Preservation or Pastiche

Agreed; in all the Rulebooks I’ve worked to, loose shunting is permitted while fly shunting most definitely isn’t.

 

You did Or did you mean loose shunting?

 

What I think that what we are all, on our different railways, trying to do is to give the visitor as much as we can of the railway experience of past centuries. We cannot be 100% authentic at any time. The modern visitor will not stand for the level of grime that railways traditionally inflicted on travellers and expects 101 other aspects of modern life including WiFi and contactless payments. So we present a compromise and try, as far as possible, to hide the more modern technologies that we use.

On the Isle of Wight we have had to rebuild our Oldbury with brakes and passenger communication apparatus. It was built without either, indeed it never had a communication cord (or equivalent) during its time in service. We have other four wheeled carriages on parcels van underframes; we have modified compartments for disabled access; the list of compromises goes on & on and affects all aspects of the railway.

Personally I regret the loss of Edmondson tickets from our railway. I used to work in the booking office in the 70s and 80s and there was a satisfying clunk when the tickets that we had printed by BR at Crewe were dated. Like BR we accepted cash and cheques, but cashing up was a challenge sometimes!. Now we have contactless payments, the whirr of a printer and tickets on thin card which are not the same. What would be nice would be an IT compatible solution that would accommodate Edmondson tickets. They are part of the experience that we are selling and they are missing at the moment.

 

An excellent post. I used to do booking office duty on the Leighton Buzzard Railway and I agree that the Edmonson system was a joy to use.

 

no idea, I was told it was fly shunting by the guard involved.

 

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that loose shunting is simply pushing wagons without a coupling then shoving them into a siding, with lots of banging at bufferstops. Fly shunting was the rather dodgy procedure of a loco pulling a wagon, slowing down to slacken the coupling, the shunter would flick the coupling off, the loco would then speed up again and go one way on a set of points, then they would be switched and the wagon(s) would go onto another road. I thought the latter was against the rules under BR, but was done unofficially.
Have I got confused too?

 

This was my understanding also. The only place in these islands where fly shunting seems to have been permissible AFAIK was the Isle of Man .... which @marshall5 could confirm or refute.

 

Incidentally, a few weeks ago I went to visit the Dutch National Narrow-Gauge Museum, in Leiden, which I'd recommend to anyone who is over that way. I was slightly surprised to find they used almost-Edmonson-format tickets - I think the size is ever-so-slightly different. You could definitely argue that they are a pastiche, as the whole site and its railways are a complete new-build, around the edge of a lake, but they seem to have an excellent set-up and are attempting to cover almost all aspects of what narrow-gauge railways were used for in the Netherlands - there's even a vegetable garden with a small length of hand-worked tramway.

(note to self: must visit some faux-heritage sites in the south west, because I quite like a Cornish pastiche as a snack)

 

You must be confusing this with a Cornish pastis

 

You're spot on, there. Loose shunting was generally the norm in goods and marshalling yards.

 

That's my understanding too, i.e. fly shunting was a more extreme form of loose shunting, and wasn't officially permitted (and certainly isn't now - normal loose shunting is now prohibited too, at the MHR. Other railways may vary...)

I must say I prefer Edmonson tickets too, they certainly add to the experience more than modern printed ones do.

 

Regarding fly shunting, I remember a spotting trip to Worcester SH in the late 1960's and seeing a diesel shunter shunting trucks by pushing a number up to about 5MPH and then braking sharpy as the 'human' shunter un- hooked the links and whatever trucks were destined to that siding using the momentum gained. Even 50 years ago it looked pretty 'hairy'!
Also, the 'brakesman' at the top of the Lickey at Blackwell would walk briskly alongside loose coupled goods trains and use a 'pole' to pin down brakes on a set number of trucks whilst the train continued to move!

 

These things were routine every day happenings and all within the rules. Loose shunting is still allowed on the big railway in certain places.

 

You think its hairy using a loco. Try effectively fly shunting with a rope haulage engine. It looks particularly nasty.

 

Got to agree with that.

 

What I do know is , although Douglas I.O.M. Has one of the grandest of all Railway Staions let alone narrow gauge they have "modernised " the booking office and all the public places . I'm no gricer ( but answering this post might make me one ) but to be sent to lady behind an office desk pay for your fare and be issued your till receipt as a ticket is somewhat disappointing . That's how I feel about it .

 

It must be remembered that the IMR is not a 'preserved railway' as such - it is a part of a nationalized transport system that just happens to be still operating heritage equipment.
All the heritage railways on the Island are operated by paid staff (assisted in non-operating roles by the Heritage Railways Volunteers) so have proportionately higher operating costs than most preserved railways on the adjacent isle. At present the IoM Rlys cover just 50% of their running costs, up from 18%, (the rest is covered by Treasury) so it has been necessary to make economies and to try to make best use of the railways' assets whether we, as enthusiasts, like it or not and, yes, some of the heritage 'atmosphere' has been lost as a result. Douglas station was built when the IMR was a much more extensive system and carried many more times the number of passengers than it does today so was very much underused in recent years. By allowing areas of the booking hall to be used commercially income is generated and it has been well received by Joe Public. Of course it is sad to see bits of IMR history lost but the railway has to evolve to survive much as it has done for the past 146 years.
Ray.