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Swanage Railway General Discussion

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by Rumpole, Oct 10, 2012.

  1. DcB

    DcB Well-Known Member

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    Just saw Tornado and support coach on the Corfe webcam
     
  2. 6960 Raveningham Hall

    6960 Raveningham Hall Member Friend

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    Just been watching Eddystone running round its train at Swanage.
    Why is it carrying a wreath on the smoke box door?

    And Tornado has just arrived at Swanage station.
     
  3. DcB

    DcB Well-Known Member

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    From FB might be for a deceased supporter, but nothing official about who it was?.
     
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  4. Gladiator 5076

    Gladiator 5076 Part of the furniture

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    A few images of the visit by Tornado yesterday. None will win any awards fro photographic merit, but a record on an interesting afternoon none the less.
    Weather got progressively worse over the afternoon as well.
    Through the encroaching vegetation at Creech
    Loco and support coach approaching Afflington Bridge.
    Swanage shed and station area plus the service train departing at 15:30.
    Crossing Bridge 21 with support coach near Afflington Farm.
    57313 with Tornado on the rear at Holme Lane.

    I understand the train was around 275 metres long with the two locos and the support coach. I reckon if it had run into Swanage the diesel would have been somewhere the other side of Swan Brook! I assume this is one reason it did not go to Weymouth as it would have been too long for the track circuits. IMG_6628.JPG IMG_6637.JPG IMG_6641.JPG IMG_6653.JPG IMG_6656.JPG IMG_6661.JPG IMG_6666.JPG IMG_6671.JPG IMG_6676.JPG IMG_6679.JPG
     
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  5. jnc

    jnc Well-Known Member

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    All things considered, the NP crowd seems to be fairly civil to Paul, considering how often he bangs that drum. I suspect this is because most people realize he's doing this because he genuinely feels that way (i.e. his goal is not simply to make trouble), and his position (large engines are not an accurate portrayal of what would have run over the line 'back in the day'; not a negligible point, given that many heritage lines have as an explicit major goal to be an accurate living museum of how it was BITD) is not wholly unreasonable. I think most people are inclined to put that loss of accuracy in the same bin as having modernish lavatories in the stations; yes, it's not perfectly accurate, but all things considered, it's a reasonable accommodation with current reality.

    Noel
     
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  6. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    On the point in bold, it is also worth remembering that large locos were a feature of many current heritage lines in pre-preservation days. Certainly Bulleid Pacifics we’re known, pre-pres, on each of the Bluebell, Swanage, Mid Hants, Spa Valley. The authenticity point needs to be seen in the context of what the photo evidence shows, not what you’d like it to show. There is photo evidence for a Bulleid and nine bogie carriages on the Bluebell: there is no evidence for Dukedog and Mets. Which personally I don’t have a problem with, but if you are going to make an argument, it needs to be a consistent one. Authenticity is one such argument. High seats-per-ton carriages hauled by small locos is another. But they aren’t necessarily both consistent.

    Tom
     
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  7. jnc

    jnc Well-Known Member

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    Right; but statistically I think they were fairly rare on most of them back then (the GCR and the GWSR might be exceptions).

    Noel
     
  8. 61624

    61624 Part of the furniture

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    Where Paul's obsession falls to the ground is that there is barely a heritage railway in the country that authentically represents the way it was, however much they like to give the impression that they do. For most, the stirring of nostalgia for a now almost vanished era is the best that they can do, making the best use of what material they can. He champions the IoWSR as the paragon of this approach and it is true, but it was the beneficiary of some fairly unique opportunities where other lines were not so fortunate, and are forced to use less appropriate rolling stock, but does that make them any less worthy? For example would he prefer that the NYMR should remain closed because there was no A* and LNER/NER non-corridor stock left when the opportunity arose to preserve the line, or that rather more people want to travel on the line nowadays than could be accommodated by the service levels operated prior to closure? We can't have both whether we want to or not - one version would be uneconomical, the other requires bigger trains and bigger engines to pull them. We are fortunate to have so many lines of good variety. even if a lot more could be done to improve the offering. Admittedly there are some whose demise would not (imho) be cause for much, (if any!), wailing or gnashing of teeth but they provide their supporters and visitors with plenty of harmless fun, and if they really are unsustainable, whether by fares alone or by fares and fundraising, in the long term then market forces will weed them out and may strengthen the position of the healthier ones. Till then, live and let live I say - and accept that the situation we are in is one where, in reality, we had very little control over how it has been arrived at.
     
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  9. free2grice

    free2grice Part of the furniture Friend

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    Not forgetting the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway at Midsomer Norton.

    I can recall Bude and Biggin Hill passing the station double-headed on the final weekend of operations . <BJ>
     
  10. 5914

    5914 New Member

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    Even with this criteria - of regular usage rather than occasional workings - light pacifics, 5MTs etc were a regular sight at Swanage on trains of 5+ coaches - certainly in the summer months, and on through trains. Likewise, the local and semi-fast services regularly seem to have been 3-6 coaches hauled by the same motive power between Bournemouth and Dorchester/Weymouth (and certainly not all of these were continuations of through trains from Waterloo). So in Swanage terms a light pacific hauling 4-5 coaches is prototypical both of trains on the branch, and regular workings locally - using the engines for one of the jobs they were built for (or at least used for from the time they were built!). Locos such as the M7s were generally used on 2-3 coach workings, on which they were replaced by Standard 4MTs/Ivatt 2MT tanks.

