recreating the past or enjoying preservation

On the contrary Fred Kerr is spot on. About the only point you make I can concur with is that we cannot be certain about what is the best approach to safeguarding the future. In some ways the diametric opposite to one another are the IOWSR and the T&DSR. One is an enthusiast based organisation, almost a museum railway. The other is a purely commercial operation. Yet go a little deeper and you will see that both are admirably hardheaded, aided by being in undivided ownership of their real estate and equipment. Such hard-headedness needs to be copied.

PH

 

I think almost all heritage lines already understand this very well...but a great many enthusiasts do not!

 

I've enjoyed this thread enormously, and agree with those who think all we can do really is to invoke the 'feel' of the steam railway. It also reminds me (slightly OT) of a trip my wife and I had in the SRPS Fife Circle a couple of years ago with Black 5 45231, the loco looked just perfect at the Stirling stop which then had all the semaphores and with the SRPS maroon rake which don't have silly names, but what tickled my wife and encouraged her to take a photo was the driver leaning out of the cab making a call on his mobile

Dave

 

In your opinion Fred is spot on but that does not make it fact, no more so than any of my opinions. There are so many variables in the heritage railway movement - length of line, volunteer to paid staff ratio, size of fleet and so on - that I doubt there's a "one size fits all" recipe for success. The doom mongers have been around for years predicting failure due to a proliferation of locos rescued from Barry, a proliferation of lines, yet the movement continues to flourish. What the future holds is anyone's guess. Small groups may consolidate or pass over their charges to heritage lines or other organisations but I suspect there's several twists and turns ahead.

 

Which goes to show that there is mileage in concentrating on small things! A personal bugbear: I can well understand that heritage railways need big cafes, shops etc to survive. But why have the radio on in the background playing a selection of hits by Rihanna, One Direction and the like? It's a straight atmosphere killer! Thinking a bit further - if all the "heritage" roles in the front line are expected to concentrate hard on getting the correct uniforms (platform staff, loco crew, guards, signalmen etc), then why not the catering staff? Surely if such staff are going to wear uniforms anyway (as they do in many places) it can't be too hard, over time, to come up with a uniform more in keeping with what restaurant serving staff may have worn in the 1930s / 1950s... If you bought such a change in gradually as existing uniforms wore out, it wouldn't even involve any additional capital expense.

Tom

 

I thought everything worth saying in this thread worth saying had already been said.

PH

 

Reminds me of a T.V. advert for Littlecote House when it was being run by de Savery. This showed a horse and cart driven by someone dressed up in straw hat and smock with trousers tied round with string (to stop rodents running up)! However the cart had rubber tyred wheels. One reason I think why uniforms should be for their primary purposes of identifying staff and not for play acting. Get it wrong and it looks doubly worse.

Paul H.

 

This thread is excellent reading (and, indeed, entertainment). If it had taken place at my (Sussex) Comprehensive, it would have been accompanied by an ever-deepening circle of kids yelling "Fight... Fight... Fight..."

Au contraire, my learned friend. Utopia has existed...

For my part, I would love to be able to visit any branch line station as it was in the 1930s, because as a dreamer the romantic ideal is exceptionally powerful of being sat on a rural station platform on a sunny day, with just the bees and birds as audible accompaniment, then a flurry of activity as a train arrives and departs, then the station goes back to its slumber.

But, of course, that is the inherent problem. It's a romantic ideal, not a realistic view of the past, because the past always somehow seems better than the present. This is something that the recent three-part series on BBC, Ian Hislop's Olden Days, illustrated superbly, (briefly mentioned by I. Cooper on the first page of this thread).

It's interesting how nobody has yet remarked on the most obvious and fundamental truth in this debate, you're all too busy only seeing locomotives, track layouts and the catering Portakabin.

As Barthes and various other philosophers have said, it is not objects in themselves which are important, it is the relationship between them that matters.**

In this context, the fundamental truth is this... No preserved railway can ever accurately depict the past, because much of the processing and interpretation of what is seen is done by the visitor. Even if a railway (or any other type of museum) nailed a 1930s depiction of a location precisely, down to the last nut and bolt, you as an observer are still looking at it from the 21st century. You arrived in your 21st century car, you are taking photos with your 21st century camera, you are wearing your 21st century clothes and will go back to your 21st century life. The same is true for all the staff on duty.

Therefore, even with all the modern accoutrements aside, a railway can only ever present an approximation of it as was in 'the past'. The only way to get a fundamentally true historical picture across would be for the observer to step into a blue police box and travel back in time and be living at that time themselves. Which would mean looking at that scene through very different eyes, not the 'same' eyes that you look at it today.

