Dunstable heritage railway proposal website updated

Hello,

The website for the proposed heritage railway in Dunstable has been updated

http://www.south_bedfordshire_railway.webs.com

The business plan and the costed list form at the end of it is at http://www.south_bedfordshire_railway.webs.com/businessplan.htm

The planning material is at
http://www.south_bedfordshire_railway.webs.com/planningapplication.htm
http://www.south_bedfordshire_railway.webs.com/statutorymaterial.htm

The Facebook Group has now got 105 members, the Yahoo Group 56 members and there are 7 elsewhere.

The future of the Dunstable railway line has become something of a political football and is tied up with the result of the General election. If the Tories get back in then they may review the Luton bus way.

See :-
http://www.dunstabletoday.co.uk/dunstable-news/Dunstable-rail-link-39easy-to.5561396.jp
http://www.andrewselous.org.uk/record.jsp?type=news&ID=506

If the short length of track around Dunstable Park which is the heritage railway intended route was not re -opened (and the Luton trains terminated behind White Lion Retail Park at Court Road) h.r could go ahead.

This is even more likely to happen in the light of the disasterous bus way in Cambridgeshire on the old St Ives line

See :-
http://www.castiron.org.uk for details

 

Its a very good website, evaluating everything to the stock and photos.
Hope it starts up.

 

Alfred

Here we go again. I refer you to http://railways.national-preservati...y-beside-busway-Dunstable?p=269059#post269059 for some of my previous concerns about this project, none of which have been answered. However, I will give you credit for having a pretty detailed website.

A number of concerns jump out at me though. Firstly:-

"The land at the oil depot site is all listed for redevelopment following private acquisition in 2007. This land is vital for the storage of retained infrastructure items for the heritage railway proposal in the earliest stages and the development of sidings and a museum in the later stages."

So the land that you consider is vital to the operation is privately owned and planned to be re-developed. I subsequently note that in outline application SB-09/00171 the pallet store is zoned for employment redevelopment and the vacant land is subject to an all matters reserved outline application for residential redevelopment. I am slightly confused, in that you subsequently state that "the reduced land area of the pallet store site (half of the area of the vacant land) could offer a much lower purchase price, although the price tag for the land is very high as the land is so close to Dunstable Town Centre - around £500,000 plus compensation for relocation etc".

How much are you expecting to have to pay for this, given its status as development land and the consequent inflation of a price? Have you engaged in any dialogue with the owners of the land to see if they would even be prepared to forego the profits they would be able to make from a commercial re-developers and sell it to a bunch of tyre-kickers and dreamers? And where the hell is the money coming from? Bear in mind that the Swanage Railway, an established operation with 200k plus passengers per annum is not having a great deal of luck with raising £3m for improving an existing connection.

Secondly:-

"The Conditional Approval for the Luton to Dunstable and Houghton Regis busway scheme awarded by the Government in 2008 does not take into account the additional costs of providing a heritage railway."

Why should it? Its a busway budget, not a budget to provide an add-on attraction to a bunch of trainspotters!

You make a lot of the planning permission issues. I am yet to be convinced of the benefit of all of this, particularly if the land has been rationalised and much of the sidings etc were already private land and never part of the original consents, but even so I think a far more pertinent question is how you are going to fund the general proposal. What is the point of fannying about with getting planning permission if you haven't got a snowball's chance in hell of actually carrying the proposal out?

I note the business plan says:-

"Heritage railway has almost no funding. The local councils would need to offer assistance with securing grant aid funding for the project to proceed. One tranche could be directed towards the legal costs connected to the land purchase at oil depot site, and addressing legal, planning and open space issues. Another tranche could be directed to fund the land purchase at oil depot site, and the additional costs incurred by the Luton Borough Council bus way contractor for the retention and movement to storage of track and civil engineering items and undertaking some work alongside the railway line as part of the laying out of the open space."

If you think you will get local council assistance in this economic climate, with the budgetary constraints that are entailed, then you'd better be prepared to be disappointed. You go on to say "Shadow Transport Spokesman Stephen Hammond has pledged to review the bus way project if the Conservatives win 2010 General election leaving open the option of re – opening the disused railway line. This would be considerable cheaper than building a bus way and would win more local support than the bus way which has been extremely controversial locally."

