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Isle of Wight Steam Railway

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by Freshwater, Nov 12, 2013.

  1. johnofwessex

    johnofwessex Resident of Nat Pres

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    While the IWR is clearly very different to the most other Standard Gauge lines I would hope that all other lines have similar documents
     
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  2. Paulthehitch

    Paulthehitch Well-Known Member

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    Somehow I doubt it. They would be rather less ''samey'' if this were the case.
     
  3. martin1656

    martin1656 Nat Pres stalwart Friend

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    Not a propper mainline?? Its a 45 mph line, with the same protections as on the mainland now, and the same requirements will be needed to be done should any IOWSR vehicles set a wheel on Island Line metals, and that includes any steam , or diesel loco, except where hired as engineering plant.
    At the very least, every vehicle would need to be ultrasonically tested for axle faults, and registered on tops, its very expensive .
     
  4. andrewtoplis

    andrewtoplis Well-Known Member

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    At the risk of hero worship, I think the IWSR have this bang-on. Their carriage fleet is of a manageable size and they have a clear, cogent plan that covers the vast majority of it. They also have a clear acquisitions policy for future vehicles and are lucky enough to have a catchment area of bodies!

    They also seem not to be afraid of saying no, or disposing of items no longer useful
     
  5. andrewtoplis

    andrewtoplis Well-Known Member

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    Now I was tempted to reach for my machinegun here, but instead I'll just point our that running on to the Islandline has been extensively discussed on this thread already and going back through it should answer all of your questions - it remains very, very unlikely any time soon.
     
  6. martin1656

    martin1656 Nat Pres stalwart Friend

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    Plus they have 2, possibly 3 bogie underframes, that once repaired and overhauled, can be used with the grounded bodies that they already have on site, I found it interesting that the railway has now said they do plan to build an replica Oldbury brake vehicle once the one presently being rebuilt is finished so they can at least have a short 3 , possibly 4 car rake , in future, be nice if the IOWSR could hire a suitable vintage engine to run with it, as i would imagine the terriers came after the coaches, prehaps they could do a swop, Ajax for a industrial of suitable vintage that would look the part?
     
  7. Paulthehitch

    Paulthehitch Well-Known Member

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    Forgive me for letting practicalities in but where an Accredited Museum, such as the IOWSR or accessioned items are concerned, ''doing a swap'' would present difficulties! That's assuming anyone would want to do it anyway
     
  8. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

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    Don't be so sniffy Paul! Having a long term carriage plan doesn't inevitably mean the carriage fleet gets more interesting - if there's nothing more interesting available, then it's pretty certain it won't! We have a document that fulfils a similar function, albeit not quite the same as the IoW's, and funnily enough, it's exclusively Mk1 based, because that's what we have. Writing a document that said "We aim to run a rake of GWR carriages" won't make it happen if there are no opportunities to do so.

    Can you find it within yourself perhaps to leave behind your feelings of superiority when posting here. It gets extremely irritating and looks pretty poor. The IoW is an excellent railway in its own right, you don't need to put down other railways to prove it is so.
     
  9. 30854

    30854 Resident of Nat Pres

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    Superb document and especially nice to see the much loved ex-MR crane is to be restored. Notable too was mention of 'Ashey' and 'passing place' in the same sentence.

    Question: Mention is made of aspirations for a storage/display facility at Wootton. Might it be feasible to acquire land to the west of the station site? If vaguely practical, this would (a) retain the wayside station ambience of the station and (b) allow a more credible impression (illusion) of the line continuing under a bridge?

    Recalling the cussed geology, west of the terminus, there are bound to be some, all too familiar with the difficult ground conditions, who'll reason it's an impractical suggestion, but consider ..... given the obvious wider implications of stabilising such areas, some outside agency could well become interested, be that the local authority, government or even from the construction industry.

    and

    Mention is made of operational use of the class 483, which would be fantastic. With colossal advances in battery tech since the BEMU (now at Deeside), space permitting, there's a fascinating possibility here. Pity one of the earlier 'standards' wasn't retained on the island as there was an obvious place to stow batteries on those. Ho-hum .... who was to know?

    The programme outlined (eleven bogie carriages serviceable? Nice!) is ambitious, but the document seems balanced and realistic.
     
