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Swanage Railway General Discussion

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by Rumpole, Oct 10, 2012.

  1. 80104

    80104 Member

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    Perhaps the fundamental truth is that SRT SRC and private owners with stock resident on the SR collectively have more rolling stock than the railway needs even allowing for stock rotation, stock maintenance / rerestoration and those items of specific historic significance?
     
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  2. 80104

    80104 Member

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    Not withstanding other responses, perhaps this may be one of the factors influencing Perenco in the negotiations about access to the Furzebrook sidings?
     
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  3. Kingscross

    Kingscross Member

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    The Caledonian Railway didn’t have to buy land, it was roofing over former sidings it already owned. What’s stopping the Swanage roofing over the linear scrapyard sidings North of Norden? No planning permission required if the structure is deemed essential for railway operations under their Light Railway Order.
     
  4. 007

    007 Member

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    No planning permission required? I think you will find things are a little different in Dorset, we are a tenant, not a land owner, the SR can't just do what it likes. It would be hard to justify it being 'essential' when as you put it, its just covering a scrap yard!

    Also, putting a shed up over a single siding at Eldons would create sighting issues with level crossings in both directions and cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. It is on a significant gradient and on a curve. Fundamentally I just don't think people understand that the SR is not sufficiently capitalised to just stick up sheds whenever and wherever it feels like....don't you think they would of done it already?

    As for rolling stock, well it is what it is. All Heritage Railways have scrap, but someone scrap is someone else's pride and joy.
     
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  5. Paulthehitch

    Paulthehitch Well-Known Member

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    Not all
     
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  6. oliversbest

    oliversbest Member

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    Thing is,SR supporters have been hearing for years about how badly needed is covered accommodation for coaching stock; Contributors are now informed that the Herston project is being postponed until next year. Material costs and inflation on just about everything is world wide. Is SR going to be in any better financial position to accomplish this next year? Even so, will Herston suffice for the amount of carriages that need to be protected? Have a couple of operational issues handcuffed the Railway recently?
    Unlocking those Perenco gates and a ruthless pruning of Woodpecker sidings has to be high on the list of answers
     
  7. 61624

    61624 Part of the furniture

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    Assuming you are referring to the IoWSR, there are a number of items that you would regard as hen hutches if they were anywhere else. But because they are mostly under cover they are fine. Cut the SR some slack - they had to build an eight mile railway from scratch, which the IoWSR didn't, and the SRhas not had the benefit of being able to acquire any surrounding, un-buliton land!
     
  8. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    In principle that would be nice. But in practice, 40 years ago four mates clubbed together to buy a redundant item of rolling stock. One of them has subsequently died, and two have moved away from the area; contact has been lost with one while the other maintains a jealous and proprietorial interest even though he has no ability or means to progress restoration. Meanwhile the actual receipt from BR turns out to be in the name of the one specific member of them rather than a group because he was the one who wrote the cheque … Unpicking all that is non trivial. The whole business was less formal thirty or forty years ago; railway companies that were often focused on building the line were only too happy if people with potentially useful stock (albeit for the future) chose to base it at their line, but suddenly a few decades hence, a company may not find it easy to require a given bit of stock to move on.

    Tom
     
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  9. Paulthehitch

    Paulthehitch Well-Known Member

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    I had hoped to avoid a sort of variation on "whataboutism''. A substantial amount of land adjoining the IOWSR is either of AONB or SSSI status. The line even owns a parcel of SSSI land maintained by coppicing. Apart from covered accommodation away from the line, all land is freehold. The three or four miles of line between Havenstreet and Smallbrook had been lifted but were relaid in the presentation era.
     
  10. 30854

    30854 Resident of Nat Pres

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    This ought to open a can of worms ...... I mentioned my own views on 'gentlemens' agreements' on the S&DT thread, last week.

    Remember what happened to P.S.Ryde? And (more relevant to a discussion such as this) why it happened? Or perhaps the actions of the IMR, with regard to 'foreign assets' (in that case, locos 5,8, 9 - and what was left of No.7). Surely, the only difference there was that the legal owners were known. There has to be some legal precedent to establish an 'asset' has been abandoned in law.

    Of course, no-one in their right mind would want to see a railway equivalent of swingeing mooring fees, not least because no-one wants to see any repeat of 'the Ballasalla Bonfire', nearly half a century ago ..... but .... I would venture to suggest, where a owners are known, have made no attempt in decades to do other than treat lines as a free storage facility, or where no amount of searching has located an owner (can anyone missing for over seven years still be legally ruled to be presumed dead?), it's wholly unreasonable to expect a host line to effectively provide unlimited free accommodation.

    Where such owners are known and to put it bluntly, are taking the mickey, were it my decision, they'd get notice that storage fees were being introduced. That ought to get their attention. If they tried to fight it, the onus would then be on them to prove entitlement to free storage for life and beyond.

    In cases where no owner can be located, perhaps there's some equivalence to be found in the legal status of the estates of those who die intestate? There, I believe, notices are placed in appropriate publications, along the lines of 'anyone with any interest in the estate of A.N. Other, late of Camberwick Green should contact Messrs Sue, Grabitt andd Runne, Soliciters', with a legally recognised period of notice.

