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Lynton & Barnstaple Railway 10th Anniversary: Looking To The Past & Future

Discussion in 'Narrow Gauge Railways' started by JMJR1000, Aug 2, 2014.

  1. Felix Holt

    Felix Holt Guest

    Hi!
    Meiriongwril sent me this attachment on current and future coaches and possible coach sets and asked me to post it for him.
     

    Attached Files:

  2. Charobin

    Charobin Member

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    CPOs - there is no guarantee that, even if applied for as part of the TWA, the L&B will receive Compulsory Purchase powers. Doing their best to negotiate for land purchase, as at present, does strengthen their hand when it comes to the public inquiry; plus of course it is a much nicer way to do business.

    Perhaps, but it struck me as an exaggerated number that sounds good for grant applications and the like. Launceston is a 2.5 mile railway with one train, one cafe and one shop with the equivalent of 7 full time staff to run daily during the season - and with no volunteer support group that covers absolutely everything. An expanded L&B will be 5 miles with two trains, two cafes and two shops - so does it need over three times the staff, especially with volunteers likely to cover many roles?

    Modern lookalike carriages need to be built that take advantage of modern engineering and therefore weigh less that the 'heritage carriages', plus provide comfy seats and big windows for the average punter. If you're lugging a train of four carriages up and down five miles of 1 in 50 a day, I would rather knock a few tons off the train weight and consequently save £s on the coal bill than be hauling heavy "original" carriages around - though by all means keep the originals for special occasions (much as the FR does).

    So you sent it to yourself...?
     
  3. Buzzard

    Buzzard New Member

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    Charles Wytock (WB2819/1945) on 9th May, its first day in passenger service on the L&B Rly, at the Spring Vintage Weekend, together with all 4 heritage coaches. P1130586.JPG
     
  4. Baldwin

    Baldwin Guest

    Those coaches do look good......
     
  5. Greenway

    Greenway Part of the furniture

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    The whole train looks good. :D
     
  6. 61624

    61624 Part of the furniture

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    Perhaps as an interim measure pending the construction of more 2-6-2Ts the L & B or its supporters should think about buying one or two more of Mr. Binns'
    4-4-0Ts! It certainly looks the part.
     
  7. Felix Holt

    Felix Holt Guest

    Does he have any more? Any links available...??
     
  8. 61624

    61624 Part of the furniture

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  9. Felix Holt

    Felix Holt Guest

  10. JMJR1000

    JMJR1000 Member

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    Wouldn't be a bad idea, question is will they be suitable for the future needs of this soon to be expanding railway? Now what I mean by that is can they comfortably run good length of coaches, up steeply graded Devon countryside, and along what will be quite a lengthy line? Though truth be told that question can be pointed towards Isaac and Axe too, I'm not sure any of these designs were built with pulling passenger services on a long running line in mind, but then again apart from the engines of the Vale of Rheidol and Ffestiniog, few are.
     
  11. 48DL

    48DL Member

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    You are right , they were not designed to pull passengers, they were designed to pull freight......
     
  12. JMJR1000

    JMJR1000 Member

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    The vast majority of engines designed for this gauge were built for freight, though to give credit where it's due, most of them do a good job handling their new roles.

    Either that, or some have been adapted accordingly for the new role, with Ffestiniog Railway's Linda and Blanche sticking out as prime example of this. A grand looking looking pair they are too...
     
    Thunderer008 and AndrewT like this.
  13. Nexuas

    Nexuas Well-Known Member

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    Having fired GELERT on the WHHR AGM train to Hafod-Y-Llyn and travelled on the test train to Beddgelert you should be in no doubt as to how free steaming and capable this design is, this was with GELERT reaching the very latter end of a second 10 year boiler certificate. I am sure that ISAAC will be capable of most things you throw at it. If the FR can get an elderly 2-4-0 Hunslet to drag 7-8 cars to BF on an almost daily basis, you will be able to get similar performance out of your 0-4-2 Bagnall.
     
  14. JMJR1000

    JMJR1000 Member

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    I'm pleased to hear it, though just out curiousity, was water and coal capacity an issue on that lengthy run? That's really the issue I feel most concerned with, as ideally you don't want to have stop the train for coal and water too often, with it becoming a longer running line (be around 4-5 miles initially, with potential to grow to roughly 19 miles in total).
     
  15. Nexuas

    Nexuas Well-Known Member

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    Went to Beddgelert and Back on less than one bunker of coal, filled with water at Beddgelert. As I was not on the footplate can not say with what margins this was done.

    Port - H-Y-L - Port was done on one tank fill (Was completely brimmed at Port minutes before departure) don't think this was particularly tight, that was about a 6mile round trip. Maybe just over 1/3 of the bunker used (Quite a flat section and we were limited to 15mph)

    Over our last gala weekend RUSSELL completed about 13.5 miles of running each day, including lighting up this almost completely emptied one bunker (RUSSELL has one each side of the loco) GELERT has a similar quantity of coal capacity as RUSSELL so should be good for 27 miles from a bunker (Flat line, 10mph, light load...)
     
  16. Felix Holt

    Felix Holt Guest

    Does anyone know (perhaps via private message) contact details for Graeme Binns in order to find out if he still has a loco for sale or lease? There may well be interest here in Sweden to get hold of one of these.
     
  17. Buzzard

    Buzzard New Member

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  18. MuzTrem

    MuzTrem Member

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    I suspect you might have a issues with the 4-4-0Ts because of their marine fireboxes. These have less heating surface than a conventional locomotive boiler, so they are better suited to industrial systems where locomotives make frequent stops which allow them to regenerate steam. The R&ER had great trouble with their Heywood locomotives in the 1930s for this reason...
     
  19. JMJR1000

    JMJR1000 Member

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    Another potential issue to consider is a longer term one, dependent on how successful the railway is in it's full form, how intensive the services and long the rakes will be needed?

    Length of rakes is a notable one, as even the original engines of the L&B were limited to 3-4 coaches maximum (with the exception of Lyn which was permitted to pull 5 occasionally). While this could be more then adequate for the foreseeable future initially, no one can say for certain how many passengers the line will eventually see itself carrying. The only other line that could be put in a roughly similar context to the L&B in terms of potential number of carriages needed per rake is the the Ffestiniog Railway, which tends to have around 6-7 seven carriages, or if we use the WHR as another example around 10!

    Of course with the new Lyn soon to be with us and, all being well, more replicas akin to Lyd, these new generation engines will hopefully give better performances and be capable of pulling more. But then there's the other factor, frequency of services/no. of rakes in operation on the busiest periods, where they could have up to 4 running. Once they eventually get all the replicas of the originals built, this could certainly help this potential problem, but even then it is usually recommended to have a couple more engines available, so that your entire operation doesn't always have to rely on the exact same locos working all the time for the service to work smoothly.
     
  20. Felix Holt

    Felix Holt Guest

    Mhhmm, do you really think that the L&B would run 4 trains in the future? I guess with Lynton to Pilton (I assume we'll never get back to the centre of Barnstaple), this would be about 18 miles or so. From what I can work out from the WHR high season timetable, they only run 2 trains at any time on a similar length line. My guess is that it'd be unlikely there'd be enough demand for a 4 train in operation service. So, the current locos and the future new builds should be sufficient.
     

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