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Bluebell Railway General Discussion

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by Jamessquared, Feb 16, 2013.

  1. andrewtoplis

    andrewtoplis Well-Known Member

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    Tom, I've snipped your post down but need to pick a slight hole in your normally excellent logic. An electric multiple unit is fundamentally a very simple beast and is capable of reliability beyond any diesel equivalent and miles ahead of a steam loco. Most have multiple motors and could happily maintain heritage speeds working on partial power. I'm not an expert on Southern ones, but an EMU converted to batteries would be a useful thing for any heritage line.

    You are right though when it comes to servicing, particularly when it comes to driving cabs! I'm sure many lines could stick a 73 on the end to get round a defective cab, but then you'd end up needing one of those as well....

    But I am with you that history has popular eras and themes that resonate more than others, for example medieval jousting or Nelsonian sailing ships. I think in terms of railways there is something special about steam in the public mind, more so than any EMU alas.

    I'd also add that heritage operation of the third rail is, in my view, pie in the sky. There is already a presumption against new fittings, I cannot see anything allowing it for 'amateur' use.
     
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  2. 30854

    30854 Resident of Nat Pres

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    With respect Tom, the case you outline only holds good if saying nothing this side of said castles exist to be of interest. False analogy. Multiple units may not float your boat (or mine, for that matter), so a case for saying "not for us" is perfectly reasonable, however denying any current, let alone future interest is another matter entirely. Are you saying "these things didn't interest us, therefore won't interest you"? How many steam classes, or classic carriages were lost to us, due to a failure to realise the future may see matters differently?

    Since you mention it .... So far as 'interest' in WWII vs the Falkland conflict goes, tbh I doubt I'm the only one who feels people who weren't involved, however they choose to justify it, dressing up for fun, rather belittles the true horrors of actual warfare in the name of 'a jolly good day out' and always seems somewhat distasteful. That's merely a personal opinion on my part and I'd not dream of spoiling anyone's enjoyment or arguing for a ban, it's just you'll never see me at one of those.
     
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  3. BrightonBaltic

    BrightonBaltic Member

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    I certainly don't regard the preservation of modern era material as a priority. I'm not quite thirty years old, but I have no nostalgia whatsoever for the trains I grew up with. I certainly have no desire to see a Class 455 preserved - if you must, take one back to York where it was built to serve as a warning from history. I've done far more mileage on 455s than anything else, and I rapidly grew to hate and despise them. Give me a chance to take an oxyacetylene torch to one and I might, but otherwise... I also recently got banned from the Plym Valley Railway's FB page for criticising their acquisition of a Pacer, saying that its mere presence would put me off visiting, and that the general public do not want to ride on them...
     
  4. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

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    I'd be looking at it from the other side though, the bits that make it go may well be simple/easily mendable but it's still, in effect, a whole short rake of carriages that need to be restored/maintained as a single unit, which isn't easy. Getting resources for "more interesting" carriages than Mk1s is difficult enough at the best of times with the most interesting vintage prototypes, let alone something with dozens of doors, probably riddled with asbestos etc. Etc.
     
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  5. BrightonBaltic

    BrightonBaltic Member

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    I'd also like to concur with 30854 on re-enactment of recent wars. I find it pretty distasteful, it tends to attract the most deplorable people, and someone always turns up in Nazi uniform... my brother is both a practitioner of Historical European Martial Arts (mostly scholarly swordsmanship) and a trader in antique arms, and he says that, in re-enactment, the more recent the era being re-enacted, the more unpleasant the people involved, especially the Nazi fans, and don't even get him going on Nazi memorabilia, SS knives and uniforms, et cetera...
     
  6. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    I'm not saying "these things didn't interest us, therefore won't interest you"?, merely suggesting that in my opinion that will come to pass. I might be wrong. But I do tend to believe - rightly or wrongly - in a selectivity of what floats people's boats. Not all periods of history are of equal interest.

    Pace @35B, I'm glad I'm just a hack fireman and not the curator of the NRM! Those are very real questions to wrestle with, but (a) I'm quite glad I don't have to do so and (b) you can't get away from the bottom line. If you fail financially, you lose everything - so inevitably that means things will get skewed towards the popular. That is perhaps a less worse outcome than trying to do everything and actually achieving nothing.

