For Sale - 20 miles of narrow gauge railway

We are in Dorset.

 

Hi,

As regards actually lifting the thing,
Has anyone considered whether volunteer labour could be sourced to do some of the more menial and repetitive removal of bolts (from the timber sleepered section), and heavy lifting, etc.?

Although most (if not all) of the railways interested in the sale are registered as companies, they're still volunteer-run, so it would be awkward to see them spending a fortune either having to drag their own rather irregular teams up to Scotland, or worse, pay for all of the work to be done by professional track gangs (probably one of Network Rail's regular contractors). I imagine some professionals will be needed anyway - it looks like a huge job - but I think, under careful direction, a bunch of students from some university or another, or just some manual labourers with a bit of an interest in the railways, could do a lot of the work. (Something for the CV - "I dismantled a railway a few years back" sounds better than "I once spent a day cutting some hedges for the National Trust" or whatever, unless of course they fancy being full-time gardeners.)

There is a volunteering secretary at the University of Cumbria (they have a campus in Carlisle, a fairly short distance from the site) who could be contacted about advertising the idea (for free) to students via their Students Union. I imagine that Cumbrian students are ideal for the job: rough-and-ready creatures from the mysterious land of forest and pasture; you know, beef-eating yobbos with a lot of muscle, willing to work outside. (Although, to be honest, I'm quite sure most students of universities in this century don't originate from anywhere near the place they study; they all seem to be from London when I see them in the North East.) Of course, all you have to do is to tell a student that he/she can have a Saturday up near Gretna, maybe stay over nearby - at their own expense though - for a night or two, and work out in the open air, and there's just one magic word that pushes it all into favour: pub.

If any of you have any ties with a university on that side of the North, or on the Scottish side, maybe you should suggest the idea. Once the purchase is sealed - and I think, with the level of interest so far, it will be - then the mob of railway companies and individuals interested in buying parts of the line will presumably have to come together and organise themselves. Until then though, it's important that it is understood that volunteer effort requirements are rather preliminary; dates are anything but fixed, and it hasn't even been guaranteed that it's going to be sold.

I'm thinking, lifting gangs are usually arranged into large teams divided into smaller groups of 4 or 6 (at least, I recall that from somewhere - or maybe my brain is just making this up), so I suppose 24 is a sensible minimum number for any volunteer scheme. Five people turning up aren't going to be of much use, unless someone puts themself in charge of the operation and organises the lifting days with military precision, in which case we can get all of the volunteers working together.

By the way, does anyone have any idea, preferably from experience, as to how much steel-sleepered 2 ft gauge track a team of, say, 50 can lift in an afternoon?

VBL

 

A team from the E. Lancs recovered an awful lot of standard gauge rail from another ex-MOD site I Scotland a few years ago, so it can be done. Don't know if there is anyone on here who was involved with that. It was mostly done by volunteers I think, ut took place over quite a period of time.

 

I'm sure it is possible for different groups to work together on a project like this, if they can generate the paperwork to show individual competence and a common safe system of work. I helped to set up a similar project at Derby last year: see "Memoirs of a Railway Volunteer", part 14 I think, in the Bullhead Memories section.

Tim

 

The Penrhyn Quarry Railway also has an appeal https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/PQR
We are currently at £8,800 (not including £4,000 for transport.
With this amount we can open the next 600 ft of line towards the quarry to start running a proper service next year. We also now have enough funds to put a good stretch of line in towards the quarry. Check out our website for more information: www.penrhynrail.co.uk

 

Is a degree of mix and match not feasible on these lines?
1. For anyone running a 610mm line and wanting no more than a 3 tonne axle load - absolutely fine as it is.
2. As above but a 600mm line, are the bases/chairs adjustable?
3. For 381mm lines, buy the rail only, get wooden sleepers elsewhere.
4. For 600mm/610mm lines requiring a higher axle load, buy the sleepers and get heavier rail elsewhere.

However, and I'm rather woolly on this, I believe that steelworks achieve high axle loadings with normal (standard gauge) rail just by reducing sleeper spacing. As the part of the rail on the baseplate is constant going from 24 to 30 per length would reduce the span by around 25%. I don't know what such would allow above 3 tonnes but it might be possible.

 

Unfortunately, it looks as though the rail might be lost. I have seen the following posted elsewhere:-

"For several weeks a number of heritage railways have been working together in a consortium to present a joint bid to recover redundant rail material from the MOD site at Eastriggs at the agreed price per ton offered by Gilmerton Rail Services who have the contract to clear the site.
Access to the site had been delayed a number of times, and finally interested parties were allowed on site earlier this week to view the materials. Another unrelated party attempted to cut a deal there and then.
We heard yesterday from Gilmerton Rail Services that they have agreed a deal with a representative from Cowley Stone for site clearance and all rail materials. Unless this was an altruistic move, it would seem likely that the heritage railway movement has lost a great opportunity to upgrade and expand at an affordable cost.
The majority of heritage railways are not cash rich, but by using volunteer labour were able to keep down the cost of material recovery. They were also able to identify the materials that had re-use value and would as part of the deal have collected the remainder for Gilmerton to scrap on site, thus only paying the higher (but still reasonable) cost for materials they needed.
The majority of the points it transpired had very sharp turnout angles (mostly 1 in 4) and were unsuitable except for use in sidings, and even then not ideal. Most of the track is on metal sleepers, again with very limited appeal, and the curved track is so sharply curved that it is of literally no use.
The sum total of all this is that what was an attractive proposition for most of the interested railways will not be by the time the material has been lifted using contract labour, the buyer has discovered that he is paying more than twice the going rate for a substantial amount of material that only has scrap value, and adds any profit of his own.
A sad state of affairs and a regrettable loss to the heritage railway industry."

 

Has anyone made direct contact with seller this week ?

Money talks

If it goes else where for sure it will pop for sale again at top dollar.

 

Under pressure from the MOD the company that was disposing of the rail has now put the lifting in the hands of contractors who will also store and dispose of the rail from their own location. This will of course increase the price - lifting, transport, storge, profit etc - so may make it unworkable. I understand that a lot of the rail was curved and the pointwork tight radius, however.

 

As noted a couple of posts above!
The potential problems with this rail (changing gauge, metal sleepers, etc) were highlighted earlier in this thread, but some other posters would hear none of this. One hates to go neener-neener, but ...