Llangollen Railway

The value is what someone will pay for them - that might get depressed if several hit the market at once.

I guess other potential buyers would be people wanting them to convert into glamping accommodation. Don't assume that the only possible fate apart from scrapping is for further railway use.

Tom

 

A lot of armchair enthusiasts imagine that there are buyers queuing up to buy old rolling stock but in my experience it isn't the case. It is why stuff even now still goes for for scrap because nobody wants it.

Just because you put say a Mark 1 up for sale for £35k doesn't mean someone will pay this. Would you spend your own 35k?

Then you have to get agreement for whichever place you hope to take it, pay £2k ish to move it by lorry etc.

There is little advantage to owning one because anyone can just visit a preserved railway and ride in them for a few quid or work on them for free as a volunteer.

Many individuals already have projects they are involved with so don't want to take on any more and not everyone has the practical skills to repair them.

Bigger railways which perhaps have the money may not want them and smaller railways which maybe do struggle to raise the money.

I would have thought the receiver would be looking to auction assets off to quickly get the best price they can.

 

Indeed several on the market at once might depress values a bit, and yes just because someone was asking £35k doesn’t mean someone will pay it.

However considering the Dean Forest Railway paid £60k for a pair of Mk2s in 2018, is a MK1 seriously worth less than £6k now?

 

Who knows? Things like COVID-19 and Brexit are bound to have affected things. We will find out soon. It's a harder nosed market also.

 

Given that nearly every heritage railway in the country has received considerable amounts of government money in the last nine months just to keep their heads above water, who can afford to buy coaches?

 

Do lines have the money to spend though? My impression is that the answer to that is no.

 

Alternatively, a GM who has been watching too much Homes under the Hammer, might say 'I can pick up a runner from Llangollen and then send a basket case at the end of the siding for scrap'. GM gets a runner and doesn't have to pay for restoration and can then get a chunk of the money back getting rid of something that wasn't going to be restored for 20 years.

 

As the scrap value is probably 20 - 25% of market value, there will no shortage of people willing to buy them. Even if only to sell on for a profit later. Not worth arguing this any further if people can’t see that, I’ll just say I told you so when they are sold

 

I'd have thought that there'd be a reasonable number of private buyers, probably associated with a heritage railway already, who'd be happy to have their own Mk1, and their host heritage railway get a nice carriage for nothing. Certainly at <£10k scrap value I'd be really surprised if railways weren't snapping them up via private owners, even in these times.

 

Which ultimately still represents a carriage being scrapped (which seems to be the concern of some).

The willingness or otherwise of railways to buy them may be at least partly dependent on the state of the tyres which are an expensive replacement. A carriage with good tyres would be more attractive than one without, possibly with the intention of arranging a wheel or bogie swap.

Tom

 

I also wonder how cash-starved some of the bigger lines are. Yes they have not generated much income but their expenditure has been greatly reduced too. Their coal bill will have fallen dramatically and so will their wage bills - and I believe that some of the grants at least are intended for business recovery which includes development. As suggested in Tom's preceding post the Llangollen coaches may be of interest for spare parts beyond the bogies: brake, steam heat and electrical gear, window glass and alloy frames. even seats and tables are becoming increasingly hard to find for Mk 1s.

 

You still need to do maintenance and that's expensive. The SVR has had to do drainage works at Sterns and Alveley Woods among other work such as track relays. None of this is cheap. I'm sure other railways will have had similar expenditure.

 

Some, if not all, of it would probably have been budgeted for as routine maintenance, and materials may well have been purchased in advance. In addition, the most part of a season's worth of wear and tear maintenance will have been saved. Most railways would have been coming to the end of their winter maintenance when the first lockdown struck and should have relatively little to do this year.

 

In addition to all the Mark 1s, what about the freight / engineering stock? I don't know what wagons are PLC owned, but if, for example, all the ballast hoppers turned out to be PLC owned, were sold and moved on, would that not also have a detrimental effect to the long-term recovery of the railway?

 

A recent update on the news page of the official LR site:

Our local MP Simon Baines has come out in support of Llangollen Railway, Simon is also going to ask a question in Prime ministers Question time on Wednesday 13th May. I would like to thank Simon for his continued support.

I would also like to thank everyone who has donated to our appeal and purchased shares, we are all extremely grateful and hope we can welcome you all back in the not to distant future. We have raised a huge £75,000 ( including gift aid) to date, it is a fantastic achievement by everyone in these very difficult times.

 

Noticed on news feeds an update
https://www.shropshirestar.com/news...railway-trust-is-on-track-for-future-opening/
“As far as the trust board is aware no bid has been accepted for the entire PLC."
Redundancy notices have been served on staff.
"We expect further details from the administrators and their agents over the next few days"

 

Pretty much as expected then. No one wants to buy the whole of the Plc, so assets to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Hopefully the Trust will be successful in bidding for the assets it needs to run the railway.

 

Oops, the website says this 'News' is 11 months old!

 

In that case, it would make sence to try to get the engineering wagons etc, workshop equipment, If there is enough coaches owned by the trust and other groups to be able to operate the service, things like ballast hoppers, pw wagons etc, would I think be of more importance, than coaching stock at this moment in time especially if they are needed to complete outstanding PW work,

 

I would think the 2 miles of track would be the absolute top priority!