    With regards "Yet if we don't preserve something of that era in a form it can be properly seen in, what picture do we have" I think for electric trains at least, the place is on the mainline. Take the infrastructure problem out of the occasion and at least you have a fighting chance, which the groups around the 5-Bel and 4-VEP are trying to seize. Trying to do that scale of restoration and also layer on the problem of electric infrastructure in a heritage setting in my view turns a difficult project into an impossible one. Actually, I might just be tempted to ride the 4-VEP if there was a Waterloo - Reading line tour bouncing along at 50 or 60, whereas I don't think I would ride it for five or ten miles on a heritage line at 25mph.

    Tom
     
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  7. andrewtoplis

    andrewtoplis Well-Known Member

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    I can't see an electric only heritage line being successful. I've heard about the electric branch line to Ardingly many times, but I just cannot see it generating enough interest with the public.
     
  8. MellishR

    MellishR Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    If you mean EMUs, trains belonging to that same category are running every day on the big railway. If you mean slam door stock, the modern EMUs don't qualify but the heritage steam- and diesel-hauled coaches do. So I'm not convinced that a lack of EMUs on preserved lines is a serious lack.
     
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  9. Johnb

    Johnb Nat Pres stalwart

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    What everyone had forgotten about in this discussion is the the type of punter who brings in the main fare income to heritage railways. It’s not the enthusiast steam or diesel/ electric, it’s the family groups who have come out for a day out on a steam railway. To them, riding behind a diesel locomotive or in a MU is no different to what they can do on the big railway.
    If I turned up on a heritage railway and there was say a preserved Pacer l would expect them to pay me to travel on the wretched thing.
    For that reason, plus the fact I have zero interest in other than steam, I’m with Tom, the priority must be to keeping the steam hauled stock and locos in running order.
     
  10. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    I think the gap is wider than you allow. The electrically powered, self propelled train, representative of a particular era, is something we easily lose and deprive ourselves of a significant part of the record.

    10 years or so ago, I took great pleasure in traveling on the preserved 4-CIG at Loughborough, even though it had to rely on the resident class 33/1 for movement. That unit is no more, there are few of its ilk remaining.

    The successor generation risk being even scarcer. @BrightonBaltic comments without love on the 455s; I share much of his emotion, yet the removal of them all would deprive us of a significant part of the southern’s history. And to suggest that a class 150 Sprinter, though extremely similar, would suffice ignores the differences between EMU and DMU.

    Tom is right, these are curatorial decisions, and they cannot be detached from consideration of the bottom line. But nor should they be ignored.


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
     
  11. 73129

    73129 Part of the furniture

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    Far better to forget about the line to Ardingly it’s a red herring and concentrate on putting resources in to projects that will provide a better customer experience. This in turn will see repeat visits to the railway.
     
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  12. bluetrain

    bluetrain Well-Known Member

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    National Tramway Museum at Crich? It has a running line of about a mile.

    NTM shows that a low-voltage overhead electric operation is possible. But of course, neither the 3rd-rail nor the 25KV overhead main-line electrics fit that description. I believe that there were preservation projects for Class 505 (Manchester-Altrincham) and 506 (Manchester-Glossop/Hadfield) vehicles, which worked at 1500V overhead, but those projects have not been very successful and no preserved line was been established to use them.

    Theoretically, it might be possible to adapt one of the Class 313 or other dual-voltage units to take 750V DC from an overhead wire supply. But I doubt whether is sufficient demand for that option.
     
  13. andrewtoplis

    andrewtoplis Well-Known Member

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    With respect, try doing that today. I don't think you'd get off the drawing board.

    Plus, I confess I've not been to Crich for about 35 years, but doesn't it have more of a living museum feel?
     
  14. BrightonBaltic

    BrightonBaltic Member

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    There's also the tramway on the former LSWR trackbed at Seaton. Personally, I'd rather it had 56.5" track and was powered by Adams and Drummond steam locomotives, but oh well... it's a crying shame that there are no LSWR heritage lines west of Purbeck. Plenty of mud and milk, of course...
     
  15. D1039

    D1039 Guest

    That's becoming less likely IIRC, there's a recentish consultation to remove slam door and other old stuff from the derogations

    Some. yes, I got mild in their pub!