Indeed it would be effectively the same as walking on to any railway station today - you may find stuff of interest, but it wouldn't produce the hand-wringing about whether the 'right' loco is on the train or if the door to the loo is painted the 'right' colour.

Given that time travel is impossible, why don't we all just stop worrying about it and accept that every 'living' depiction of the past (like preserved railways) can only ever be - at best - an approximate facsimile?

** I didn't have a 'classical' education, and I'm glad I didn't. It certainly didn't make me any less intelligent than those who did and it undoubtedly made me less of a snob.

 

And how many people cared about the wheels on the cart? The heritage business is forced to make compromises. If you're going to quibble over relatively minor details then I presume you'll disapprove of the operators of classic aircraft fitting modern comms and nav aids.

 

A non sequitur I fear

PH

 

Even the Isle of Wight Steam Railway cannot recreate things exactly as they were, Havenstreet platform may still be the same and some of the locos and most of the coaching stock may be the same.

The trouble is they are now surrounded by a Loco workshop, a Carriage and Wagon workshop, a booking office, a porters hut, a shop in the old gas house, an extension to the gas house for volunteer accommodation, extra sidings, an office block, a catering building that has had two extensions, a large car park, extra toilet blocks, the Showfield, more fencing than ever before, additions to the signalling layout, Train Story etc.

You can never truly recreate the past but you can still have a good go at it!

 

To reply to DisusedBranch...

The comment about the relationship between objects being the most important thing is one with which I agree, but I don't think that it follows that an accurate depiction of the past is impossible. It is certainly the case that any representation of the past suffers from the limitation that it is not taking place in that past, and it is also true that the reaction to the depiction will be of the time in which the depiction takes place, not the time in which the depiction is set. I am reminded of the horror that met Clint Eastwood's film Unforgiven when it was released. This showed a "good" man taking revenge. Well it was a fairly accurate depiction of the "eye for an eye" type life of the west of America in the 1800s. The reactions were entirely of our times.

There are, in my view, two types of preserved railway developing. There are those which are primarily entertainment. These include everything from the Battlefield Line to the P&DSR. On these lines there are some objects of historical interest (more on the former than the latter), but no particular ability to relate the objects to each other or to present a coherent representation of the past of any kind whatever. This doesn't make them bad places, nor mean that a great deal of enjoyment cant be derived from them, but they do not (other than fleetingly and perhaps by accident almost) present any kind of window onto the past.

The second type of railway would be those that do at least attempt to show a coherent picture. The IoWSR and Bluebell (mostly) are examples of this approach. Here the whole picture is being co-ordinated to some extent, with buildings, rolling stock and locomotives to provide a "window" into a past world.

What no part of the heritage railway movement is yet doing is providing sufficient interpretation and discourse with the visiting public about that which they are viewing to take the experience on from anything other than a very passive viewing, which is thus inevitably over influenced by what people know of present times, and think they know of the past. Whilst it is obviously the case that we cannot truly depict the past because that would require us to transport forward in time people from the 1930s (for example), we ought to be able to give a better impression of the past than most of us manage.

With both kinds of railway detail matters, but it is a different kind of detail.

With the second type of railway where modern communications are being used for safety or convenience every effort ought to be made to hide this from the viewing public. This is theatre. The rubber tyres on Paul's cart matter because I can see them. The PMV underframe beneath the IoW compartment coach doesn't because unless I am very knowledgeable I would know that that was what it was, but take the 4w coach out of the scene and slot in a Mk1 (that is entirely consistent within itself) and the whole image is ruined as a depiction of early SR steam on the Island (or whatever the depiction in question is).

With the first kind of railway, the use of RETB on a steam engine is of no consequence, as there is no "scene" to destroy, but the "heritage" gentleman's convenience at the end of the platform assuredly is because the expectation will be of modern utility regardless of the vintage of the locomotive on the front.

Railways really need to decide what their "USP" is and then consistently apply it in all aspects of their work. If you are going for the pre-grouping look, and aligning coaches, liveries, stations, uniforms etc etc, make sure you give me an Edmundson card ticket, not some printed monstrosity. If I am being taken for an entertaining trip through the scenery behind steam, make sure the carriages are cleaner than my kitchen, that there is a playground for the kids, and no scrap or lines of grotty rolling stock, stations that are efficient and CLEAN ...and I wont care about the ticket being printed.

My two types of railway both have their place, and can be as interesting and fun to visit as each other and provide the same value for money, but the only aspect they have in common is the steam locomotive.

 

I forgot the children's play area and the Falconry at Havenstreet!