If there is such a root-and-branch review of public spending, which other political parties would have to do as well, there is little way council/public funding would be available for the re-instatement of it as a heritage railway. Timetabled public services potentially, heritage railway no chance. Oh, and your costed list hasn't got any figures on it...

166 'members' does not demonstrate any realistic prospect of success, both in fundraising or in a manpower sense. There is a general rule within a number of heritage railways that you can anticipate about 10% of your membership will be hands on, working volunteers. Do you think 16 people will provide you with the support you need?

Finally, I would like to quote from your 'business plan':-

"In the East of England Development Agency Tourism Surveys of 2002 and 2003, Bedfordshire came at the bottom of the rankings for any of the five counties. This was due to the ease of travel through the county from London (easy to miss it), poor range of tourist attractions and poor tourist facilities. Bedfordshire and Luton 2007 - 2012 tourism growth strategy intends to address these deficiencies.

The surveys found that Luton, Dunstable and Houghton Regis area had a particular problem with its image."

What makes you think that a short 'heritage railway', operating clapped out multiple units would help with this? People are having stay-at-home holidays; lets go to Luton! Get real...

 

What Stewie said. This project would appear to rely on financial backing from the local authority (amongst others) to spend ratepayers' money on a length of railway line that won't add to the national network. There isn't going to be any spare public money around for quite some time. The real pain has yet to start. Whilst the website is very detailed and considerable time and effort has obviously gone into putting it together my answer has to be so what? (Sadly, as I am a supporter of anyone who tries to put railways first but this won't run.)

 

Best hope the Tories get in then, I think. A Luton-Dunstable-Leighton Buzzard railway would be a very useful prospect. Alfred may have to go and play somewhere else, though.

One question - is the M1 bridge affected by the M1 widening project?

 

Probably not. The Highways Agency have given up on widening north of Junction 10 and are more interested in using hard shoulder running instead.

 

Regardless the merits or results of this project, I do have to say the amount of effort expended and the quality and quantity of research and work involved in this process is commendable.
Also it has to be noted how determined you are.

Some people say Luton is not an attractive place for a preserved railway, I would argue the same for several others in "urban industrial" locations, that have survived (Preston Docks / Middleton) and they have flourished, many people laughed at the idea of a Railway in Bury for many years and look at the ELR today, it doesnt have the benefit of a national park, seaside resort, related tourism industry or even millionaire to make it happen but it's there, successful and respected.

I think the largest hurdle you have is lack of support, lack of funding, as well as unknown costs. I think the vision is quite clear. Respect and Support usually drives funding, but funding drives respect and support so it's a bit of a catch 22 right now, but at least you have the strength to keep swimming against the tide.

If this project was to fail, I would reccomend you join another more supported and funded preserved railway I think your efforts and experience gained here would be of considerable benefit to them... Epping Ongar comes to mind as one which could benefit in your area from your experience to date, talking to them may help your cause as well ?

 

Personally I'd say it has all the hallmarks of someone who could surely find something far more constructive to do with an apparently endless supply of spare time, than frittering it all away on totally implausible plans for a fantasy train set.

Not only that, someone who is so blinded by the ego trip of their pet project with them seen as the 'head honcho', that they refuse point blank to listen to advice from any others who have far more experience in railway preservation, not to mention common sense.

What is it about railways that seems to attract 'em?

Which goes from somewhere to somewhere, with other places en-route, unlike Alfred's fantasy. It's a meaningless comparison, the two are totally and utterly different.

As Stewie said, here we go again...

 

I'm not disagreeing with your post, but I can only find little intelligence in the thread so I cannot resist being a little pedantic about the one line above..

by nature of a railway's design.. they all go from somewhere to somewhere (it's a subjective to the reader that somewhere may actually be nowhere)
However I can think of only 1 railway which went from nowhere to nowhere.. and that was right back in the begining...
"Catch me if you can" which ran in a circle close to Euston Square in 1808.
Other than that.. they all seem to be going somewhere.

I guess it's only railway enthusiasts who like going from Nowhere-anyones-heard-of to Nowhere-special, occasionally via Somewhere Central just because of how they can do it.