    Patrick
     
  16. Johnb

    Johnb Nat Pres stalwart

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    Tramway museums are totally different. Anyone visiting one expects to see and travel on trams. Visitors to a heritage railway expects steam, the term heritage railway is not generally one the average public would recognise.
     
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  17. ruddingtonrsh56

    ruddingtonrsh56 Member

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    Also, to Joe Public Crich trams look quite obviously different to the trams currently in use in places like Croydon, Nottingham and Sheffield. Whereas a Slam Door EMU from the 60s looks a little different to a contemporary EMU, but nowhere near as different. Therefore the 'Historical Appeal' or however else you want to describe the ability to say "Wow, look how different it was then to how it is now" and the associated appeal is much greater
     
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  18. torgormaig

    torgormaig Part of the furniture Friend

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    Just reading through this thread about the allure of steam over other forms of traction, I am reminded of a conversation I had about 20 years ago on a steam trip to Scarborough. I was talking to a young lady with a couple of kids in tow. She told me that she was on the train because she remembered travelling to Scarborough by steam as a child and wanted to share the experience with her children. As she was in her mid twenties I asked how this was possible as steam would have finished some years before she was born. She was of course referring to travelling with her parents on the BR version of The Scarborough Spa Express in the early 1980s. She was not bothered about the locos identity or its livery, but it being steam created an ambience that she could relate to with fond memories. Who knows, perhaps those kids of hers will soon be bringing their children along for a similar steam ride in a year or two. I do not think that level of widespread appeal will ever exist for other forms of traction.

    Peter
     
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  19. Steve B

    Steve B Well-Known Member

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    I'm following this discussion with interest, and it displays some very well thought out posts. I'm one who has an interest in the older EMUs, but I can see the enormous issues involved not just in restoring the units, but in creating an environment where they could conceivably run. I think that part of the issue is that established lines that normally operate with steam and some diesel are mostly already stretched to maintain and run what they have. Add in another form of traction could place a burden too far for most.

    Tom's comments about needing more than one unit if you want a consistent service raises the issue of where do you put them. Most railways are not only short of cash, but also short of space. Added to which EMUs normally don't cope well with damp - needing to be run regularly to keep atmospheric damp at bay, and preferably stored under cover, particularly if they are not in daily service. Then there is issue of restoration. How long does it take to restore one coach? Multiply it at least by 2, possibly 4. And then start again on the next unit so there is a spare, by which time you realise that although you now have your spare to cover failures and maintenance, the first one is now getting tired and will need a major overhaul in a few years so you may need third unit to cover that. Then to contemplate doing all that for something that may not be the main attraction (and possibly for some visitors something that they definitely are not interested in) and it doesn't take much imagination to realise that most railways are going to say "possibly a good idea, but not for us".

    What the answer is to this I don't know. Mainline running is a possibility for some types for now, but with changes in regulations, issues with signalling systems (with LUL in mind here), and even with changes in clearances creating issues with opening windows, there are some challenges that may be impossible to resolve. I've sometimes wondered whether there was ever a possibility of a heritage service taking over the Sunday service on a branchline that can be operated separately - providing a service for normal passengers, as well as being of interest to those looking for some heritage. 1938 unit Mill Hill East to Finchley Central? 4 VEP to Seaford? You get the idea... I can't see it happening though.

    One last comment, this time on the "what is of interest to who" bit of debate. On a visit to the Epping Ongar railway during one of the school half term service days, I was interested to overhear a conversation between a mum and her young children. From what she said I don't think she was in an enthusiast category, and they were there as a means of giving the kids something to do. The Mum got really excited as she got into the train, telling her kids that it was what she travelled on when she was their age, and the kids were delighted with the train itself - so different to what they had been on before. The train? A Thumper in NSE livery (beautifully turned out). It was as different to them as the GWR Prairie on a rake of Blue and Grey Mk2s in the other platform (and somewhat more authentic!).

    Steve B
     
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  20. Ruston906

    Ruston906 Member

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    There are preserved railways in switzerland that operate with over head power these might be narrow gauge but it does show it can be done. Most people living today can not remember mainline steam and you need to appeal to a wide a group of people as possible.
     
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