Swanage Railway General Discussion

From memory, extending Swanage loop is far from easy. The present loop is not actually comfortably long enough to run around 5 coaches (the margin for error by drivers is a matter of feet in order to be able to berth within the track circuits and clear the stock at both ends). Reinstating the double slip and providing alternative watering facilities would remove this difficulty. However, extending the loop to cater for 6 coaches would involve relocating the signalbox, and significant civil engineering to retain the bank supporting Gilbert Road. It would also result in a less flexible layout, loosing the movement from loop to sidings (and probably require the removal of the crossover allowing moves from Platform 2 to the sidings, or an expensive interlacing of at least one pair of points if that crossover were retained). In 2005 the costs and sheer logistics of this, set against the less flexible layout for day-to-day operations, militated against it being moved forward.

Given the practical challenges (let alone the financial ones!), from 2005 onwards, it was decided to passively provide for 6 coaches at all other stations (an example of which was relocating the down starting signal at Harmans Cross so that a loco could be accommodated beyond the platform end). At only incremental costs, this was envisaged as enabling 6 coach trains to run - but with the remaining need at Swanage to either: shunt and release; top-and-tail; or change engines.

As ever, things may have moved on - but I would be surprised if the layout at Swanage was ever adapted so that 6 coach trains could be accommodated in the run round loop.

 

We should be congratulating the railway operations for making the best of the current stock available in a busy summer, will the railway make a profit this year? - I don't know but due to the dire financial state of the heritage railway industry I doubt it. Talking of 6 coach working with double slips etc is pie in the sky as there are other far more urgent projects that need any spare money that the railway and the Trust can afford.

 

Not a great image but I tend to agree with you, it would certainly put the end of the loop very close to the box and would need some fair earthworks.
Plus how many days is a 6 coach train needed.

 

So despite what been stated before the 6 coach plan was never going happen, and has been known since 2005?

 

Yes I agree but I hope all fares are being collected. From what I have seen in many visits I doubt it. Can anyone from the railway comment on this?

 

My take:
Carriage shed a priority.
Catering, interesting. As a guard I get asked quite often "where can i get a coffee" on the other side, I announce and recommend our catering facilities (when they are open) and passengers say, they will explore the town.
Water tower, nice to have. But not that nice
Wareham, if it washes its face. then lets run it, even if it is only the school holidays.
Six, seven, eight coach trains. currently not required on a regular basis, not a conversation piece.
Toilets, not sure what we do here. I will fight anyone who suggests replacing the gents at Corfe. The gent at Swanage are good for clearing the nasal passages and are between a rock and a hard place. Sympathetic modernisation is the way forward.

 

On the contrary, the plan set out in 2005 to progressively provide for crossing of six coach trains at intermediate stations has been delivered as originally conceived in 2005. The proof of this is that six coach trains can now run on a regular basis without the difficulties that existed before - especially at Harmans Cross. Unless the plan was changed after 2007, it was never envisaged to include provision for being able to run round trains at Swanage (for the reasons outlined above) - although some people seem to have made that assumption - and was intended to be a low cost way of increasing operational flexibility.

Daddsie71b, talking from long-term and practical experience, seem to have a sensible set of priorities. (Though it might be added that the Water Tower became a less practically valuable and more historically motivated project once the Environment Agency, as I understand it, changed the parameters for granting an extraction licence meaning that taking water from the Swan Brook was no longer viable. Whilst some have blamed the railway for the resulting pause on the project, such a fundamental change by an external body inevitably changed the priority given to the project).

 

You can create a 6 coach run round loop with a double slip without moving the signal box.

 

That was not the opinion of the PW engineer who looked at the viability of a scheme in 2005 following detailed measurements.

Whilst HMRI's 'Blue Book' and the then technical standards have since been superseded, I am not sure that they will have changed significantly. From memory, the constraints included:
- the depth of platform required between the main and bay roads (allowing the required depth for a double-sided platform meant slewing the main line slightly away from the bay line given the restricted space within the railway boundary);
- the need to ease the curvature on the loop as it returned back to the mainline (see below for an indication of the issues regarding curvature at the country end of the loop);
- a presumption of using standard S&C components (to reduce in the initial cost of any double-slip, and to avoid having to hold a highly expensive stock of spares in case of failure of a critical component - one only has to look at the problems NR had following damage to a slip at Eastleigh a little while ago to see the consequence of non-standard point-work); and
- inclusion of 'dead-length' on the usable length of platform (to provide full clearances at both ends of the loop and to allow for trains stopping short/overrunning).

At the time all of these were requirements for any new scheme, although it is always possible standards may have become more flexible since then. Of course, any one of these might be mitigated (for instance, by commissioning the manufacture of a bespoke double-slip), but would have increased both capital and ongoing costs significantly or had other knock-on effects.

(As an aside, many of the measurements resulted from the need to make changes to the track geometry of the country end of the loop to bring it within acceptable minimum tolerances - I think for a visiting loco, which the owners refused to allow through that end of the loop unless the curvature were eased. This gives an indication of how tight the existing curvature is)

 

Thanks

And now for something completely different. A fr iend has sent me the attached asking if I can identify the location. I think it my be Harmans Cross.
Any views?

Thanks

 

Looks like Ponda Rosa crossing to me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

When you compare the above picture to what was left after closure, ie only the buildings, its nothing short of amazing what has been achieved, All the railways we have today, started with next to nothing, a basic railway, and if you were lucky, there might have been some track,

 

Yes, I think you may have nailed it, it the up direction before woodyhyde.

 

Actually almost all preserved railways started with at least some track still in place. Swanage, Llangollen and GWSR being the main exceptions that spring to mind.

But yes looking at photos like that, it’s amazing what has been achieved at Swanage.

 

If you put a double slip in then I'm sure the loop becomes long enough for six coaches without needing to re-site the signal box - but unless you also realign the platform line and / or bay line, the space available for an extended platform looks to be very narrow - plus what do you do with the water tower? And unless you extend the platform, what is the benefit of a longer run-round loop in isolation?

Tom

 

Do by chance you have a year in which it was taken?

 

An article in Trackside Magazine back in May when they interviewed then then chairman this year stated that they wanted to extend the loop by just installing the double slip and water tower replacement, plus a platform extension so assuming 5194 is right someone has gotten their information wrong...

Is the ex Salisbury water tank and its associated water crane is no longer seen as 'critical' anymore and is just a 'nice' to have with no real enthusiasm to finish it; would it not be better just to sell it scrap and try get some of money spent on it back rther it just being in limbo until the end of time?

 

I will ask

 

Re the 6 coaches - could they be run by using a second locomotive instead of running round? Obviously a more expensive solution in isolation but, as part of a busier timetable, a possibility?

 

Do you mean where the sidings are now as is that not a gradual curve all the way from HX to Afflington and this appears to be more of an "S Bend". Also depends if that is Nine Barrow Down in the background. Not sure you would see it like that from there.