Swanage Railway General Discussion

A wonderfully put together bit of PR, however i fail to see the point of the evening DMU service being set down only at Herston, so how are the people staying at campsites/ b&b in herston supposed to get to use the service? And with the current bus subsidy being at £2 per single journey, maybee halving the£10 fare may well increase the uptake by more than 50%? Just saying

 

Yooms goin deaf me zunner, set down at Norden

 

I'm afraid you have that incorrect. It is set down at Norden only.

The railway cannot compete with bus subsidies. The service has been costed to be competitive whilst covering fuel costs etc. I believe it has carried approximately 1000 passengers so far....

 

Class 33s (BRCW type 3 65xx) started to receive BR Blue livery in April 1966.

 

oops, my bad misheard that!

 

Although I never got around to screenshotting it I am sure the original evening timetable had Norden as request stop in both directions. I did wonder how that worked if nobody wanted to go there in the up direction, how would you then request it in the down direction.
All looks good on the website now.

 

Don’t all trains have to stop at Norden anyway?

I guess what it means is that for the late services, if there is no-one still on the train after stopping at Corfe Castle, it can simply wait and then reverse there rather than go up to Norden and back.

Tom

 

That's my take on it Tom.

 

Now let's see how it really works!
The public timetable says some earlier services are scheduled to Norden and return, while later ones are on request with the return service starting from Corfe.
The working timetable largely agrees, with the returns from Norden on requested trains being shown as empty stock to Corfe. Simple so far.
But, the station announcements are run automatically by Realtime Trains, and they tell us that all trains run to Norden!
The crews, however, may interpret that lot as they fancy!

 

The class 33s that were converted for Push Pull operation were all painted blue when being rebuilt, with one exception, D6580 was the prototype and initially was still in green livery.

 

It would be really good to see the T3 in service again, such a stunning locomotive. Does anyone know when it is likely to run again, please? <BJ>

 

Coming a few decades forward from theT3 - about which I hope @free2grice gets a reply too, does anyone know if 34070 is still due to be working on Saturday and Sunday this weekend please?

Bryan B

 

It's far from certain I will be able to get to Swanage over the weekend - that is entirely dependant on how I sleep and wake up very early tonight or tomorrow night. But, in the event that anyone here in the know about 34070 and the Swange roster isn't online here today I rang Swanage at 13.30. I asked if Manston was on the roster still for the weekend and a polite response was it was working today, but she didn't know if it was due to work tomorrow. My follow up was obviously to ask if anyone down there knew, to which I got an immediate repsonse of "no".

The "no" was rather definite, so I politely thanked her and rang off.

A bit of a suprise to me that no one at Swanage knows if Manston is due to work tomorrow, or if another loco is due to be steamed to work the weekend. But how and when loco rosters are planned and implemented is certainly down to the Swanage Railway and not to me!

I don't normally spell out the detail of the modest financial contributions I make to SR steam operating heritage lines for my visits - visits that don't often see me doing any travelling behind the locos. But I will make an exception here.

On arrival on 3 August for 31806, after getting my initial photos and before the first train of the day left, I went to the Swanage booking office to buy a day rover ticket, asking if I could round the £27.50 up to £50 with a gift aided donation - I am well aware of the financial situation the railway is in. That wasn't possible but I was guided to the electonic donation machine on the platform where I was able to donate £25 - no mention of gift aiding that I could see on the menus offered.

So, when back home after a superb day just photographing 31806, I emailed the Swanage Railway for a gift aid form that I got within 24 hours and emailed back.

But I also felt that the wonderful day I had enjoyed there was worth a further donation, so I made a £50 donation (with gift aid to go on top, plus a bit over £6 extra to cover some sort of cost involved in making the donation), to the Save our Railway Fund. That made my total financial input over £108 - which I equated as the sort of ticket price I would have paid for a good steam hauled day on the main line.

Sorry, this is a bit long winded. But advance knowledge of me having a good chance of a day photographing a loco I particularly want to see in action will get me to go above and beyond the price of a day ticket - although I admit that will not often see my total exceed £100! But an excellent day with Manston over the coming weekend could have seen me moving towards that amount.

Maybe If I'm up to it over the weekend I'll now do the Mid-Hants again - it's only half the distance to drive. But I do plan to visit the Swange Railway again for the October Steam Gala.

Bryan B

 

If you phoned customer services on the NYMR no one there would be able to tell you what was working tomorrow and I think that would be the case on most heritage railways so the lady’s polite ‘no’ was probably correct. In the NYMR’s case a loco roster for tomorrow is produced by control each evening following discussion with the MPD and this is sent to the likes of customer services. However, it is not unknown for a version 2 and even a version 3 to supersede the original plan as locos come on shed in the evening or even during prep the next day.

 

So Bryan purely unscientific using a Mk1 eyeball (although I am sure the mob at Cabot Square would tell me it should be a Mk2 eyeball complete with wrap around specs or goggles). Neither 34028 or 31806 have been steamed, 31806 is now buried behind two of the dining set that have reappeared, 34028 and 08436. It also has the metal cover over the chimney. 34028 could I guess could be steamed for tomorrow but usually steaming starts Friday afternoon if the loco swap is a Saturday from past observations.
Probably does not help you at all.
Nearly has my head taken off by a Herring Gull on the way back across the car park. The regulators really should be doing something to protect railway photographers

 

I visit four of the SR heritage lines - Bluebell, Spa Valley, Mid-Hants and Swanage Railway. All but the Swanage Railway publish loco rosters for at least the week, with the usual caveat about availability etc - something that any steam loco enthusiast has to accept. So from what you say, maybe the Swanage Railway follow the same process as the NYMR. If that is the case, thank you for your response, maybe something I've learned today!

It's too far to drive without at least knowing what is rostered for the day - although @Gladiator 5076 has probably answered my question by a very simple visual examination. But I think I'll stick to only visiting on gala days when a list of likely locos is published in advance (including a full roster for the recent Bulleid event); and because those days have multiple locos working there is always likely to be one at least that will satisfy my narrow focus on BR era livery and numbered locos/loco classes that used to work on the Southern in the 1960s. That puts Swanage in the same class as the KESR for me, as they don't do a loco roster either.

Bryan B

 

Many thanks for that, very kind of you to take the trouble to check and give me your observations. If I lived a fair bit closer than 155 miles each way, I may well have decided to visit on the basis of your help - accepting that I may or may not have seen my target loco.

Instead, if I decide to go out over the weekend, input from @Nick C on the mid Hants thread here suggests that could provide me with some interest, especially with the two evening trains due to run.

As for the Herring Gulls, best to have an open pack of fish and chips to at least keep them away from your head!

Bryan B

 

You can have three out of four that meet those criteria next weekend at the Bluebell, Bryan . (And maybe 4 from 4 if a renumbering I saw on an early version of the roster was correct, though the railway’s own PR has been quiet on that front which makes me think it isn’t happening).

Tom

 

34070 is rostered steam loco this weekend, and next week.
34028 was steam tested yesterday following routine washout exam. It the spare.
31806 next planned use is September.

 

Very many thanks for that. If I can get down over the next week I'll do that - it's all down to the fact that I tend to work on steam loco or owl book stuff until late every night, so not in bed until near midnight. For a trip to Swanage I have to change my body clock and try and get to sleep several hours earlier than that for a very early morning start.

Thanks again.

Bryan B