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Project Wareham

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by David R, Jul 31, 2015.

  1. LC2

    LC2 Member

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    It's a lot of money to the man in the street.
    It's not a lot of money when compared to major infrastructure works.
    And you ignored my point about the size of the contribution made by the SR (both in cash and in man hours) since the preservation of the line began.
    Does that not count?
     
  2. LC2

    LC2 Member

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    But it's not a cheap quick win is it.
    If you wanted the line to be used for commuters, to run a consistent, reliable, daily service you need
    • At least one backup set of rolling stock to mainline standards - Not cheap and are there any spare DMUs that could easily be brought?
    • Paid staff at each station and for each train (to cover holidays and both commuter periods, under hidden you would need a minimum of 3 drivers and guards and perhaps get away with 2 staff at each station + a couple of relief staff
    • Maintenance Staff
    • Signalling Staff (again, 3 per box?)
    • Track Access costs
    • Have something in place for the duration of any blockades needed for track maintenance (preserved railways often have a month long blockade for trackworks in the off season - but then you surely know that).
    • Lots of other costs that I can't even begin to comprehend
    Sure, if the SR were running this, then for some of the time, you could cover some of it with volunteers, but it would be unlikely to be sustainable.

    Like I said, Deep Pockets... And I don't think the UK has deep pockets any more.
     
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  3. Alan Kebby

    Alan Kebby Well-Known Member

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    You’re entirely missing the point. I’m not denying the gargantuan contribution made by the SR and its members, volunteers and contributors over the last 45 years.

    The point being that when a public body is spending public money (and £3M is a huge amount of public money), it has to be held accountable for that. Following its investment, DCC is rightly expecting some sort of service to be run. If that doesn’t happen questions and calls for inquiries will follow.
     
  4. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    Over how many years has that £3m been spent though?

    Dorset Council's budget for 2021/2 is £312.4m - a hundred times greater than what has been spent over many years on the rail link. It's a drop in the ocean.

    Tom
     
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  5. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    With respect, £3m is small change in overall public sector budgets. A combination of Covid and time means that it is unlikely that there will be serious traction behind demands to do something, especially if those objecting risk having to make things happen.


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
     
  6. Alan Kebby

    Alan Kebby Well-Known Member

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    It’s all about public perception though isn’t it. ‘DCC wastes £3M on failed proposal’ headlines wouldn’t go down well.

    All hypothetical though. Fingers crossed for the return of Wareham services this year. Hopefully it will be a great success.
     
  7. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    To take just one question though - how would the signalling work on a year-round service? If the line had remained a part of the national network, it would be an elongated siding by now, no paintwork or anything, probably operated at 45 - 60mph line speed but "one loco in steam" or whatever the current terminology is. Instead, you have a slow, complicated line that requires multiple signalmen to operate but can only run at 25mph. Who is going to man the signal boxes to make it happen - paid staff?

    @LC2 has shown other areas of cost.

    So, coming to one specific question in your post:

    "In some respects the concept of a trial may be a red herring - just what is the trial seeking to "trial" that is not known or could be established by other means?"
    If I were a betting man, I'd be thinking that Dorset Council need a "way out" of their investment. It would be mad in a time of restricted budgets to subsidise a rail link when they could subsidise a better bus service for less annual revenue support. So my guess would be they need the SR to run another trial in order to demonstrate that it is not financially viable as a year-round proposition. Then they can gracefully withdraw, with sage public pronouncements about how in the interests of residents, the best use of scarce council funds for transport is continuing the ongoing subsidy of buses etc, but subsidising a rail line does not add up financially. The £3m capital is quietly forgotten, since it is future the revenue cost that really matters. If so, £3m of capital written off would hardly be the biggest write down by a council of capital spending that ultimately didn't lead anywhere. Sometimes the best job of management is to know when to stop throwing good money after bad.

    Tom
     
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  8. 80104

    80104 Member

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    [QUOTE=" Sometimes the best job of management is to know when to stop throwing good money after bad.

    Tom[/QUOTE]

    Absolutely true. Unfortunately Dorset Council are civil servants and directed by politicians.
     
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  9. 80104

    80104 Member

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    But it is a cheap and quick win compared with the cost of other public transport projects or for that matter building roads.

    However I do agree with Tom, and have said so myself, investing in an enhanced bus service would be much cheaper and deliver a much better result save that the fare paying public (not those with free passes) do not seem to consider buses as a suitable alternative to the private car.
     
  10. DcB

    DcB Well-Known Member

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    But we are still under the idea of competition between bus (More - Go Ahead group) and train (SWR First Group) whereas in other areas the bus and train operators might be the other way round
    Ideally train and bus operation should be complentary where time tables are co ordinated and buses serve towns which have no train service.
    For the Wareham to Corfe line as said earlier the emphasis will be on the tourist market to feed into the steam trains to Swanage, and SWR will work with SR as SWR want to boost leisure travel.
    Then maybe at a later stage more local community services like an evening Wareham to Swanage DMU service can be added.
     
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2022
  11. 80104

    80104 Member

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    If the scope of the service to / from Wareham offered by SR is only 90 days per annum 4 round trips a day at times which only serve the tourist market and feed into the SR steam service then a) that is an under utilisation of assets, particularly the resignalling project and the Worgret junction works, funded by the investment of public moneys b) disingenuous of SRT and SRC who have allowed the local community to believe that the service being proposed would be similar to that offered by BR in the late 1960s / early 1970s prior to closure of the branch.