    Using the criteria of using the same sort of locos as would have been used (presumably as being fit-for-purpose, and economic) the following would apply at Swanage:
    2-3 coach trains - M7, Ivatt2 or 4MT tank
    4+ coaches - 4MT tender, 5 MT tender, Light pacific
     
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  11. ruddingtonrsh56

    ruddingtonrsh56 Member

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    I seem to remember something on NP a while back (a quick search hasn't yielded any results though) suggestion Swanage had done some calculations on fuel costs of running different locos for a day (comparing the Bulleids with the 4MT tanks, U, T9 and M7) and the conclusion was the Bulleids weren't really any more expensive to run than the 4MTs or U and actually the M7 was the most costly to run? So, assuming I haven't imagined that, isn't the idea that big locos are more expensive not always 100% true?
     
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  12. 21B

    21B Part of the furniture

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    As always in life and particularly with railways it depends. I can demonstrate quite convincingly that there is a significant cost to running a Bulleid compared to a number of other types. Fuel is not the only consideration either
     
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  13. johnofwessex

    johnofwessex Resident of Nat Pres

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    Didnt @Jamessquared make a statement to the effect that even in Southern days M7's were expensive to run?
     
  14. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    Relative to other comparable SR engines, yes they were - considerably more expensive in running and maintenance costs than an H or an Adams O2 for example. That was in the 1930s of course, with rather different economics. In today's world, it is hard to make too many statements, since the loco operating cost is dominated by the overhaul costs, and with every loco unique, you don't get the statistically large numbers to even out those costs. You can have the cheapest loco in the world on coal consumption but if the next overhaul needs new frames, cylinders or wheels, or a new firebox, or some combination of several of those, there is no getting any from a massive bill (and therefore future high per-mile operating cost). One of the reasons (amongst several) why I tend to think using grate area as a proxy for operating cost misses the point.

    Tom
     
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  15. MellishR

    MellishR Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    If overhaul costs were a smaller proportion of total costs in the days of regular steam operation (and before the decline in the 50s and 60s), what factors have made them dominant now? Is it mainly the loss of the economy of scale at the large locomotive works?
     
  16. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    And at Shillingstone. Alongside a 9F, 7F

    A Jubilee would be authentic at the AVR as would (I think) a Royal Scot.

    A3 totally authentic on the GCR.

    An Ivatt or an industrial - totally inauthentic for the IOW.
     
  17. Mogul

    Mogul Member

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    Economy of scale, increase of labor costs (where paid labor is used) but mostly annual mileage of an average heritage loco. A swanage loco will only work a few months a year when closed periods & long washout breaks are taken into consideration. Even that is between 10am and 4.30pm. BITD they tried to work a loco dawn to dusk 365.

    A bigun is more work to overhaul than a littleun, all other things being equal.
     
  18. 5914

    5914 New Member

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    Quite correct. Not sure if this was what was being referred to, but a lifetime cost analysis for locos at Swanage (which also included information on locos on some other railways were it was comparable) some years ago indicated that in terms of operating costs there was not much between a light pacific and 4MT, whilst overhaul costs (both intermediate and full) were far more 'lumpy' (depending on when significant components came due for renewal). One of the largest factors on coal/water consumption was not the loco but the crew... As a general rule, it was found that the intermediate overhaul costs (largely mechanical) on the larger locos was often lower as they were working well within their capacity, whilst those for smaller locos was often more significant as the 'wear-and-tear' tended to be greater for the same work. (Indeed, the overhaul costs of smaller locos was in some cases higher than that for larger ones - purely due to the age of components and need for greater renewals).
    However, this was all with the proviso that analysis was limited by the fact that most locos concerned had not been through multiple full overhauls so the impact of the long-term cycle was not easy to see.
    So far as it could be discerned the empirical evidence was that over a full cycle there was little difference between a smaller loco (e.g. M7/4MT) and a light pacific. However, crew training on economical working was a far greater factor in costs across the whole cycle of the life of an overhaul. The other factor that was present, but may now be stronger was the ability to turn around the overhauls of light pacifics due to the ability of Southern Locomotives to benefit from some of the advantages of having a 'fleet' with inter-changable parts - something seen more recently (and also at Swanage) with the turnaround of the U.
     
  19. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    The other point is the mileage between overhauls, because the cost of an overhaul then gets spread across that mileage to get a per mile operating cost. You are better spending £300k on a loco that will run 75,000 miles before its next heavy overhaul than spending £200k on one that will only do 40,000 miles - provided of course the traffic is available to support the mileage.

    A lot of overhaul cost is fixed, regardless of the work: stripping down and reassembly, for a given size loco, occurs regardless of what you do in between. So you want to do that as little as possible. A consistent trend across many heritage lines is to run smaller fleets with higher mileage per loco: that is all about minimising those fixed costs of overhaul and therefore reducing the per mile operating cost. The halcyon days of the 1980s when many railways had large fleets of low annual mileage locos are I suspect gone forever. If you can do the same annual mileage with five overhauls in ten years as you previously managed with ten in ten years, you are going to go down that path - with a smaller fleet.

    Tom
     
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  20. twr12

    twr12 Well-Known Member

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    The longevity of M7s in service suggests that that running and maintenance costs were not the only consideration for SR & BR. I
     

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