 

Or about the internet, that makes them think that putting their ideas on it gives them credability?

 

Unfortunately, one major down side of the internet is that it has given all those fantasists and fruitcakes who never previously had a platform for their outlandish 'plans', a voice with which to shout them at people ;-)

 

All right, Ralph. Fair criticism, but here's why...

Like it or not - and many enthusiasts seem not to - it's not the income from railway enthusiasts that bankrolls the vast majority of preserved lines, it's the family market. And I believe that the UK is now rapidly approaching saturation point regarding the amount of preserved railways that the family market can support. Families will travel a reasonable distance to 'travel on a steam train' if it's presented well and feels, to them at least, fairly historical - every family is simply not baying for a preserved line within a few miles of their homes.

If you want a realistic assessment of the market, just look at Scotland. The Caledonian Railway is within easy reach of the country's third and fourth largest cities - Aberdeen (pop 210,000) and Dundee (pop 160,000) which are both within 45 minutes drive up a dual carriageway with comparatively little traffic, as well as numerous nearer towns like Montrose, Forfar, Arbroath, Laurencekirk and of course the city of Brechin. Yet the people only come in enough numbers to justify running on 33 days of the entire year. This attractive little line has to rely on industrial steam and has no signalling, because the public are only coming in enough numbers to support a comparatively basic operation.

The only other preserved lines anywhere near are at Bo'ness (an hour and a half away) and Aviemore (about three hours), which goes to prove that a fairly populous local market is absolutely no guarantee of the success of a preserved line. Would the people of Folkestone and Luton (for example) flock to new presrved lines there - and both very short at that? I suspect that the answer, while not palatable to those proposing such schemes, is in the negative.

That's the background. To answer your criticism directly, what grieves me about the 'dreamers' who blare their latest Great Idea over the internet is twofold:

Firstly: They evidently have such reserves of enthusiasm - these could be channelled to such good use on many of the existing lines, making them even better for family visitors and enthusiasts alike, rather than dead-end projects with no realistic hope of success.

Secondly: So many railway enthusiasts get habitually tarred with the same 'loony' brush by society at large that, I believe this kind of thing can be positively harmful to those at existing lines who do have their heads screwed on and know their bullhead rail from their business case. To run a successful heritage railway you need thoroughly professional attitudes and business acumen.

When you get people who cannot even spell the name of the project they're representing (viz: The Rememberance (sic) Line) - let alone a realistic grasp of the multitude of issues facing any preservationist - not only does it do no favours to themselves, it also only serves to reinforce the commonly-held public and media stereotype that anyone with an interest in railways is an obsessive nutter with no great grip on reality.

Like all football fans being tarred as hooligans, like all teenagers being tarred as petty thugs and so on, the vocal minority always influences the perception of the sensible majority. You may not mind that, but personally I deeply resent it and the harm it can do to the vast majority of sensible preservationists.

It's not a case of how 'outlandish' plans might seem to me, it's a case of looking at the wider picture - of being sensible, realistic and thinking beyond the immediately bleedin' obvious. Anyone should be allowed to dream, but if people are going to blurt those dreams all over the planet's most public space, do they ever consider the potential effect of how the world outside might view them and of how they might affect the impression of others who might be completely unrelated, but connected in the Great Public Mind by simply also being a 'railway' project?

In the rush to beat their keyboards, I don't think they consider it for a nanosecond.

 

I've followed this story for quite a while now and do have to agree with Disused Branch on this (although not necessarily on all aspects of his post). Being close to centres of major population will not guarantee success - look at Dinting - 15 - 20 mins from Manchester or even Peak Rail - something like 1/4 of the UK's population live within one - two hours travelling time but it doesn't go anywhere near to achieving the profits or stature seen by the Severn Valley or have the profile of the North York Moors etc. Generally, Joe Public wants to ride on a steam train in an area of nice scenery not shuttle between two conjoined conurbations. (No doubt someone will prove me wrong with regards to the Middleton Railway) Railways such as Peak Rail have the potential to develop but sadly not lines such as what is proposed. A better use would be to improve public transport in the area

 

Website has gone. Assume the scheme is now declared deceased?

 

Yup. The railway was turned into a guided busway a good few years ago.......