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Relaying is going to become very expensive!

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by paulhitch, Dec 27, 2012.

  1. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    There is a very interesting piece in the "News" section of the Welshpool and Llanfair website (Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway : Home Page) dealing with the current relaying taking place on the W&L. This involves fresh ballast, new hardwood sleepers, brand new rail, soleplates etc. About 1000 tons of granite ballast from the nearby Criggion Quarry will be used. Around three quarters of the rail on the railway has been replaced in the last ten years or so.

    The point of this posting is to observe that this half mile stretch will cost in the region of £100,000 to relay. Yet this is modest compared to what the cost of re-laying the same length of a standard gauge line to the same standard would be. I am aware of other narrow gauge lines which have done this but not of any standard gauge ones, which is hardly a surprise! Like constructing new boilers, this is an issue which the standard gauge has paid too little attention to.

    Recently there have been some mutterings about the use of flat-bottomed rails in place of bullhead and even, dare it be said, CWR! Please everyone, remember that if you must use an express loco on a country branch line whose rails have already been cascaded from main line use, then wear and tear will be accelerated. Something needs to happen before situations develop. Lines can use rails re-cycled from Network Rail (inc CWR?) which may not look terribly authentic or they can impose weight restrictions on the motive power employed to reduce the strain on existing permanent way. The real long term answer is to use brand new rail to the desired specification but that is mind blowingly expensive.

    Certainly any gricers muttering about the loss of the "clickety clack" of jointed rail deserve to be handed a bank card reading machine with a polite request along the lines of "how much is Sir/Madam prepared to donate in order to ensure the "clickety clack" remains".
     
  2. Ploughman

    Ploughman Part of the furniture

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    Over the last few years the NYMR has relaid with new FB 113 rails on second hand concrete sleepers or in a few locations new timber sleepers have been installed.
    New rail means a reduction in the amount of special junction fishplates and as lengths of renewed track increase then the more obsolete types of fastening and fitting can be dispensed with. Welding into 120ft lengths is another possibility, especially across structures in a bid to keep joints away from bridge abutments, such as at the Bridge 30 renewal the other year.
    This policy has produced an improved ride and easier maintenance.
    Pickering station has been rerailed with new Bullhead rail and new oak keys to maintain the visual standard.
    Were possible the old sleepers and rail are cascaded for siding use or disposed of by recycling.
    CWR is being considered as a possibility but with the amount of tight curves vast lengths of it will not be possible.
     
  3. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    Good to learn this.

    Paul H.
     
  4. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    We had a figure quoted on the Bluebell Yahoo group of, as I recall, £343,000 per mile for materials - rail, sleepers, ballast. To that you have to add on costs for restoring the formation to our current desired standard of drainage etc, as well as the actual costs (labour, plant hire) of doing that work. I doubt you'd get much change out of £1million / mile or so for complete, ground up, renewal of time-worn p/way. Worth remembering when you next pay your £10-£15 or so fare to ride on a preserved railway all day...

    Bluebell policy seems to be similar to that Bryan mentions for the NYMR: wooden sleepers and Bullhead rail in station areas, and flat bottom / concrete sleepers outside stations, some welded into 120 foot lengths.

    Incidentally - Paul; while I agree with the general message of your post, I'd disagree with this line:

    The Bluebell, in the last two or three years, has relayed half a mile of track through the tunnel; another few hundred yards at the top of Freshfield Bank with new materials; and relaying through the platforms at SP and HK as well as obviously the new construction between Kingscote and East Grinstead. Though the general point remains: we really need to do the rest of the line (especially between Sheffield Park and Horsted Keynes) to the same standard. On Freshfield Bank especially that really should involve reconstruction from the ground up to solve the problems that plague that section of line. All of which is, as you say, a frightening cost. If you reckon on £1million/mile and, say, a 40 year lifespan, then we should be putting around £250k per year into track renewals (and lines like the NYMR and WSR nearer £500k per year). That's a lot out of a £3million per year annual turnover and a big backlog of locomotive repairs to do...

    Tom
     
  5. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    Glad to be corrected. I would suggest though that these problems give even greater force to the need to reduce the use of large locomotives except where absolutely necessary.

