Southwold Railway

* - and as it happens, an unelected one! J

 

So the question is, how did he get on the Council?

 

Co-opted- if there's a vacancy, and only one candidate comes forward for it, they can do that without an election. Perfectly legal - but a tad irritating for us! And all our local elections have been postponed (we are supposed to be becoming a unitary authority at some stage), so said Councillor will not have to submit himself to the electorate for another year at least J

 

Today the Suffolk County Council granted the Public Right of Way application by a number of Blythburgh residents - along the original railway trackbed. They claim a 3m width, and are unwilling to compromise with us in any way (we have offered alternative and better routes, and also offered to share the trackbed with the footpath). We expected this, and will immediately be applying for a footpath diversion (which will doubtless take several years). We also have other plans....!
A little irritating, but very much what we have come to expect. Luckily, none of this affects our recent win with the Heritage Centre. James

 

Oh James, I'm so sorry. 3m? That's not a footpath, it's a road. How fat are these people? And between 1929 and now, they never even thought about it. It's mean, petty and parochial pearl-clutching of the first order.

 

Thanks Mark. Yep, we made that point.... but they insist on their right for two motorised wheelchairs to pass, not to speak of their large numbers of incompatible dogs to be kept apart.... Their attitude is "how dare you even think about putting a nasty dirty noisy railway in OUR village - and it'll attract TOURISTS" (which are of course anathema around here). Sadly, even though we know that this is a spoiler, we can't say so, as we can't prove it...... One of our volunteers did try to attend the PC meetings a while ago, and was told to leave in a remarkably unpleasant way (which is, AFAIK, not entirely legal) - and then they complained that we were not consulting with them! That's Suffolk for you - Norfolk has a very different attitude, by and large. James

 

Sorry to hear this. I hope things improve and they reconsider your compromise.

 

Sorry to hear this, James. You could wind them up even more by telling them you are to apply for a compulsory purchase order for all the trackbed, better have a few ambulances and crash teams available when you do

 

Yep - would be "interesting", although just owning it doesn't solve planning - the Southwold Railway Trust have owned a very nice half-mile of trackbed at Wenhaston for years - I helped to clear and fence it - but SRT have never been allowed to do anything with it....much of the railway is in a National Landscape (ex Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty), with concomitant extra difficulty.
I was in Eryri when the FR's CP order went thro' (with their TWAO) and the Port. pubs were - well - loud and lively about it.....
Our own landlord at Blythburgh owns all the SR trackbed from just west of Walberswick Station to about a mile west of Blythburgh Station, and is very positive about the railway, so we of course wouldn't want to take any such step with him! James

 

Sorry to hear that, James - good luck for the diversion application.

good grief - 3m ! - does seem very wide, but that's the same width as the proposed cycle-path for a proposed diversion on the A68 at Toft Hill.

 

Thats good, has the issue of selling it to you guys ever come up?

 

Very unlikely - Suffolk landowners don't usually sell their land if they can avoid it.... However, we do now have a 30-year lease on the first half mile of trackbed from Blythburgh station westwards, which will certainly give us a good chunk to get our teeth into (even that section has multiple problems, with very close neighbours, a public footpath crossing necessitating a TWAO, a very narrow section where there is really no room for a path and the railway, and a sewer pipe right down the centre of the track!) All solvable - but not quickly and not cheaply J

 

On Thursday HSNGR volunteers re-started work at Walberswick Station. Scrub and brambles were removed. The picture shows our long-time volunteer Charlie: he is seated on a memorial bench which is affixed to the station building base.
The idea is to re-instate a section of the platform alongside the existing base of the station building, and then to add the running-in board and an information board so that the (alleged) 17,000 passers-by per year can understand that part of railway history. And - before yo ask - yes of course we'd like to restore the whole station (as we are in the process of doing at Blythburgh), but the owners are unenthusiastic about that at the moment. One of our wishes as a charity is to have as much restoration along the line (inevitably in various small parts) done as possible, by the 2029 anniversary of the original closure. James

 

I was up at Blythburgh a week or so ago between the rain, and was very impressed, @James Hewett . Are you planning on burrowing under the A12 and going back to Walberswick as well?

 

Thanks very much Tobbes - we have a very good station team! If you had seen that site six years ago......
Re. your enquiry - short answer is that that's for the next generation.
Long answer -

• The land there is sand, so physically possible - but as it's a trunk road the Highways Agency would be very unhappy - and it would cost millions.
• Such a "tunnel-under" would require diversion of the road - and there's really nowhere to divert it to
• It would also mean completely trashing the historic station, to accommodate the gradient
• Immediately opposite the road the trackbed becomes a very long-established public footpath, and much of it is scarcely wide enough for a railway and a path
• That's in the Southwold direction, and of all the towns along the valley, Southwold is the most opposed to railway restoration (think of Parracombe but larger, richer, more influential)

But - never say never! Our plan is to extend westwards for now (and that is hard enough....) and get the local community used to having their own heritage railway (I am tempted to say "whether they want it or not...").
James

 

Is that due to the "Notting Hill-on-Sea" contingent, I wonder?

 

Well - could be......
News update: We have now received our third (well - really three-and-a-hafth) locomotive - a (privately-owned) Ruston 48DLG of 1957. It's now at a workshop in Norfolk, and it will be dismantled to see and sort out the engine condition - then have air brakes and electric start added. And a cab!
Our USP is solar-charged trains (with a Greenwood and Batley loco) - but we needed a back-up, and something more powerful for our growing collection of rolling stock.
The volunteers have been extending a siding to take all that stock - and also clearing Walberswick station (see previous post).
James

 

IRS mailing list mentioned RH 418803, so I assume it's this one?

 

Yes mdewell - that's the one. A rare three-foot-gauge R&H, in reasonable condition. Photo published before, but no harm doing it again.
I used to enjoy the Rustons at the WHR Ltd. (Gelert's Farm) - including 'Glaslyn' - but I have to admit that my preference for heavy shunting would be a Motor Rail. Still - it is only Rustons that you can drive walking alongside as if they are horses (well - not nowadays, of course!)
There may be problems in one cylinder - but in my experience these are usually solvable - it's the original engine.
James PS - it's younger than me....

 

James, not wishing to fill Southwold up with redundant 3ft gauge locos, but has anyone given some serious thought about acquiring one or two locos from Ireland? I read somewhere that if you are a registered charity, the BnM might consider you as an appropriate location to donate a heritage loco or two.