Swanage Railway General Discussion

I think this 'A' board used to be used during the period we took over operating Norden Park & Ride car park from Purbeck District Council - many years ago.
Strangely it is pictured at the end of Swanage platform propped against the [I think] seasonal 'overflow' shop.
Very odd in many respects.

 

The timetable for the Winter Warm Up is a new timetable, never run before. It was actually originally drafted as a 50-minute interval timetable, but was eased out to hourly to make it more resilient and to allow for the shuttle (Up one hour, Down the next) to give a little more interest.

 

With a window of opportunity between driver experience and Santa's, the P Way department are doing a deep dig at Swanage, drainage, re sleepering, reballasting and tamping. Luckily it's gorgeous weather. Not.

 

Sounds really positive and the Corfe shuttles I find always make the day more interesting with a mix of through and terminating.

Looking at the works at Swanage its always cool to watch. The T3 in steam has sat itself again the stock in the bay platform. Does anyone know why its in steam ??

 

My guess (and just a guess) would be to test the steam heating on the Xmas set for any leaks.
No issues I could see on a walk to and from the post box where the old Post Office used to be.

 

Steam. Heat? That's like saying Garlic Bread or Cheese cake, a cake made of cheese! Ridiculous

 

Looking at the works at Swanage. Was it very confirmed whether a 6 car loop would fit in while also changing the point to a double slip?

 

It would fit, potentially if other works took place (there has always been talk of moving the signal box steps to accommodate it, how accurate this is I wouldn't like to say), but it is not part of the scope of the present works.

 

Well done the Purbeck Lines P Way dept. Looks like no rail replacement bus service is required

 

I could be wrong but looking at replacement track at Swanage from the Webcam, have they sharpened the loop curve a tiny bit to make the loop slightly longer?

Not saying by much but looks to be maybe 20-50cm longer or is the track in exactly the same place ?

 

Not saying it hasn’t changed, but I’d be amazed if you could detect that just from looking at a webcam - 20cm represents about the width of a sleeper!

Tom

 

As the point work has not changed I doubt very much the loop has been lengthened, I do however think that the alignment has been pushed out a bit to ease the curve.

 

Get you micrometer out.
Before and yesterday.

 

Thanks Gary, yep definitely at least 37 microns further out

 

Is the timetable available yet?

Thanks

Don

 

I assume based on timings, 47 minutes for the return trip that the Santa trips are top and tailed, I assume with a 33 as happened on the Polar Express the last two years?

 

Yes - it’s a 7 coach set with a Crompton on the Wareham end and a steam engine on the Swanage end.

 

Thnaks for the info.

 

Morning everyone, nice to see some class 33 action over the xmas period.
Historically am I right in thinking it was it only ever 4 Santa specials per day? I know it was only 1 steam so they had to do some shunting at Swanage which added complexity and time.

Hope the trains make a good profit margin. The ones this week seem to only have a handful of tickets sold, with almost 2,000 empty seats over the two days which doesn't look great for this weekends revenue on top of having to spend money on a 2nd service train.


More positive news, they seem to be clearing some some items by Herston/Nordon with two sets of bogies being up for sale.

 

If the railway had three 33's we could have had a truly festive "HO, HO, HO"