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  10. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    Which loco do you suggest should be swapped in? :)

    I think Terriers with Oldbury carriages is acceptable in strict historical terms (remember, just because a carriage dates from the 1860s doesn't mean it wasn't still running many years later - No. 10 was apparently withdrawn in 1923, well into the Terrier era on the Isle of Wight.). For absolute fidelity you might want to backdate your Terrier a bit! More seriously, what extant locomotive would be more realistic? "[An] industrial of suitable vintage" - what have you got from the late-middle nineteenth century? Captain Baxter? Bellerephon? Sir Berkely? How would they be any more "realistic" than what the IoWSR already have?

    Tom
     
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  11. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

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    The equally excellent Strategic Vision document from a couple of years ago mentions "The four acre field to the north of Wootton station" as a desirable purchase in the future.
     
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  12. Alan Kebby

    Alan Kebby Well-Known Member

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    Interesting to note the aspiration to get an example of standard tube stock if one became available. A pity that the LT museum scrapped it’s surplus examples in very recent years.
     
  13. 30854

    30854 Resident of Nat Pres

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    My thinking was that, vitally necessary as 'facilities' obviously are, there's always going to be a trade-off, with the risk of irremediably changing the atmosphere of a sometime small country station. Of course, harsh reality means it's, more often than not, completely unavoidable, but where it isn't, the plea is to do everything (short of disposing of historically excessive passenger numbers!) to be as sympathetic to the recreated ambience being sought as realistically possible.

    Of course, that might be just me ....
     
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  14. Islander

    Islander Member

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    I'm glad our Strategic Vison has got a mention, well worth a quick read...

    'The Strategic Vision was developed over a two year period and its adoption by the Board of the Isle of Wight Steam Railway in 2009 followed considerable consultation with staff, volunteers and the whole membership of the Railway. The document, which extends to some 32 pages, sets out the aims and aspirations of the Railway over the next two decades'.

    A full copy of the revised 2017 Strategic Vision can be downloaded here.
     
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  15. andrewtoplis

    andrewtoplis Well-Known Member

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    So with my usual caveat that I'm not an official representative,

    I believe the Wootton plan is for a short platform to be laid alongside the run round loop and for a replica of a goods shed to be built where the old siding was on the right hand side as you run in, this to be a museum telling the story of goods traffic with some of the historic wagons kept there. A strip of the field there has been purchased.

    For rolling stock storage (ie rakes of carriages) I think there is an aspiration to construct a further train story type building alongside the current one, which strikes a good balance between being visually separate from the 'heritage' bit of Havenstreet but still convenient.

    I'll point you all to the strategic plan Tony has just put a link to!
     
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  16. Paulthehitch

    Paulthehitch Well-Known Member

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    Probably is too late generally now but fifteen to twenty years ago it could well have been different. Lost opportunity I fear.
     
  17. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    I doubt it. Name a line that fifteen twenty years ago had the facilities, resources and staff to restore pre-mk1 carriages to meet passenger demand and chose not to instead favouring mk1s.

    The reality is that heritage carriage restoration is nice to have and unless you are an early starter like the Bluebell or SVR, or a line that has developed to the point whereby things can move from the linear scrapyard into specialised carriage shops as a nice to have, few lines have collections to enable them to move away from mk1s.

    The IOWSR has a collection to be proud of, but that is down to luck of geography and timing more than prescience.
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2021
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  18. 30854

    30854 Resident of Nat Pres

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    Few and far between, IIRC, though a few NG lines were already indulging in a spot of trail-blazing back then. We've come a hell of a long way since 1951!
     
  19. martin1656

    martin1656 Nat Pres stalwart Friend

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    So why then , has the IOWSR expressed an interest in haydock ? my thinking, ( yes i know i shouldn't) was along the lines of as Ajax on the face of it, does not seem to have a long term future, if it has, then correct me! and if it does not have a place in the long term vision, see if the railway can acquire something that might be in keeping with the era, short of building a replica 2-4-0t .
     
  20. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

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    By your and the strategic document's own admission it was the IoW's foresight in their early days to acquire so many grounded bodies that made the vision possible. That was more than 15-20 years ago, more like 30 to 40? Some railways had only just started laying their first panels of track 40 years ago, and others hadn't even been dreamt up! The story of preservation is that the railways that started early were able to save a fair amount of pre-nationalisation coaching stock. If they hadn't started by the 1970s, it was too late. I can't think of any heritage railways that buck that trend, other than the odd railway which started later which by luck managed to overcome the massive hurdles. It was not down to choice, but simple availability.

    Anyway, once again you have successfully dragged a topic off course, when we should be congratulating the IoW on another sensible policy document which gives much to look forward to. The sooner it happens, the sooner I shall have to make a return visit! :)
     

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