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Swanage Railway General Discussion

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

  1. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    Such work is generally done under cover, as it is at the Bluebell, Isle of Wight etc. But the point is that under cover storage is not the same as under cover workshop. On the Bluebell we essentially have four, somewhat contiguous, C&W facilities: storage for out-of-use vehicles; storage for operational vehicles; under cover maintenance facilities and under cover overhaul facilities (plus associated shops such as trimming workshop, pattern stores etc). That’s a lot of building, and still less than we need!

    Tom
     
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  2. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

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    Indeed, we are lucky to have good workshop facilities, but dealing with wooden bodied coaches would be a step change too far for us I suspect! We too eagerly await the day we can have a carriage shed to put our rakes in to protect them from the weather after all our hard work restoring them.
     
  3. 80104

    80104 Member

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    The vast majority of customers (I would say 90%+ but based on observation only) only "care" that it is a steam locomotive and what appears to be an appropriate carriage. They are indifferent to which specific steam loco (or class of loco) or carriage.

    Whilst I personally like both the Bulleids and Maunsell, the reality is that SRC needs maximum seated capacity to deliver the best possible customer experience who imho would place having a seat above the "experience" of a Bulleid carriage.
     
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  4. 61624

    61624 Part of the furniture

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    I don't think the SR carriage shed will be for anything but storage, and doesn't look to be bigger than is required for the service stock so the railway will still be desperately short of workshop space for maintaining or restoring carriages.
     
  5. DcB

    DcB Well-Known Member

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    Having a read of the fundraising update in the Spring Swanage Railway magazine they detail the frustration on the delay of the Carriage shed and say that work will start November 2022 with cladding by March 2023.
    They also say a development plan for projects, including the water tower, is being worked on. Hopefully will be published.

    In a YouTube video talk the push pull carriages will be restored after the current refurbishment is done (assuming funds). Then the 6 wheel LSWR carriages.

    They seem to be using Ramparts engineering under contract for the difficult work that needs to be done under cover.

    If a minimum of 5 working steam locos are required , presume a long term development plan for locos will be done with the various owner groups and specialist contractors?
     
    Last edited: Apr 21, 2022
  6. 80104

    80104 Member

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    So a fleet of 5? That could be the M7, T3 plus the 3 Moguls. No need for the Bulleids or Standard 4MT :(
     
  7. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    Well, until they go out of ticket of course! If you want five available, your actual fleet has to be larger - so still space for those others.

    Tom
     
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  8. 30854

    30854 Resident of Nat Pres

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    Don't forget there's a rejuvenated T3 looming, just out of sight over the horizon. :)
     
  9. ruddingtonrsh56

    ruddingtonrsh56 Member

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    You mean the T3 that is mentioned in the post you quoted? ;)
     
  10. 30854

    30854 Resident of Nat Pres

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    So it was ..... I'm evidently having an off day! :(
     
  11. Rumpole

    Rumpole Part of the furniture

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    That's the key; a nominal fleet of 5 'in ticket' locos in practice means a larger fleet to allow for overhauls, particularly with overhauls taking longer and costing more than they ever have before.
     
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  12. 80104

    80104 Member

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    Well yes but my question is how many steam locos do SRC actually need given the following (hopefully I have this about correct).

    (1) SRC steam hauled passenger services operate about 250 days a year.
    (2) Of those about 70 days are two steam locos in passenger service days.
    (3) In addition there are some steam hauled dining train days C60 but some are in the evening (and thus can use the "day" loco) whereas some are lunchtime (and need a second steam loco). BUT when the two steam train passenger service is in operation the pathing does not allow a lunchtime dining train so on no day is a third steamer needed.
    (4) A steam loco can operate between 21 and 28 days before being withdrawn for a washout etc which takes it out of service for C7 days.

    This all equates to about 360 steam loco days per annum.
    This if there are 4 locos in the operational fleet this equals 90 days service per loco on average, 5 locos in the op fleet 72 service days per loco.

    Given a boiler ticket is nominally for 10 years, and that a full overhaul appears to take many years how many locos do you need in the op fleet and how many in the being restored "fleet"?
     
  13. 5914

    5914 New Member

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    Whilst some years old, various strategic planning documents from around about 2005 indicated the following:
    - for the service requirements of the time (not that different from now) an 'in service' fleet of five locos was required (including locos on routine maintenance and with provision for intermediate overhauls during the winter months), with an anticipation that this would be drawn from an overall fleet of 8-10 locos, allowing for full overhauls
    - for carriages it was anticipated that carriages would work on a five-year cycle of intermediate and full overhauls - drawing on external contractors for some full overhauls due to the lack of space (this was posited on any carriage shed being for storage only, which I think is a planning condition - this would also mean that the service sets would almost certainly be stabled elsewhere overnight to allow power and water for servicing

    At about the same time there was some exploration of whether there was capacity (both human and in terms of locations/plant) to do more intensive loco and carriage work on the railway. The conclusion was that it would be practically difficult to develop the appropriate plant within the footprint of land available to the railway, and that the commercial case of having more specialist was dependent on gaining contract work from other railways as there was not enough to sustain the employment of specialists by the railway for its own work alone.

    As for the various projects in progress:
    - Project Wareham - taking a long time, but understandable delay to 2023 given the impact of COVID on the core business and the wider economic outlook
    - Water Tower project - an opportunistic acquisition from Salisbury when it was available which was the correct thing to save a historic structure. However, difficulties with extraction from the much reduced flow of the Swan Brook post flood abatement scheme, compared with when BR extracted water from it in the 1950s
    - Moguls - an appropriate arrangement, with the likelihood of all locos being in use together being, at best, a rare eventuality (in my opinion)
    - T3 - again, an opportunity not to be missed, and being progressed at a steady speed
    - 4TC - being progressed at a steady pace by its group under the umbrella of SRT as resources allow
    - Heritage Coaches - progressing as funding and volunteer input allows - a long, long-term project...