    Paul
     
  6. 1472

    1472 Well-Known Member

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    A number of sections on the SVR have already been relaid with FB rail (both new & high quality s/h) on concrete & more recently new pressed steel sleepers.
    All lines really need a rolling renewal programme so that they are not faced with an impossible situation when an overwhelming amount of track requires replacement in a short period.
    It always surprises me that the Heritage Railway movement has not formed itself a small but highly professional central purchasing organisation to gain the benefits of cost reduction through use of organised bulk buying. Track would be an obvious early target for this.
     
  7. nanstallon

    nanstallon Part of the furniture

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    The problem is that large locomotives have become necessary on many lines because of their very success. The number of coaches that can be hauled by a small engine is not enough at peak times at least. You can double head with small engines, presumably this would have a lesser axle load, but then you need two crews. Personally, I love the old branch line trains of tank engine and two coaches, preferably with a couple of trucks added. However, that won't butter many parsnips with the bank manager!
     
  8. Lingus

    Lingus New Member

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    The SVR deserves credit for reinstating its renewal program despite a certain , now thankfully retired, gentleman's remark that "rail doesn't wear out".
     
  9. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    I don't think that is really true: certainly there is a big difference between a "large" loco (Black 5, Standard 4/5; Manor; Hall; Maunsell Mogul etc) and a "really large" loco (King, Castle, any pacific, 9F etc).

    Look at the loads and gradients of even our biggest lines. The Bluebell never runs more than 6 coaches with a max gradient of 1:60 (soon to be 1:55). The WSR runs about 8 or 9, but gradients are only about 1:70-something max. The SVR runs 8, but I don't think on anything much more than 1:100ish. The MHR has sustained gradients of 1:60, but very rarely runs more than 5 coaches, and a Maunsell Mogul is entirely capable with that load. The GWSR never runs more than 6 coaches and is pancake flat.

    It is probably only the NYMR, (and maybe the P&DSR), with very heavy loads (9 coaches including pullmans on the NYMR) and steep gradients (1:40-something) that can really justify anything bigger than a Black 5 on operational grounds.

    Now of course, there may be other reasons for running bigger locos: "namers" have a certain cachet and appeal; there's also the simple question of what is available (too many Bulleids were preserved, and not enough Maunsell Moguls, but now it is too late to rectify that fault! ;) ), but the plain fact is that with very few exceptions, preserved railways need mid-size locos (class 2 - 5) to operate efficiently; not giant locos (class 6 upwards).

    Case in point: on Boxing Day I had a loco turn at the Bluebell. We had the 9F with 5 Mark 1s and the LNWR Obo (202 tons); and the other train was the H class with the four pre-grouping bogie coaches (about 120 tons or thereabouts). But looking entirely subjectively at the number of passengers, we (on the 9F) could have managed easily with the 3 Maunsell coaches; even if we'd added the Obo, we would have easily run the service with the E4 and the H class both pulling about 120 - 130 tons and 200 or so seats. Now, maybe the operations department expected more people to turn up (the weather was awful); certainly there was an efficiency in that the 9F was still warm from the Santa specials; and probably no-one wanted to do a shunt on Christmas Day to rearrange the 6 coach sets that were used during the Santa season, so it was easier just to keep using one of those sets. But the point remains that quite often we (preserved railways in general, not just the Bluebell) overestimate the need for seats and thereby overestimate the need for big engines; and then compound matters by assuming "large" means a class 7, not a class 3/4.

    And don't even think about the damage the unsprung mass of a Commonwealth bogie might be doing to the p/way...

    Obviously there is a certain amount of hindsight in all this; to a certain extent railways have to operate with the equipment (engines and coaches) that was largely available in the 1970s/1980s. But if we could go back to the 1960s, for most preserved railways I'd be buying up pre-group class 2 locos (cheaper to operate, maintain and entirely capable, and lighter) with a smattering of smaller BR Standards, coupled with pre-grouping or grouping period wooden carriages. We'd have better railways, and they would also be cheaper to operate and maintain...