 

Indeed. To further an aeroplane example: if I go to Hendon, I can see an example of an Avro Lancaster little changed form the condition it came out of wartime service in, even down to the worn seat leather and original instruments. Yet essentially it is also a cold, lifeless object. Equally, I can go to an airshow and see the BBMF Lancaster (or the Canadian one, later this year) and experience the visceral thrill of four Merlin engines at full chat: I rather doubt many of the people who are thrilled by such sights care too much for the fact that the Canadian one at least has dual controls, or the BBMF one has a moden Airbus nosewheel tyre under the tail to prevent shimmy on concrete runways ...

We're living in the 21st century and those of us on the operational side are being viewed through 21st century eyes: inevitably, trying to run a tourist attraction now rather than a bit of transport infrastructure from 100 years ago will lead to compromises. The important point to me is to ensure that such compromises are made in a concious fashion so at least there is an understanding of what you are attempting to portray.

Tom

 

Not at all. A perfectly reasonable analogy. If rubber tyred carts are such a faux pas then the heritage business may as well pack up entirely. What was allowed and was common practice in the days of yore is sometimes impossible to recreate exactly. I doubt you'd approve of sending children up the chimneys of Beamish or have track workers work without PSE just to "recreate the experience." Modern safety legislation has brought many changes to the way things are done or would you have railways cease operation as to accommodate these changes would prevent them from showing things as they were in the days of our forefathers?

 

Good grief this seems to be dragging on! Right, person wearing jeans and tee shirt driving a bone fide horse vehicle with iron tyres then fine. A demonstration of a horse and cart with a joyride for the visitors thrown in. Not pretending to be anything it isn't. In contrast dressing someone up as a C19th. yokel and getting him to drive a rubber tyred vehicle is a bad pastiche and the poor detailing spoils any illusion.

Much the same with platform barrows on heritage railway stations. Rows of empty barrows then fine. This is how it was in the late fifties at least. Platform barrow laden with obviously empty and badly weathered "luggage" then yuck!

Simon, with your railway cultivating a fifties air, this is one thing you have an advantage with.

PH

 

And in that context how do you describe the modifications made to the A1ST Tornado and future Prince of Wales locomotives as they have been built to fit modern railway practice; are they design changes that would have been incorporated by their designer had each still been alive or are they changes that debase the originality of the locomotives thereby rendering them poor copies of the original.

 

Not sure why you're quoting me Fred as I'm firmly in the "we can't recreate the past exactly as it was" camp. However, if we are to see steam continue on the national network then changes to past design and practice are inevitable. 60163 looks like an A1 and 2007 will look like a P2. The fact that underneath they are somewhat different beasts to the original is neither here nor there IMO and a price worth paying to ensure the spectacle of main line steam continues.

 

But all this is just a personal opinion, something I respect but disagree with. Maybe the laden platform barrows are a pastiche of how it was but it's not aimed at the pedant rivet counter, it's aimed at the general public and if the ambience created is to their liking, they may well come back again. If we really recreated some of the "delights" of rail travel in the 50s and 60s - or even earlier - then they may not be so keen on reliving the experience.

 

An interesting pair of examples you bring up there, as I've yet to see any high visibility clothing and modern PSE being worn by those operating the railways at Beamish. Those operating the various demonstrations at both the railway, the coal yard, the waggonway or the narrow gauge railway just wear what might be viewed as period costume

....as for the how the chimneys are swept - they may still use children for all I know, as an essentially 'back room' maintenance task this doesn't appear to be performed during the public open hours.

In the case of "Tornado" I wouldn't really describe any of the changes as 'modifications' as such. "Tornado" is a totally modern locomotive which has been commissioned and built for/by a charitable trust, which is also a modern entity whose whole purpose was to build "Tornado".

The loco's external appearance and general design matches the LNER A1 class, but the details have been extensively altered to meet the requirements of the Trust which have commissioned it, and how the Trust plans for it to be operated and maintained. This is all to be expected in a newly built locomotive that has been designed and built to operate in 'modern times'. As it is, I view it as a unique new build locomotive - prior to 1990 it didn't exist at all, so how can anything about its design be non 'original'?

Whilst no doubt a contentious view amongst many, I do NOT view it as "a continuation of the original class", or "a next in the line". "Tornado" was built for a different company to the original A1 locomotives, it was built by different companies - none of which built the original locomotives, its design is different from all of the original A1 locomotives, and its reason for being built is different from all of the original locomotives (beyond the basic 'to haul a train'). NOTE: None of that is intended to detract from what it IS, and on the basis of its totally unique standing, it doesn't really matter what the commissioning charitable trust or its designers have done to alter it from the original "A1" design upon which it is based.

If you like, "Tornado" is another example of cherry picking bits of the past to create a desirable chunk of nostalgia for people of today to wallow in - and there's nothing necessarily wrong in that so long as you can accept it for what it is, and not pretend it is something it isn't.