Rotting away?

They will be using a S160 in near future. Definitely not 'small/medium'.

 

I do know of one Railway that was offered a large parcel of land adjacent to its main Station site, they declined saying that they could not afford it. A wealthy member offered to buy it and gift it to them and they refused! I am still totally mystified as to why they refused.

 

It carries the same boiler as a 43xx or, for that matter "City of Truro". On the small side of medium in other words

No more than medium sized.

 

An S160 has a considerably larger grate area than a Bulleid West Country/ Battle of Britain, so I guess those latter therefore count as "small".

Tom

 

Doth the green eyed monster raise it's head? Surely all out heritage lines can claim a 'singular background'? As for turning down opportunities, there have been the odd instances of lines not being in a position to seize these as they present themselves.

Advanced warning .... Howard's going 'off on one'!

There are a couple of points arising here. Firstly, agreed the IWSR has been fortunate to be able to acquire land smack bang where best suited. Secondly, contrary to the sour grapes flavour of a few posts, it didn't 'just happen'. Without a long term strategy, it would have been most unlikely that the line would have been in any position to undertake piecemeal purchases on the offchance. It's pretty clear (and not only from posts here) that the process was a long and involved one, involving several purchases over a prolonged period.

As with anything in life, the hand you play is the hand you were dealt, but a spot of foresight to enable advantage to be taken of opportunities arising along the way never hurts. I daresay there are those of a Talyllyn persuasion who regard the small industrial estate at Pendre with a degree of "whatifitis", yet look a bit to the east and the W&L has (at long last) managed to bag some much needed breathing space from a similar installation adjecent to the (in estate agent speak) compact Llanfair Caereinion site. The Great Central don't look too shabby in this department either.

Large, complex and costly projects are often best dealt with using their own semi-detached organisation. The Ffesterbahn adopted this approach with 'the deviation' and the Talyllyn extension beyond Abergynolwyn was largely separated from day-to-day operations.

The example of the L&B's partner orgainisation, Exmoor Associates, is one to note. Here exists a group with the specific task of land acquisition and let's not forget, disposal to keep the coffers topped up. When it comes to jumping through hoops, things don't get much more complex than re-instating the L&B! What with all flavours of 'interested parties' .... plus one certain individual who shall remain nameless(!) from a National Park to an urban council, developing the specialist skillset required to do the neccessary, without adversely affecting the operational side has never IMO been better addressed.

Before anyone says 'well we don't have the staff to do that and run our railway', I'd point out that folk join an organisation for all sorts of reasons. Not everyone wants to drive steam locos (well, not all the time at any rate!) and there will be bound to be those who would love to deploy their own skill set, which needn't always involve overalls, safety boots, spanners, whistles or even the public. Schemes specifically designed to locate, acquire and develop storage facilities are a prime example. Problem or opportunity?

Our heritage lines have achieved the seemingly impossible so many times, over the past 60 plus years, that it makes me a bit ratty when I see comments suggesting that the spark of creative thinking has somehow gone out. What utter cobblers! Just because I can't see a way to do something doesn't mean no-one can. It's just that the heritage rail scene is way larger than it was 40 years ago, when precicely the same arguments about over-reaching and impossibilities were being bandied about. The scope of restorations these days is on a scale none but the most optimistic could have envisaged way back when. The step change in communications since those pioneers hunkered down at the Middleton, the Talyllyn and the Bluebell means it's not just hand-on restoration of locos and stock which has improved.

Let's give our lines and the folks who support them the credit they deserve. As the old saying has it ..... Miracles we perform to order, the impossible may just take a bit longer.

Here endeth the rant!

 

Designed to burn any old fuel.

Thanks for this Gary. Like you I am mystified but I'm not all that surprised.

Paul

 

As, explicitly, were Bulleid pacifics, so I am not sure what your point is.

You've spent heaven knows how many years telling us all that Bulleids and their ilk are symptoms of "big chufferitis" on account of their grate area, but then claim a loco with an even bigger grate is a "medium" engine!

Tom

 

Deleted ... changed my mind .... I ain't getting involved!!

 

Can you elaborate on your GCR point? I would have thought they were almost a poster child for having found themselves besieged on all sides at Loughborough by modern development.

 

I was thinking of the museum in this instance.

 

Oh come on! The American machines were designed to haul heavyish loads over war torn tracks and thus are not particularly heavy in mass. They had to be able to cope with fuel of soil like quality but the U.S. being the U.S., fuel economy very much took second place to doing the job. However, as slow speed haulers, they are very much better suited to 25m.p.h. tourist railway work than express locomotives.

PH

 

I think we can settle this debate: this S160 is small, but that Merchant Navy is far away.

