Heritage Line Loco Power Requirements

So perhaps you now see the absurdity of your volunteer / non volunteer stance. Y ou made the rule not me

 

I made no "rule" at all. You simply misunderstood

 

I think that was the V2, I've seen footage of 77014 working an end of steam tour, complete with green and blue and grey stock.

 

Well it's always a good idea to stop at Bridgnorth, not in Hollybush Road.

 

I remember the days when @Bean-counter was a TTI and then guard, a role which he performed for many years, before becoming a volunteer director.

Sawdust.

 

Yes, I've seen that image too. I've also seen a photo of the cabside of 77014 in someone's back yard (so it would seem from the image) so it would seem to have been saved by someone when the loco was scrapped. I wonder where it is now?
Getting back to 82045, I must add my praise to the group who are building this (in my view) important missing link in modern BR Standard loco design and operation. The online newsletter is regularly updated and always a good read. I'm really looking forward to seeing this little beauty with its (17 spoke) wheels fitted and side tanks on!

As we move into a new week, let us hope that this thread remains focussed upon 82045 (and associated locos) rather than descending into a bun fight regarding what heritage railways should be and what locos we should use. That said, 82045 is one that we certainly will use.

 

Would the mods be able to clean this thread up a little? As entertaining/cringeworthy as some of the cut and thrust is, I don't think it is doing 82045 any favours! Perhaps a new thread is needed, or just lump most of the last few pages straight into the heritage locomotive requirements thread?

Thanks

 

.... and slapping a tender behind a tank loco (a) looks odd .. plus (b) calls for complicated mods. The UTA tried it back in the 60s, to enable the WT "Jeeps" to haul the Belfast-Dublin "Enterprise", with a conspicuous lack of success. The main beneficiaries of that short lived experiment were railway photographers!

 

So is South West Trains a tourist railway because one person might travel on its trains purely for the experience of travelling on them? It matters not how often a railway is used by someone for the purpose of transport, if in fact its principle objective is the entertainment / education of visitors who travel because of the experience of travelling. I've worked on a line where in the summer the first UP train is almost entirely youngsters going to the swimming baths and those without a car going to market (just as their forebears did a 100 years before). It was lovely to see. It gave all us volunteers some sense of a purpose, but it didnt pay the bills, and so those passenger numbers simply served to underline that the days of being primarily a transport entity were in the past.

My own view is that we ought not to forget that our hobby is largely paid for because we provide entertainment (to ourselves, and to visitors). It is true that we also provide a sense of purpose and community and various other life enriching things, which is why people buy shares (that never pay a dividend), donate money and leave legacies.... all of which at root is in one form or other enjoyment. So, yes we all have toy trains frankly. That does not mean we should or could manage or operate them without professionalism in all aspects, but they are toys because their principle means of continuing to exist is to provide enjoyment. Revel in that, don't rebel against it.

 

If you take too much steam out of a boiler too quickly it can get quite hair raising. To re-charge something the size of a 2-10-0 you would need either a huge boiler or a long charging period.

 

I wholeheartedly agree with everything you say, but I also think the way we say these things is important. 'Tourist', 'heritage' and 'preserved' are all good labels for the movement's railways, but calling them 'toy trains' just sounds belittling and slightly insulting. 'Big chufferitis' is the same.

If an argument is a good one, why does it need the support of these loaded, provocative labels? Of course, I recognise that you weren't the originator of the term.

 

I coined the term for which I appologise. Those following this thread will perhaps understand why I used the term , mainly in frustration, to counter bigchufferitis

 

Yes, I used the ELR once as a means of transport, rather than as a visitor attraction. Car broke down one Sunday somewhere near Burnley and AA couldn't fix it at the roadside so it had to be taken to a repairer and left there. Managed to cadge a lift as far as Rawtenstall then used the ELR to Bury, followed by Metrolink to Manchester and Northern from Manchester to Handforth.

On fire less locos, they were only ever used in locations where an actual steam loco would have been a fire hazard, like oil refineries and paper mills. Also, as far as I know they would run for no more than a couple of hours before needing to be charged again. This was just for shunting a few wagons

 

Different era of course, but the Festiniog (yes... one 'F') was marketed as a "Toy Train" in the interwar years, whilst still very much providing (diminishing) slate transport.

Some practices can come across as being odd. Personally, I loath those b***dy 'Thomas' faces, but they bring the punters in.... including the "mewling and puking" who will be the ones the heritage sector will rely on for custom and volunteers long after we've all croaked.

Being precious about things isn't a luxury we can afford.

 

On a related tack, recently I was told of a family of supposed "normals" who were told off for trespass onto the lineside of a tourist line to have a picnic. "It's not a real railway" was the response to the admonition.

PH

 

What a great advert for bringing people into our movement some of your posts are, Paul.

Volunteer, and if you do and use big locos on any kind of railway, you are suffering from "big chufferitis". Don't volunteer and your views - however valid - are also less worthy, somehow. I presume none of us have any experience outside heritage railways that can be applicable then? That circumstances might have dictated what railways have what rolling stock?

Virtue signalling is utterly pathetic. Nobody knows the exactitudes of everyone else's circumstances. One person might not volunteer physically day to day but might donate to railways in other ways that add value (such as website design, financial advice, even children's books to sell in the shop I dare say...) so to assume anything based on limited information is wrong.

And I find incredible that we are going to reduce anyone within the heritage railway sector who runs trains of any length, behind any rolling stock, somehow running "toy trains" because they don't line up with Paul Hitch's exacting requirements.

One family acting stupidly does not constitute a trend across the country, Paul, any more than your virtue signalling and behaviour is indicative of the wider heritage movement.

 

Nurse..... they're out of bed again!

If we're really going to keep at each others' throats, would this thread perhaps be better off where the uninitiated can't see it?

Dunno about y'all, but I found the long public spats between the WSR and WSRA or the schismatic factions in the Ceiriog Valley were deeply devisive, and didn't show our movement to the wider public in a very favourable light. Our happy throng are every bit as much an advert for heritage railways as the big, hot and fragrant things.

 

Monday motivation, innit?

 

Not restricted to Mondays in my case. I can be a grumpy old goat 24/7.... according to pretty much everybody who knows me. They're all wrong of course!