    Question: as things stand, what is the legal situation if, say, a covered van, left on a siding 40 years ago, is found to have pretty much completely rotted and rusted, to the point where the only salvageable components are the wheelsets, axleboxes, buffers and buffer stocks? Is there any risk whatever of some next of kin emerging from the long grass, threatening legal action for depreciation of what's now legally "their asset"?

    And .... And where do things stand re: liability if someone, somehow injures themselves on something on their premises which the railway dosn't own?
     
  11. johnofwessex

    johnofwessex Resident of Nat Pres

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    What happened on the Isle of Man?
     
  12. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    The issue, where I respect the dilemma of a railway, is the potential resultant fallout. Ignoring the question of financial cost, these are matters that take up management attention and divert it from what running the railway into side issues. And if one of the owners is as Tom describes, and decides to have an online strop, the railway then has to consider the reputational harm.

    Look at how long it has taken for the Battlefield to finally deal with 45015, which is not only a wreck, but also classified as containing asbestos.


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  13. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    Do we know that it isn’t? But the discussion over Perenco shows just how dependent the SR is on others to be willing to help - and what challenges might lie there.

    However much we may wish otherwise, the railways we love aren’t able to dictate terms to their neighbours.


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  14. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    It's easy to say what ought to happen. But I think often people making those kind of didactic statements are too wedded to a view of what their perfect world should be, while tending to ignore what the actual on the ground messy reality is of a legacy of decades of preservation. In so many areas, we are where we are, not where some would wish us to be.

    FWIW, the next issue of The Bluebell Times will have a story of a locomotive that pretty well ticks all your boxes above: ownership questions, unpaid debts, parts scattered and abandoned in undergrowth. The fact that the 120+ year old locomotive is now running and is the unique survivor from its railway company would not now be the case had some of the hard line strictures advocated been enforced years ago. It now has a secure future, but unpicking all that was a matter of considerable sensitivity - and time.

    Tom
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2022
  15. DcB

    DcB Well-Known Member

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    The latest "swanning around" has been published. Quite a lot going on, even though some projects seem to have stalled.
    It shows a picture of the van used by the Signets repainted and looking good.
    Looking at the background to the van it came from the fated Brighton Railway Museum/ Pullman works. A sad tale of potentially useful covered storage and workshop facilities not working due to access problems.
    http://www.brightonlocoworks.co.uk/Pullman-Works.php
    Hopefully the the new Bluebell railway shed and the One collection museum in Margate will be successful and provide safe secure display/storage, and sometime Swanage will have a similar facility.
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2022
  16. Lineisclear

    Lineisclear Member

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    The last sentence highlights a nasty can of worms.

    The all too frequent haphazard nature of relationships between owners of stock and the railway on which it resides can result in serious unexpected financial exposure. All too often the assumption is made that because stock is on the railway its insurance will cover any damage or loss and, more critically, liability to anyone injured whether they are the owners or their volunteers working on it, and even trespassers. That may well not be the case. The consequences for members of unincorporated owning groups could be devastating. It's likely to depend on who controls any work on the stock and manages compliance with the railway's Safety Management System. If owners and their volunteer helpers/contractors are really in control of work on the stock, and how it is done, it's quite possible they will not be covered by the railway's insurance even though they are members . There is also the possibility of criminal fines if adequate measures have not been taken to restrict access to potentially dangerous sites. Those cannot be insured against. Using the example mentioned above if a trespasser is killed or seriously injured by defective stock it could result in the railway and/or the owners being faced with substantial fines.
    The HRA has considered this issue recently and is issuing detailed guidance. The basic recommendation is that all material items that are not owned by the railway should be the subject of loan or hire agreements with clarity as to who is responsible for their control and for Safety Management System compliance. If owners/groups want to retain control over work on their stock they would need their own public liability (minimum £5million) and employer liability insurance ( volunteers are for that purpose classed as employees). They should also guarantee that any work on the railway's premises that is under their control will comply with the railway's SMS.
    If the railway can't protect itself through such agreements it should make sure the stock is removed from its premises.
     
  17. MellishR

    MellishR Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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  18. MellishR

    MellishR Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    Your own last sentence highlights a similar can of worms.
    If the owner(s) of an item are unknown, or known but uncontactable, they are not going to remove it, so the railway itself would need to remove it. But is the railway entitled to remove the property of someone who can't be contacted? And where do they remove it to that won't then lumber then with paying for storage?
     
  19. Lineisclear

    Lineisclear Member

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    I never suggested it was easy! However heritage railways must protect themselves.
    On possible approach is to fix a notice to the item specifying that it appears to be there without agreement so the owner should contact the railway to either enter into an appropriate agreement or the owner should arrange to have it removed by a deadline date. If it's made clear that after the deadline storage charges will accrue the notice could provide that the items will be sold or otherwise disposed of i.e. scrapped to defray costs incurred.
    The suggestion of scrapping tends to cause upset, especially if the item is potentially restorable, but Trustees/Directors need to consider the potential consequences of ignoring the problem and hoping it goes away.
     
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  20. Flying Phil

    Flying Phil Part of the furniture

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    I suspect this issue of "derelict" rolling stock and disputed/unclear/unknown ownership is far more prevalent than realised.......it really can be a nightmare and the "law" is expensive/unclear/time consuming ...... and very frustrating!
     
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