Bluebell Railway General Discussion

I think you are probably letting your enthusiast heart get in the way of your practical head!

Suppose the line was blocked between Haywards Heath and East Croydon. That section of line takes about 30 minutes by train normally, and would take about 50 minutes for a bus replacement (according to Google).

If you went by train - probably 15 minutes HH to HK; 15 minutes HK to Kingscote; at least 15 minutes Kingscote to East Grinstead including allowing time to get into the Network Rail station. That's 45 minutes already, and then you have another 36 minutes by rail from East Grinstead to East Croydon. So from a passenger point of view, a bus replacement is at least 30 minutes quicker than going round by train. Add to that, the maximum service frequency would be two trains per hour each way (and that would be seriously pushing it from a reliability point of view - a forty minute interval service is more reliable) on the Bluebell section, without thinking how you would dovetail with the regular East Grinstead traffic.

Then there is the issue of route knowledge, which would probably require regular trips along the Bluebell to maintain competency for the mainline crews.

And then what happens if the emergency closure of the Brighton mainline happens to be on one of the 275 or so days in the year when the Bluebell is running its own service - at which point any line capacity goes out of the window.

A bus replacement starts to look a lot more practical!

I guess one possibility might be for any northbound aggregate train to depart north via the Bluebell, rather than going to Haywards Heath and then reversing, but I think the viaducts north of East Grinstead might put the kibosh on that, and in any case, I think the limiting factor is line capacity at East Croydon, which would be the same on either route.

Tom

 

I think Burminster has their lubricants mixed up. Bulleid and Maunsell stock use oil as do plain bearing MK1s. It is roller bearing stock which usually uses grease. This grease is high temp high spec not the rancid fat used on some early freight stock which the poster may be having confusion with..

 

Tom - you forgot to mention where the HK and Kingscote signalmen and staff at EG to open the gates are sudenly going to apear from on a non running day

 

A small selection of photos from the Jon Bowers photo charter with 45231 today can be found at http://paulsimpson.zenfolio.com/p222633982

 

Indeed. Nor what happens if NR suffer a line blockage (most likely in the winter) and need to press the Bluebell into service quickly, while we have our own line shut for infrastructure reasons, which are likely to become more common in the coming years.

Tom

 

Amazing if true, but I gather from a discussion about 508s that the tight curvature of the tunnel is quite restrictive when it comes to carriage length - the roughly 16m 503 vehicles were a similar length to most tube stocks, but the 150 and 508 are 20m long and the 158 is 23m.


Chris

 

What you say is quite right, but as in the case for opening the LSWR route through Okehampton it would be an alternative even if it"s longer.

 

I think the two cases are entirely different. In the case of Okehampton, a major city (Plymouth) and all of a whole county becomes entirely cut-off from the rest of the rail Network if there is disruption on the Dawlish line. The same is hardly true of Brighton if there is disruption on the Brighton Mainline, and in any case using the Bluebell would only help if the disruption was in a very specific place, between Copyhold Junction and East Croydon. The last serious problem on the "5 and 9" I recall was the partial collapse of metalwork in Balcombe Tunnel, and a diversion via Horsted Keynes would not have helped at all.

Tom

 

The potential situation at Haywards Heath would be very different from that at East Grinstead.

At East Grinstead, for all practical purposes, it is irrelevant that we are mainline connected. There is an entirely separate ground frame (which I, like probably 99% of the other volunteers, am not authorised to use) to connect to NR. For all practical operations, we just run into our own station, uncouple and run round in the normal way, with the loco crew operating the points and signals from a second ground frame. The fact that ten yards away on the other side of a platform and fence there is an electrified line is of little practical consequence, at least to loco crew (it does provide issues for the design of our S&T).

Whereas, in one scheme I saw for Haywards Heath, the run round involved going onto a Network Rail loop line. You would be doing coupling and uncoupling adjacent to a 3rd rail, and the signalling would be under the direct control of NR. For some of the distance between the station and Copyhold Junction, you would be running directly on a 3rd rail electrified line. That is a radically different proposition to what we have at EG.

