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Baldwin "Lyn" new build.

Discussion in 'Narrow Gauge Railways' started by Meiriongwril, Jan 25, 2009.

  1. mgp

    mgp New Member

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    The exclamation mark at the end was meant to indicate my remark was intended as tongue in cheek. I'm sorry if you did not spot the joke. There is certainly no 'petty secrecy' about the ambitious plans for the L&BR. We shout them from the rooftops at every opportunity.

    Mike
     
  2. fergusmacg

    fergusmacg Resident of Nat Pres

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    So why have a members-section of your website which is regularly referenced from your Facebook feed?
     
  3. Meiriongwril

    Meiriongwril Member

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    Sorry, but that's a really petty complaint :rolleyes:
     
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  4. Beckford

    Beckford Guest

    Apologies if my post has caused difficulties. Mea culpa. I read the article in the L&B Magazine and found it interesting and thought provoking - I thought it might stimulate some discussion about alternative locomotive ideas alongside the wonderful work being done with 762. However, I should really have laid out some of the salient points so that people who don't have access to the magazine could see what was being suggested. But if the author was prepared to set it out here that would be much better all round. It's probably better now if I just shut up!
     
  5. Felix Holt

    Felix Holt Guest

    I agree! Especially when you consider how seldom it's updated :) And the fact that any information posted there is on the open site within a few days.
    It's a tiny perk for the members who've actually paid money to support the L&B. If Facebook is "regularly" referencing the members' only section of the website, then it must regularly be referencing the same posting, as the members' section can go months between each update.
     
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  6. FairlieSquarelie

    FairlieSquarelie New Member

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    In news freely available to all, there is an imminent announcement hanging in the air:
    http://762club.com/762lynformation40.php

    After years of sourcing endless tonnes of ferrous and non-ferrous items, there is now the tangible prospect of a 'Component of the Month' which requires someone to sponsor a truckload of something combustible.
     
  7. Bertie Lissie

    Bertie Lissie New Member

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    Are we discussing an article in L & B magazine 109? If so I've not received mine as yet.
     
  8. Meiriongwril

    Meiriongwril Member

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    Yes, it's an article by James Evans (who built Lyd), where he argues that the L&B will eventually need a stronger steam loco than the MWs and Lyn. He proposes a new build scheme for a super Fairlie that could run on the L&B in due course. There are fairly detailed drawings in the article. James proposes that funding for such a project be from grants and industry sponsorship (rather than appeals to the public), and that this would be the way to fund the project. Therefore he doesn't ask for support in the traditional way, but does ask all those interested to contact him.

    It will be interesting to see whether James officially requests any kind of long term approval from the L&B, and if they give it!
    I understand the full article may appear here in due course - but perhaps the Mods could transfer all these recent postings to a new "Super Fairlie" thread?
     
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  9. lynbarn

    lynbarn Well-Known Member

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    James article has appeared else where on the web, but for now I cant find it at present.

    I happen to agree with James in that the L&BR will require more powerful locos in time and having talked to the guys on the W.H.R in the past they have said that if it is physically possible to make the loading gauge bigger then we should do so, most bridges can be lowered or rebuilt to allow this to happen along the line (so I am told) with the exception of the new bridge at the end of Killington Lane which has to be at a certain height and angle to allow for access to an old quarry.

    I am not a civil engineer by trade so I can't give a professional view on this, but as I understand it, it is also down to the gradient on the track bed as well most of the trackbed to Woody Bay from Killington Lane is on a 1 in 50 up to Woody Bay if you wanted to lower the trackbed at this point it would mean that the track would need to increase the gradient to something like 1 in 40 for a short section to make up the difference in trackbed height, this would then have an effect on how much a steam locomotive can haul over the whole line, as it stands and as I was told currently 'LYD' could haul something like 6 or 7 coaches on the L&BR but if you increase the gradient that could drop to 5 or 6 coaches only.

    That being the case you would need to have a loco capable of hauling a 10 coach L&BR size train set over the whole line from Barnstaple to Lynton and return. I should say here and now that I don't think having a fleet of NGG16's would be the answer for North Devon, what I favor is having more powerful locos like a Leek and Manifold 2-6-4T or an Indian ZA* class 2-6-2 tender locos.