    For the still future possible projects:
    - Furzebrook - entirely out of the hands of SRC/SRT as this is a matter between the local mineral authority, local transport authority (as the only realistic justification for varying the planning could be its benefit to public transport infrastructure) and the oil-field developer who owns the site, still uses part of it and has an obligation to return it to its previous condition once the oilfield ceases production
    - second turntable - someone needs to invent some land for it to go on, as there is physically no space large enough for it!
     
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  14. Gladiator 5076

    Gladiator 5076 Part of the furniture

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    Just out of interest, apart from money and time, what happened to the 2013 plans (which was before we moved down here) for the turntable to be located at Herston, roughly opposite where the carriage shed will be?
    As someone who lives on Victoria Ave and is in what the EA still claim is a flood zone (and hence pays an excessive insurance premium because of it), perhaps the reduced water in Swan Brook is a good thing!
     

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  15. 5914

    5914 New Member

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    The railway doesn't own the land, and events didn't deliver it to them. (The cost of 'bridging' the HP gas main, would also have been a practical - and cost - issue)
     
  16. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    Working out optimum loco requirements on a heritage railway is tricky, since the service is inherently "peaky" (weekends busier than mid week; summer and Christmas busier than e.g. February or November etc) and overhaul times are difficult to predict in what is a cottage industry rather than a major industry.

    But, finger in the air: let's say your normal (non-gala) regular requirement is three locos at some point in the week. Say a weekend 2 train service with dining train - that only happens every Sunday, but it defines your normal requirement.

    So you need 3 locos in steam each week. A washout makes a fourth (but actually means you have three weeks to wash out each loco, which is more realistic than 7 days, and makes the process more amenable to being at least part done by volunteers only available at weekends).

    Then, if you aim to get > 40,000 or so miles per loco in ten years, you will have to do at least one intermediate p&v exam, regardless of any other intermediate maintenance. That will take a loco out of traffic for several months.

    So now you have a requirement for five locos nominally in traffic to meet a weekend requirement for three, but you have no contingency for the "law of sod" when a spring breaks or a superheater element starts blowing. So ideally you need 6 locos in your core fleet, though I guess you could say 5 steam and allow a class 33 to be your "law of sod" replacement. That also assumes all locos do the same basic duties (within reason), i.e. this is not wrapping cotton wool round the T3. If you wanted to do that (and I'm not saying you should, just that some might think you should) then you have to take it out of the calculation, i.e. 5 locos + 1 for the law of sod + one you are caressing as a pet, which makes seven in total.

    Let's take 6 as your optimum working number; those are mostly medium or large tank or tender engines. (Bulleid pacifics, Standard 4, Moguls). Boiler tickets nominally last ten years but it is hard to get a fleet-wide average of ten years out of every overhaul; firstly because at the end everything starts wearing out and you get into considerations of which of several issues might cause a loco to fail; secondly because entry into service is rarely at the optimum time. So we'll take 9 years as a good figure; that means you have to be able to restore a loco every 18 months.

    In principle I guess you could work solidly on one loco for 18 months then move to the next, so you only need one more than your operating requirement. In practice, things rarely work like that (it gives no contingency if, for example, you have to wait for boiler shop capacity if done outside; but if you bring that inside then it means your boiler shop will have periods of no work to do after finishing one boiler but before the next loco is tripped down). So I suspect you probably need about three in hand. That would give the Swanage Railway a core requirement of about 8 or 9 locos, with 5 - 6 in service and about 3 under some stage of overhaul at any one time (maybe two being actively worked on and one being conserved / stripped ready to enter the workshop).

    Oh, and that is before you get into the vagaries of ownership, which drives funding availability ...

    Tom
     
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  17. Sunnieboy

    Sunnieboy New Member

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    Tom

    As a non steam/locomotive but general engineer helping in a small way to keep these beasts running, thanks for a detailed analysis of the complexity of keeping a fleet of engines available for a Railway.

    Sunnie

    Sent from my SM-P610 using Tapatalk
     
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  18. 80104

    80104 Member

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    Yes thank you for that very detailed explanation.

    I think it just deepens my concern as to the sustainability of the very considerable level of both human and financial resource required for SRC to run the service levels / offering it historically has, especially given the additional resource required to deliver the various in progress projects not least Project Wareham.

    I do wonder, and I sincerely hope that this does not come to pass, if SRC will have to reduce the level of steam loco requirement to one a day (and no more) with additional traction being provided by the (presumably) less costly Class 33 or DMUs depending on the job in hand.

    It may well be that given fixed costs and economies of scale that the difference between say a total fleet of 9 locos (6 in service and 3 at some stage of overhaul) or 8 locos (5 in service and 3 in overhaul) is minimal and therefore the bigger fleet is preferred thus the current offering can be sustained notwithstanding the price of coal.
     
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  19. Matt37401

    Matt37401 Nat Pres stalwart

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    95702A6D-DA77-4AFA-A9F5-342AE5C0F081.jpeg
    I will get my wallet out for those projects that interest me and those that I feel that are deserving of my support, they might not necessarily be railway oriented, but I will try to help and support them in any way I feel I can.
    What I will not have is someone telling me what I should or shouldn’t spend my hard earned cash on.
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2022
  20. Paul42

    Paul42 Part of the furniture

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    Screenshot_20220422-082002.png I look forward to using it on my next visit .
     

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