Steam Dreams 2013 & 2014 Archive

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And there seemed to be complaints about WCRC maintaining that set on here virtually every time it was out on SD tours, something about the grass being greener comes to mind.

 

The Green Train was stinking old junk.

 

I'm not saying it was perfect, but it turned up!, as it currently stands, in addition to DBS not providing a crew, SD are not providing a train

 

if it's a bridge with girders and Brick thats a problem, thats not a short term problem !
This extension to the mainline may not see much use if thats the case !

 

Steam Dreams apparently had far more complaints about the state of stock than anything else.

 

Yes, though as was widely discussed at the time, the extension was built to help passengers reach the Bluebell, not specifically to provide a destination for charters - nice though such incoming charters will be, they will only be the icing on the cake, not the cake itself. Whereas the extension itself is already seeing a huge amount of use, as a glance at our passenger and revenue figures this year show

Tom

 

What do you expect to have, VSOE standards on all steam railtours? If you are willing to pay £200+ a trip for that sort of stock, then fair enough.

 

Heating, cleanliness and functioning toilets should not be the preserve of the VSOE....

 

In March 2009 I travelled in this stock with SD's St Davids Day Special with 70013. It was a bitterly cold day but the steam heating seemed perfectly ok.
Cleanliness, didn't look too bad to me. It's down to the passengers not to chuck/leave their rubbish everywhere. that's what litter bins/rubbish sacks are for.
Toilets, didn't see much wrong with the ones I used.

 

From a Bluebell perspective, it looks very tight to me on our two-train timetable, which effectively means every weekend and mid weeks during school holidays.

Without changing our timetable, the available "window" to accept an incoming train starts when a down service train reaches Kingscote heading south, and ends when an "up" service train is ready to depart for East Grinstead. That window is only 36 minutes long, and during that time you have to:

- Collect the token from the down train back into the Kingscote signalbox and re-issue it to a Bluebell pilot man
- Drive from Kingscote to East Grinstead with the token and park at EG station
- Make contact with the Oxted signalman
- Unlock the gates between Network Rail and the Bluebell
- Use the token to set the road from NR to BB
- Move the incoming train from NR to the BB, clearing the points with the last carriage
- Reset the groundframe, lock the gates and confirm to Oxted that the train is fully on BBR rails.
- Walk with the token to the engine (which, on a typical 12-13 coach charter train, will be well beyond the south end of the viaduct)
- Run the train to Kingscote
- Surrender the token at Kingscote and re-issue it to the up service train

Doing all that in 36 minutes doesn't leave much room for error, and is completely dependent on the available Network Rail path just neatly coinciding with that narrow window. We could of course re-jig our timetable, but that isn't completely easy now we have a connection at East Grinstead, and there is at least an implied (even if not an actual) assumption that our up trains will connect with certain services at EG. As has been discussed here before, there is no possibility of "locking in" a Bluebell service train at East Grinstead while a charter runs in from the mainline - it is strictly one engine in steam north of Kingscote.

On a one train day (which effectively means mid-week, off-peak) there is a lot more flexibility - the available window is more than one and a half hours.

Tom

 

Would it be possible to install a (No-signalman) token instrument at East Grinstead so that trains could be locked in at EG and a main line rail tour sent through the EG-Kingscote section ?

David

 

It is very sensible that the first incoming steam charter will be running on a one-train service day. This will provide an opportunity to see how long all Tom's "to do " list actually takes without the pressure of having to do it in double quick time. As things stand, the RTC charters on 28th September and 9th November are going to have to fit around a two-train service. Could be interesting! The Swanage Railway re-jigs its timetable when a charter is due, but unlike the Bluebell, it doesn't have to worry about connecting with services on the national network

 

Tom, you could make that an Olympic Sport.

With Usain Bolt unlocking the fastening on the gates you mentioned?

 

You'd really need Mo Farah to take the token from Kingscote to EG, and leave Usain Bolt for the sprint across the viaduct once the ground frame is locked

Tom

 

Not before September 10th!

There are plans for a signalling upgrade on the KC - EG section that would allow more than one engine in steam north of Kingscote. However, given the likely expense and time committment, coupled with the need for S&T investment elsewhere (notably at Sheffield Park), and the fact that enhancing the signalling at EG doesn't actually give us any more flexibility or capacity for our own trains (because of the single platform at EG), then speaking personally, I can't see that any upgrade would justify its expense. The only benefit that I can see would be to allow incoming charters on peak days - likely to be rare - or to allow a passenger train to cross a goods or engineering train at EG - also likely to be rare.

Tom

 

I'm not massively familiar with the signalling at Swanage, but it seems to me that, because of the long length of line between Worgret Junction and Norden, it would be possible to bring an incoming charter onto the Furzebrook section, clearing the mainline as quickly as possible, but then hold it until the Swanage Railway - proper was clear. (And the same in reverse: send the charter north of Norden at a time that was operationally convenient to fit in with service trains, but then hold it outside Worgret Junction until the mainline was clear). The Bluebell doesn't have that flexibility because the length of the siding between the Bluebell / NR boundary and the platforms at EG is too short for a typical charter train to be completely clear of both Bluebell metals and the EG platforms. So any incoming charter would have to wait in the platform at EG, blocking it for other trains, until such time as the Bluebell was ready to receive it.

So on busy days (e.g. Service 2), there is a double whammy: not only is the length of time to deal with a charter very short, but it is also likely that that short window doesn't necessarily co-incide with the time that NR need their platforms free. So my guess is that any charters we have are likely to be on days when we only have one train of our own running, or else early morning and late afternoon before / after our main service.

Tom

 

The Tornado trip on September 10th is on a service 1 (one train) day, so isn't especially problematic for time: you have about 100 minutes to deal with the charter, and I reckon if you were slick you could do it in 30 or thereabouts. It's when we run a service 2 (two train) timetable that we have problems, because the available time shrinks to 36 minutes, so it would not need very much to go wrong to throw everything into disarray. That essentially means Weekends and mid week during school holidays - probably something like 150 days of the year. The presence at certain times of the day of our Golden Arrow and Wealden Rambler services further complicates things on some Saturday afternoons / Sunday lunchtimes, since it means that one of the available paths disappears on the Bluebell side.

Tom