reason than it is a railway" - the protagonist ends up getting the hump and throwing their toys out.

It really is like Groundhog Day here sometimes and I don't think it's any wonder that people get fed up of it.

There are a number of posters on NatPres - like Tom - whose posts I really enjoy reading; who's grasp of railway preservation reality, informative style, sense of humour and written eloquence I hugely admire. Note that if anyone ever challenges such posters, they don't get the hump or start shouting in capitals. They either argue the point reasonably and matter-of-factly (not going off into reams of goalpost-moving wibble to try and prove that they're right and everybody else is wrong), or they are big enough to hold their hand up and say "Fair enough".

I have always said that the biggest effect of the Internet on society has been a radical democratisation of communication. In the pre-Internet age, it was far more difficult to express oneself publicly, so there was a natural filtering out from the public domain of the kind of 'WIBN' froth by habitual teddy-chuckers that we repeatedly see on NatPres. A letter to a railway magazine was the best they could hope for - and if it was too silly, ill thought through or badly written, it went in the bin (and yes, I've been a magazine editor).

However, with the coming of the Internet, every person and every view - no matter how outlandish or ridiculous - now has a global platform, which they have incredibly easy access to. And human beings are notoriously bad at self-censorship. Indeed, another side-effect of the Internet has been that people have become so tolerant of the all-consuming ocean of froth and wibble that anyone who says "No, stop this nonsense" - like PH, maunsellman and myself - are now regarded as the bad guys.

Just because NatPres is here, it doesn't mean that people have to use it to chuck a load of stream-of-consciousness stuff down without engaging their common sense filter first. A little thought and self-awareness can go a very long way.

 

unfortunately Chris, as a certain post shows, there are also unpleasent people on here also, i dont mean Paul either, i find his posts to not turn personal, he has his view point, we accept that, at times he does talk sence, and there are things we happen to agree on, just as we dont see eye to eye on others but i have never known him get abusive on a personal basis, i also tend not to get to personal, in humour i may call goldfish a puritan, i just can picture him book in hand, saying repent, but again i would never get personal and if i did, i would always explain that its not personal, many of us probally have more in common than sets us aside .

 

See my post above yours, martin1656. We were evidently posting at the same time. I am not bitter, unpleasant or indeed personal. I just get frustrated that there are users who come on NatPres and chuck down a stream of consciousness without taking the time to filter it first, then get the hump when others don't go "Wow, brilliant. That's the best idea."

 

I don't know much about this proposal or the proposed site, though I have visited Ludgershall a couple of times. However, I do know a little about setting-up railway preservation schemes.

We started our's almost 30 years ago. Initially we planned a static museum, but soon realised that a static collection of transport items had a major limitation- people expected the exhibits to work, to move and, better still, to take them for a ride. Without that, you would find it difficult to attract paying customers and, indeed, volunteer staff; fine if you have 100% guaranteed funding, like the NRM for instance, but not if your proposal will have to stand on its own feet financially.

30 years ago we were in an entirely different environment. The legal and administrative structures governing railways were much simpler than now; you just contacted HMRI, the Inspector told you what was required, you did it, he approved it and you were up and running. It's not quite like that any more. Anything that you wanted to run your railway was easily and cheaply available- track materials were often given free by industrial operators, signalling and other more technical equipment could be got from BR, especially if you got to know the right person. Small ex-BR diesel locos, suitable for hauling passenger trains, could be bought for a couple of thousand £s from BR themselves, or even less from industrial concerns if you were prepared to do a little work on them. Steam was more difficult, but there were locos out there, if you were prepared to do some networking to find the owners. Passenger carrying rolling stock was no problem at all; you might start with brake-vans- £650 each from BR! Coaching stock? No problem at all- Mk1s at £1 to 5000 each, straight out of service and, after a brake service and upholstery clean-up, ready to run.

Today little of that is possible and even where it might be, costs have escalated ten-fold or more. About the only positive thing in the current environment is the HLF, though from what I know from those who are or have been involved in it, it's a mixed blessing. To start a new enterprise based on funding from that source would be, in my humble opinion, suicidal.

 

I think you have to look at HLF funding as a nice to have for existing schemes, not a starter for new ones. Quite often people talk about the HLF as if it is some magic saviour, without fully understanding what their criteria are.

Firstly, they require positive outcomes for heritage, people and communities, and you will have to deliver all three. The days of getting money for, say, a carriage shed simply because having one would be a good thing to help protect historically interesting assets is now gone. Instead, it is more likely that if you wanted a carriage shed, you would have to expand the scope to allow access and interpretative facilities, as demonstrating positive outcomes for people and communities. That may well be a good thing for the host organisation (as Train Story on the Isle of Wight shows - it's an excellent facility) but does likely mean developing a scheme that is larger and more costly than you might need if you were simply building something for strictly operational purposes.

Secondly, they tend to want a track record - no pun intended. Look at the railways that have received big HLF grants in the past and they tend to be ones with a long track record of other successful development. That is entirely understandable from the HLF's point of view, as it reduces the risk that their investment will go on a scheme that the host is unable to deliver.

Thirdly, they want partnership funding from the host - which can be in volunteer time costed out pro-rata, or in other sources of cash, or both. The likelihood is that if you want a £millions scheme, you are likely to have to raise £hundreds of thousands from other sources, which they will then add to. Again, that makes sense: firstly it cuts down on frivolous applications (which they would have to process administratively, even if it just to say "no"); secondly it is a way for the host attraction to demonstrate real ground level support for a project.

Fourthly, if you are building fixed infrastructure, they have quite tight conditions around security of tenure - you either need to own the land, or else have a very long lease. Again, understandable - they don't want to fund something only to find the host organisation has to leave the site, leaving any buildings behind.

None of which is to decry the HLF. I think the scheme has been hugely beneficial to the heritage sector in general, and to many railways specifically. But it is just to point out that it is naive to make the leap from "I have a scheme" to "therefore the HLF will definitely be interested". A majority of proposals - even allowing for a self-selecting effect that means only sensible schemes even get submitted in the first place - fail to attract funding. The HLF pot is generous, but it is not bottomless.

Tom

 

Just to build on that. I was involved in a (non-railway) restoration project that benefited from Lottery funding through what's now Heritage England. There is quite a high threshold for competence simply to be able to manage and administer such a scheme, which is usually a distraction from the "day job" of the organisation - bearing in mind that those doing the "day job" are frequently volunteers who have a real, paid, job to hold down as well.