    The Bure Valley Railway runs a number of ZB based design locos on its line which I am told with some success.

    While most heritage railways develop their own character, the L&BR already has its own, which is why so many people love it. The problem is that it would be almost impossible to change that without a lot of difficulties. That said if the likes of Peter Rampton had have been able to rebuild part of the L&BR using his stock from collection X, then things might have been very different.

    I am not against rebuilding the L&BR as it was, after all that is all part of the appeal, however like James I too want to look beyond what we have and what we want to what we may need.

    If you take the Ffestiniog Railway as an example of how a heritage railway can develop, you can start to see that on average the length of an FR train set is now 7 to 10 carriages, should the L&BR develop to the same level, then it to will require larger more powerful locos than we have in the shape of 'LYN' or the Manning Wardle 2-6-2T design.

    This could lead to a more cosmopolitan collection of locomotives in Devon than could be expected anywhere else. While it is all well and good to rebuild the L&BR as it was, commercially it may require us to think outside of the box and have a different solution to the ever increasing bottom line to the operation.
    Regards

    Colin Rainsbury

    I would like to say that the above is my own view on the rebuilding of the L&BR and has nothing to do with either the Trust or Company official's position on the railway.





    *The ZA Class where never built, but there where supposed to be a 2ft gauge version of the more common 2ft 6in gauge ZB class using many of the same parts that where used in building the ZB class.
     
  10. 61624

    61624 Part of the furniture

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    Just about everyone will have a vision of what could be built as a more powerful upgrade to the Manning Wardles, but I'm not so sure that they would be needed - after all Lyd at 6 coaches is probably not going to be too far off what is needed. It's probably better to increase frequencies than run humungous trains, which will in turn entail longer platforms and passing loops. If the longer train route was to be adopted, though, how much more capable would the VoR tanks be? or could they be uprated with a bigger boiler to 2-8-2T?
     
  11. Adam-Box

    Adam-Box Member

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    Generally potential visitors are encouraged to visit more by a frequent timetable, would it be better to take a more Swanage Railway type approach with very frequent but shorter trains? Many of the complaints about the Ffestiniog and WHR on TripAdvisor are about the frequency of services. This way you could keep the smaller MW's and keep the feel of the line much more authentic.
     
  12. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    I agree. I very much want the L&B to succeed, and look forward to the day when I am driving on my annual trip to Barnstaple and looking for steam, not trackbed. However, while I'm sure the structures would stand significantly larger locomotives, I am not convinced that they would look right in the stations. There's a feel about Woody Bay, and would be about the other stations once restored, that is as much a part of the railway as the journey itself.
     
  13. lynbarn

    lynbarn Well-Known Member

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    Both are very good and valid points and I expect that to be the case on how the L&BR will operate, however I should say that there are two points which have been over looked, 1) The number of volunteers required to operate a longer railway and 2) the running costs.

    In the good old day the L&BR required something like 60 people to run the operation on a daily basis, but this day and age you could get away with about 25 on a daily basis just for operation reasons, this does not include all the voluntary station/shop staff.

    When I was working out the train crew's it was on the idea that you have one team to start the day to prepare the loco and train set then do one round trip and a second team to do a round trip and then to put it away at the end. The 1st team would do say up to 3 hours prep time in the morning and one round trip of say 3 hours, the second team could if you had the timetable set out right do a second round trip and put the train set away at the end of services that would be a 14 hour day, but like everything else it would depend on how many train sets you had to operate. To maximise the amount of train set's you would need to have at least one train set start from each end of the line, this way you could get four round trips per day, the maximum number of sets you could run on the L&BR in high summer would be six with a total of 12 round trips.

    But to justify that, you would need to make sure you could cover the running costs.

    Regards

    Colin Rainsbury
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2016
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  14. Adam-Box

    Adam-Box Member

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    I completely understand and agree with your points. But what I think would work better is as numbers rise instead if making longer trains add new ones to the timetable.
     