The only line I can think of that makes regular trips on Network Rail metals is the NYMR. Steve, Bean Counter and others have described elsewhere the operating and technical challenges of doing so, which are considerable. But, with all respect, Grosmont - Whitby is just a fairly quiet single-track backwater, not so different in character from the rest of the NYMR. The issues of running heritage line trains on a busy electrified mainline to London is of a different order of magnitude.

Tom

 

I think you misunderstand. I was comparing Horsted Keynes (HK) to EG not Haywards Heath as HK would be the interface between standard and electrified line if the whole Ardingly branch was electrified. If the branch was reserved for electric stock it would provide a facility that isn't currently available on preserved lines within the UK as well as mitigating the problems with running over a partially electrified line. It would require space for a separate platform at HK in a similar manner to EG where BB's platform is separate from Network Rail. Through running would be the exception rather than the norm (again like EG). There could be S&T problems but if they can be solved at EG then why not HK?

As for threelinkdave's query about employing a traction current engineer I wonder if Crich Tramway Museum requires a specialist engineer for the slightly lower voltage used for their running track.

 

A selection of my photos to add to Paul's superb collection and video to follow soon once uploaded to Youtube. Many Thanks to Jon for getting permission to have the nameplates removed from 45231 and the crews/staff for yesterday's excellent day.

https://picasaweb.google.com/105454...231PhotoCharterBluebellRailwayFebruary262014#

Cheers

 

I doubt that the IWSR would feel able to take the whole thing on. Thinking about it, the line would change from 5 miles to over 15, loco mileage would go up massively, then any a 'public service obligation' (ie running early or late trains) was thought of that would put a big strain on staffing and maintenance...even if we just took it over as a ready made extension, removed the old power supply, scrapped the mole trains, the permanent way maintenance alone would be huge.

I am sure if offered the chance some sort of 'Whitby specials' equivalent could be worked up (ie the odd train Haven St-Ryde-Shanklin and back) on certain days of the year, but I doubt the line could be taken over wholesale.

 

With all this talk of trains to HH, has the Bluebell thought of buying the 3 car EMU on sale from the Epping Ongar Railway? That plus "Gordon Pettitt" could then be used as loco hauled stock on the Ardingly branch and it would be much easier to get any running rights over Network Rail metals if needed. Just a thought.

Edwin C.

 

Thanks, and I add my thanks to Jon, Ian Wright ( but not the jokes/humour which just get worse), the crews and other volunteers.

 

To be honest, at the moment Grosmont -Whitby is a much quieter and less potentially hazardous stretch than the NYMR proper. Although, in theory, a Northern train could be occupying the present platform at Whitby, the reality of it is the line is effectively one engine in steam. No signalling (excluding stop boards) no crossing of trains and only one level crossing to worry about. This will change when platform 2 comes into use and trains start to cross at Grosmont but it will still be a quiet stretch of railway with little potential for significant incident.

 

No they don't, they are exactly the same jokes every year … It's just your tolerance level might be changing

Tom

 

To be fair, this story has cropped up in the press but doesn't mean it is imminent. I'd have thought it will be at least ten years before we are in Ardingly, and probably longer before we are in HH. In the circumstances, buying a unit - which would have to be stored and maintained in that time (not to mention actually paid for!) would seem premature.

Tom

 

I'm not an S&T engineer, but as I understand, Horsted Keynes is signalled with 12V DC track circuits (and the resignalling has only just finished). Those track circuits are incompatible with an 3rd rail electrified line, or even in close proximity. North of Kingscote uses 24V AC track circuits for precisely that reason (even though the line isn't electrified, there is apparently ground leakage for a distance of about 2km from the third rail, which takes you most of the way to Kingscote). So laying a third rail would mean re-signalling the whole of HK, just as it has been completed.

Technically, the Long Term Plan does talk about "investigating the feasibility of electrification of the Ardingly Branch" (or some such wording) as a very long term objective. But I haven't met very many people who are actually in favour of that idea! Wouldn't be my idea of fun...

Tom

 

My video finally now uploaded from yesterday's charter

 

Yep I plead guilty as charged - got my lube order mixed up on that post.

I offer a plea of mitigation to my learned friend in that it was my Birthday and I had been lubricated myself by other liquids on that day.

B