Project Wareham

It might be possible to later convert the DMU to bio diesel?

 

Why not just run it on hot air?….

 

Or methane from bovine excrement? There’s enough of it here to keep a whole fleet running for years!

 

Railway insurance is niche business likely to be underwritten by a very small panel of insurers via a select number of specialist brokers who know their markets inside out. Unknowingly accepting an unnecessarily high premium is therefore very unlikely.

The £60,000 premium is likely to be an annual figure (why insure for a longer period when the trial is for a limited period?) and really puts the costs into perspective, but one would hope that this is a provisional premium with the passenger liability element based upon the projected number of passengers, adjustable up or down at the end of the period once the actual numbers are known.

 

According to the weather forecasts you are going to get lots of that! unless of course the"Purbeck Triangle' is not subject!!

 

Aaaagh the irony of it all or is it April 1 all over?
Read the SR Bulletin about its "Royal Wessex" train service upcoming'its just a headboard causing all the fuss! It might not look too good on that DMU though!
read the timings 31 min from Swanage to Wareham;cross platform change and off to the Capital. Sorry Sir 50yrs later and its all change at Norden Gates (where?) and you can try a bus or an uber from here!
Used to see the Wessex every school morning 0823 from Poole or thereabouts one of our masters would stop everything to check his watch as it prepared to tackle Parkstone Bank accelerating past the smoke of Poole Gasworks
so put a little more of that bovine excrement into the firebox and one SR will be all grown up again and reach Wareham(As the pioneers intended!)

 

Heritage railway tourist attraction, or public service?

 

But 50 or so years after closure, the pioneers have yet to achieve their goal of restoring the link to Wareham or carrying even a single passenger on a regular basis, whereas the heritage railway pioneers have built and operate one the South's best heritage railways, enjoyed by ca. 200,000 visitors a year - who do you think is the more successful/ For the commuter line to rival the contribution of the heritage line it woul have to attract around 550 passengers a day, year round Is that seriously feasible?

 

Purbeck certainly isn't the only line reopened with such a stated objective, but how long has it been since that was still a realistic aspiration ..... anywhere?

In recent years, the IMR operated a timetabled service during a bus drivers' strike and the Leadhills and Wanlockhead Railway famously ran a 'Bus Replacement Service' during a planned road closure, but those two aside, I'm honestly unsure whether there have been any other examples of any heritage (or 'tourist') line operating any 'ordinary' service this century.

** I would be extremely happy to be corrected on any point above.

 

Thai is the proverbial 64,000 question. Do you see any reason why the two entities cannot exist cooperatively? certainly governmental minds are going to be turning to ways to abater the growing crisis,yes even in Dorset,of congestion and unlimited use of motor vehicles. Unless of course you are happy to endure these infernos,stated to occur least every three years.

 

that was then,pre-covid and pre the climate armageddon predicted in Berlin
Or is Swanage and Dorset by some fluke of nature immune to all this rising climatic change?
this is now if you can face it.


..and so to questions of the day

Do you believe that HR and SR in particular can continue to operate as before in these days of high expenditures?
Volunteers hard to find
Legacies dropping
Fuel prices soaring
Global warming/climate change curtailing operations
You do not think that DC has an interest in having the SR fulfill a useful social role?
i do believe that ALL levels of government are going to have to be seen to be doing something
The SR is in a great position to be a leader in a new hybrid type of operation or do you believe that SR has no remit to fulfill a social obligation but rather remain a HR, with resources dwindling and
not ambition to reach its pre stated goals?

 

No point in answering any of your points since you don't respond when we ask you difficult (or even easy!) questions

 

Judging by his post 1770, I don't think he reads them all ( or forgets - people seem to forget recent events but remember the past clearly in old age) and/or fully understands the points raised. The answers to post 1770 have already been given.

 

You obviously haven’t read or considered previous commentary on the subject, and why that is difficult here in the U.K. Nor have you considered the history of railway societies formed to deliver public service, and what they’ve had to do to survive in places like North Yorkshire, Worth Valley, Wensleydale, and, yes, Dorset.

Meanwhile, I look forward to hearing that your contribution to mitigating global warming will include not flying or using carbon burning online services.


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MODS - Any chance of giving @oliversbest a temporary ban so that this thread can revert to a sensible discussion about the pros and cons of running trains to Wareham, rather than one individual winding the rest of us up?

 

Running to Wareham has to be an nice to do, when circumstances allow it, without damaging the finances of the Swanage railway, I would not be surprised if Dorset County Council, will already be more concerned about more pressing matters than regular services to Wareham operated by the Swanage Railway, the money's already been allocated and spent, and they have more problems that will need their attention than a scheme, that is not current expenditure, Swanage have already spent the money to upgrade the dmu's to main line standard, so its not like they will have massive costs to meet, once the outlook improves and it becomes theasable to operate over the NR to Wareham,

 

If next year's Wareham service turns out to be a rip roaring success, one thing's for certain ..... there are going to be a few folks with egg on their faces!

In the nicest way possible .... Here's to hoping for egg on faces!

 

I'd love to be proved wrong

 

Right now, what with the post-covid thing, inflation going through the roof, trade suffering and on top of all that, the entire bl--dy country melting, next year seems a very long way away!

 

It does, and I doubt my expectations would have been very different a couple of years ago - before those headwinds developed into the current gale.