 

Sorry Paul, I think you are just making stuff up now. An S160 weighs about 125 tons; a Bulleid light pacific about 128 - 133 depending on the specific type of tender. The S160 has a bigger grate area, which, as you often remind us, has to be kept covered in fuel. Regardless of U.S. strictures about fuel economy when built, your usual argument is about fuel usage in current conditions.

Personally, I happen to think Bulleid's are very big locos. But if you are going to claim S160s are medium, you can hardly complain about use on heritage lines of locos which are, in a key dimension, somewhat smaller; and of negligible difference in mass.

Tom

 

This s160 is small, but those goal posts are now far away....

 

If the S160 does prove to be unduly hungry the DSR is not the place to tolerate "big chufferitis" and it will go.

PH

 

I don't think I have suggested that that IoWSR acquisitions "just happened", merely that they were fortunate to have amenable landowners adjacent. To take the NYMR as an example, the carriage shed development at Pickering has only become possible because a new generation of landowner is more sympathetic to the railway than his predecessors, yet it is still less than desirable because the owner of an adjacent field will not consider parting with a small sliver of it - and that is known because the question has been asked. The NYMR would like a carriage shed at Grosmont, too, where the present carriage sidings stand - but the owners of the land (BRB Properties or some similar body) will not sell (though they are prepared to lease it out) citing "long term strategic" reasons!

These are about the only places outside the National Park that are accessible to the railway (apart from perhaps New Bridge Quarry if it ever closes but that has its own access problems in the form of a bungalow whose garden has acquired the trackbed into the quarry, the owner of which is a fierce opponent of the railway). The area that is now New Bridge PWay yard was acquired when the opportunity arose. That is the story of the NYMR, I don't think there have been any missed opportunities. If Pickering Goods Yard had been available that would have presented a lot of opportunities but by the time the NYMR reached Pickering it was too late and too many new roads had been built over the access tracks. Most lines will have similar stories, though, because they were never provided with the facilities to be autonomous in terms of their rolling stock maintenance and so have had to develop these facilities mostly within the land available. Some have been more fortunate than other - The ELR includes Buckley Wells depot, the Llangollen had the large Llangollen goods yard available to them

To my mind the building of extensive covered accommodation is more a sign of a railway's maturity. It is no coincidence that the TR, FR, Bluebell and even WLLR, plus the KWVR and SVR are among the longest established lines, with NYMR a little bit behind and this is evident in their development pathways.

 

I think you're way off the mark here. The museum land is owned by the council and whilst the GCR might* derive some benefit from being next to it, it doesn't help at all with the things the GCR desperately needs like more covered storage for its own stock, or what to do about the loco shed when going north.
Loughborough used to have a large goods yard, which would have been the envy of most preservation groups if it could have been acquired. Half of it is now houses and the other half is rapdly heading the same way. Other adjoining and nearby industrial sites have also disappeared under housing in recent years. We're lucky to have what we have, but I don't think anyone would claim we were well off for available and suitable land. Far from it.

(*This word was used intentionally. I don't think this is by any means a foregone conclusion. But that's a debate for another day.)

 

Me too Gary Walker. If it is the one I suspect you are thinking of, they could have made a sizeable profit on the surplas land not required.
Chrie

 

@pmh_74 & @huochemi Seems I may have got the wrong end the stick over the (adjecent to) GCR museum. Bad example then! Apologies for any confusion. I might change it to the Launceston Railway, but since it seems no-one has yet worked out a method of communicating with Sustrans in any meaningful way, that would seem premature! OK ..... let's try the Strathspey, longer term objectives seemingly circumscribed by delays to a road improvement scheme and a key one to watch.

@61624 So more than one tricky hurdle to overcome for the NYM? Interesting comment about BRB Properties. I confess I though BRB had been wound up a couple of years back. The example you cite isn't one I have anywhere near enough knowledge about to comment, but I do note that the L&B seem to have found a way to co-exist with a National Park Authority. Whilst there will undoubtedly be major differences between those in Yorkshire and Devon, I'd assume that as both were created under the similar, if not neccessarily identical legislative progress, any differences must come down to specific aims and objectives. The L&B and EA look to have been successful in integrating into wider plans, so perhaps one or both could indicate means by which matters may be taken forward between the NYM and Moors NPA.

So far as the early arrival on the scene of the Bluebell is concerned, much of the really tricky stuff has taken place well within the span of the NYM's history. I'm thinking here of both the new facilities at HK & SP and the northern extension.

Handling negotiations with sometimes truculent neighbours is scarcely confined to either heritage railways or recent history. The Rother Valley and Southwold certainly fall into that category, but the team at Robertsbridge kept faith and the years of chipping away seem to be bearing fruit. The situation in Suffolk is one about which I do have views, it's just that most of these aren't couched in terms suitable for an open forum. Short polite version: Let's just say, sometimes it's simply a case of outliving the opposition!