  15. andrewshimmin

    andrewshimmin Well-Known Member

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    I think those who have worked so long and hard for the L&B revival will be delighted to have regular trains running a descent length of the line at all. I am sure many of them have been inspired by a desire to recreate the classic L&B of the Manning Wardles (and Baldwin!) and that they will concentrate any new efforts in that direction.
    Lyd is such a wonderful looking loco, and seems to perform so well, that building more of the same design seems eminently sensible to me.
    Having to introduce heavier locos due to demand would be a wonderful problem to have...
     
  16. johnofwessex

    johnofwessex Resident of Nat Pres

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    As far as I understand it, the desire is to recreate the L&B as was so no Garretts & Super Barns.

    One thing that might be an issue is loadings on peak trains, presumably given the length of the line there will be a relatively limited number of trains that will allow the visitor to make a round trip from Lynton or Barnstaple
     
  17. JMJR1000

    JMJR1000 Member

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    All very true, it would be a great problem to have, but let's see to finishing off Lyn and building a couple Manning Wardles first, shall we? Oh, and and of course an actually railway for them to run on... That might be handy too!

    But all that aside, I do find this a most interesting future issue to look at and speculate, since really you have the dilemma of practicality versus authenticity/aesthetics. If I had to make a choice myself, I'd go for something that a compromise between both sides, the freelance Lynton and Barnstaple Railway Mallet tank engine design found on the County Gate model railway layout, found here: http://www.009.cd2.com/history/locos.htm
    Also an image below.

    [​IMG]

    Handsome looking machines, and wouldn't actually look that far out of place on the railway either, whether it would practical in reality though for the railway's needs I'm not so sure.
     
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  18. Forestpines

    Forestpines Well-Known Member

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    That's fine so long as you have the stock, the staff (as people have already mentioned) and the infrastructure. Keeping service frequency up requires frequent loops. The Swanage Railway can keep to a 40 minute service frequency because its section times are only around 10 minutes - although they are hampered by only having room for one train at each terminus. The FFestiniog's major limiting factor is the length of the TyB-TyG block section (just under 30 minutes I think) which limits what can be done: they can (and do) run successive Up trains 30 minutes apart, but that leaves no room for Down trains to come back again!
     
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  19. lynbarn

    lynbarn Well-Known Member

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    Going forward to the day when the L&BR is fully open you can look forward to the following sections:-

    Barnstaple- Chelfham 15 mins
    Chelfham- Bratton Fleming 15 mins
    Bratton Fleming- Blackmoor* 17 mins
    Blackmoor - Woody Bay 18 mins
    Woody Bay - Lynton 15 mins (this is a bit long that the old timetable as this will be to the new station site which is proposed to be near Lynton itself)

    A one way trip will be about 80 Mins or just under 1 1/2 hours. If the time table was such that you could catch a train at 10.00am you could get to Lynton by 11.30am, given a lay over of say 3 hours a return trip could leave about 2.30pm and you can be back in Barnstaple by 4.00pm.

    Like I have said before you would need a minimum of two train sets with each set starting from the opposite end of the line, or as I have just recalled if both sets start at Blackmoor and travel in different directions this could also work.

    The following pattern would be the result:-

    Train set A Blackmoor-Lynton then it would be Lynton - Blackmoor then on to Barnstaple, from Barnstaple it would then return to Blackmoor, where it would then carry on back to Lynton and the return back to Blackmoor.

    Trains Set B would be Blackmoor - Barnstaple stop over and then return to Blackmoor then carry on to Lynton, where it would then return to to Blackmoor and Barnstaple, after reaching Barnstaple the train would finally return to Blackmoor.

    Train set C would be required to be based at the Barnstaple end of the line for early departures so it too could do two round return journeys.

    I will leave some one else to do the time table for that set up, but as you can see it is not going to be the most easiest of things to work out

    Regards

    Colin Rainsbury


    * there is a possibility that should the Exmoor wild life park become larger or attract more visitors it might be possible that a new station and loop could be installed near to it on the line some where in the middle of this section
     
  20. Felix Holt

    Felix Holt Guest

    3rd rail electric - it's the only answer ;) Well, at least it's Southern ...
     

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