    This is not intended in any way to denigrate the efforts and achievements of SRT SRC its staff, volunteers and supporters but how a non partisan outsider may view the situation as it stands today. If anything it highlights the paradox of a branch line cast aside by BR being reborn as a heritage railway and then with the "wheel turning full circle"(or at least in part) then being reconsidered to be part of a local public transport network rather than a heritage tourist attraction.

    One wonders whether the East Lancs railway will endure similar issues as the Rawtenstall line is reconsidered as being a local public transport asset.
     
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2022
  12. Gladiator 5076

    Gladiator 5076 Part of the furniture

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    Sorry but where has it been publicly stated recently that a an all year service would be offered let alone some sort of all day commuter service. I have lived in Swanage 7 years now and I have never seen this publicly stated. Who is this army of people who are expecting this to happen?
    They say a week is a long time in politics, 7 years is a lifetime, the council is even a different body now. And as we have seen with liability claims with public bodies recently if they have changed "their coat" there is no longer anyone to complain to or take legal action against.
    I also suggest if SR did not run the service then a 1960's DMU is not going to cut it for a regular TOC or the public (think Pacers), so it will be either new stock or something that has to be cascaded from somewhere. That cost has to be amortised somewhere as well.
     
  13. 80104

    80104 Member

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    With respect what I said was that the local community has been allowed to believe that the service being proposed would be similar to that offered by BR in the late 1960s / early 1970s.

    For example - taken from the About Us section of the Swanage Railway Trust website:

    In 1980, Dorset County Council engaged management consultants to evaluate the viability of restoring the rail connection to Wareham. Their report indicated that the link could be viable by 1990. The same year, the Swanage Railway Society and the Swanage-Wareham Railway Group agreed to merge with the goal of reinstatement of full passenger and freight service with the main line at Wareham. The group kept the Swanage-Wareham Railway Group name.

    Then later on it states:

    The Swanage Railway Trust, a registered charity, exists like its predecessors to re-establish the rail link between Swanage and the national rail network and to preserve the heritage of the railways of the Isle of Purbeck.

    Note the order / prioritisation of the words: the re-establishment of the rail link is stated before the goal of preserving the heritage of the railways of the Isle of Purbeck. Operating a "tourist service" (or similar wording to describe the non year round heritage service) is not explicitly stated.

    I recognise that during the past few years SRT and SRC have been far more circumspect about their plans for a service to / from Wareham however as far as I can see nowhere have they publicly stated precisely what their proposed service level is nor have they corrected the impression given by statements above (and others).

    I wonder how many of the Premier Life Members bought their membership in the belief that it was helping to fund a reinstatement of full passenger services rather than a 4 times a day summer season only tourist focused service?

    To reiterate my earlier comment: This is not intended in any way to denigrate the efforts and achievements of SRT SRC its staff, volunteers and supporters but how a non partisan outsider may view the situation as it stands today. If anything it highlights the paradox of a branch line cast aside by BR being reborn as a heritage railway (thanks to the stupendous efforts of the volunteers) and then with the "wheel turning full circle"(or at least in part) then being reconsidered to become part of a local public transport network rather than a heritage tourist attraction.

    I am passionate about the Swanage Railway however I have concerns that unless they set their stall out properly, deliver what they say they are going to deliver and what they have agreed with the stakeholders to deliver they run a very real risk of discovering that they do not have the control over their destiny which they may have thought they had.
     
  14. Andy Moody

    Andy Moody Member

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    We seem to be getting rather carried away on this thread almost in some cases to the realms of fantasy!
    Absolutely nothing at all will happen until such times as an operating licence is granted by the Office of Road and rail (HMRI) which hopefully may be sometime
    during 2022? And then Network Rail will need to approve pathways /Timetables, Then there is the little matter of registering the class 117 + 55028, Route knowledge trips Frome River Bridge to Wareham. So quite a lot still to happen.
    I am unclear where 4 round trips comes from, I certainly have never seen any such timetable?
     
  15. 80104

    80104 Member

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    Four round trips is speculation based on the 2017 trial service. That service was devised to take into account likely traffic flows, pathing onto the mainline, the limitations of operating swanage <> wareham with one set of stock and the limitations imposed by the existing heritage timetable / line capacity.

    Of course SR could decide to operate short workings between Corfe Castle <> Wareham which may increase the total number of round trips offered.
     
  16. 007

    007 Member

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    This thread has turned into speculative nonsense.
     
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  17. Gladiator 5076

    Gladiator 5076 Part of the furniture

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  18. buzby2

    buzby2 Well-Known Member

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    Timetable reductions from today across many TOCs: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60024712
    No through services from today West of Bournemouth with a temporary hourly shuttle service between Bournemouth and Weymouth: https://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/19851874.new-south-western-railway-train-timetable/
    17th - 22nd January - file:///C:/Users/Peter/Downloads/170122bWeymouth.pdf
    From 24th January - file:///C:/Users/Peter/Downloads/240122cWeymouth.pdf
    One wonders for how long this will continue ? (rhetorical question)
     
  19. MellishR

    MellishR Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    What!? Joined up thinking in Government? The Treasury actually providing cash for carbon reduction?
     
  20. 61624

    61624 Part of the furniture

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    It is both amusing and frightening to read the public transport zealots being quite happy to throw away the last thirty or more years worth of work by the heritage railway volunteers in rebuilding the line from empty trackbed and turn it over for the benefit of the likely handful of people who would use it as a commuter line. The NYMR has had a great deal of public money to set p its Whitby operations and that has been because it is recognised that the value of the line as a tourist attraction and alternative means of access Whitby far outweighs its value to the town as a transport link. Surely, even if the prospect of year round commuter services proves to be a pipedream at Swanage, the cost of the main line link can still be justified by way of its benefit for tourism purposes?
     
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