    Tom
     
  10. nanstallon

    nanstallon Part of the furniture

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    From a practical point of view, rather than the desire to preserve a lot of classes, it may have been better to save plenty of Ivatt Class 2 (262T and mogul varieties) and the BR equivalents; good solid branch line locos which would have been kind to the track. Plus a good few Black Fives for when things got especially busy on lines better laid for heavier engines.
     
  11. class8mikado

    class8mikado Part of the furniture

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    or even a couple of standard 3's,,,
     
  12. ADB968008

    ADB968008 Guest

    Any reason second hand European rail couldn't be used ?
     
  13. michaelh

    michaelh Part of the furniture

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    I think the point about matching train lengths to customers is an impossible circle to square - even airlines who prebook every passenger routinely overbook by 10% or so to allow for no-shows. The re are so many vagaries around heritage railways traffic which varies dramatically from one day to the next according to factors such as weather to make it impossible (in my view) to do it even reasonably accurately. In particular passengers get very upset if they feel overcrowded.

    Case in point - I travelled today on the SVR on the second train out of Kidderminster (I didn't see how busy the first was) which was extremely well filled - few vacant seats and larger family groups were unable to sit together - but at Arley we passed the first train off Bridgnorth which looked about 75% empty. However that train will form a Kidderminster departure which might well be as full as that which I travelled on - how do you cater for those variables?
     
  14. nanstallon

    nanstallon Part of the furniture

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    I can say from my own experience as a volunteer booking clerk that loadings are very unpredictable. Ironically, if we have a dull day in summer, we know that the trains are going to be full because people won't want to go to the beach, but being on holiday they don't want to sit in their caravans or B&B all day. Better to over-provide than have to turn business away!
     
  15. michaelh

    michaelh Part of the furniture

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    Agreed - the marginal cost of a couple of extra carriages is the square root of very little. Much better to allow for passenger comfort.
     
  16. Steve

    Steve Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    Cascading of track has been commonplace and the big railways did this as a routine. I understand that is/was accepted good practice to lift jointed track and relay it elsewhere after relatively short periods, reserving new materials for the most important routes. I'm sure that Ploughman and others can give much more info on this. Rail would often be relaid three or four times during its life, being cascaded to lesser duties. By its nature, wear is slower on lesser duties so there is generally a surplus of good relayable rail available for disposable and rail has to wear a lot before it is deemed unsuitable for even the heaviest locos. Even King class locos were allowed on rail down to 85lb/yd weight, which equates to a height of 5.343" with 95lb rail. Rail is getting pretty dire when it gets down to a size unfit for 20 ton axle loading. (see http://www.norgrove.me.uk/GWRtracknotes/R2993.pdf) and I'm sure no railway is running with rail that worn. Good Bullhead may be getting harder to get but is still available and the same principles apply to flat bottomed.
    Before anyone comes back and says that it is not just rail height that is critical, I'm well aware that there is much else to take into consideration, not the least being rail end condition and side cut. What I am saying is that going down the path of laying new may be the best practice but it isn't going to become the only future course of action and, if good practice is indeed to relay after a period of use, it may not be the best, after all.
     
  17. Steve B

    Steve B Well-Known Member

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    You would think that a sensible level of co-operation would make sense, and to a certain extent it may already happen, just a bit more informally and less visible to those of us not involved at grass roots level. I seem to recall, though, that when the Welsh Highland was ordering rail from (I think) Poland, the Welshpool and Llanfair also joined in.

    Steve B
     
  18. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    We certainly re-lay rail like that, turning lengths round; moving from mainline to sidings and also cutting the ends off 60 foot lengths (the ends wear the most) to make a refurbished, but shorter, length.

    However, some of our line consists of rail that was already second hand when the line closed more than 50 years ago! In the yard at Sheffield Park, there are still a few LBSC chairs, as I recall (admittedly not on the main running lines). Eventually the process of cascading and turning and recycling can go no farther, and the only option is to start afresh, either with new materials or with good reconditioned second hand materials (which in the main is what we use, as I understand, cascaded down from Network Rail). Increasingly, that is the situation we, and no doubt other railways (like the SVR) that started many years ago with rails still in situ, are in.

    Tom
     
  19. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    Up to a point. It depends on what locos running, say, a regular 6 coach service requires you to keep overhauled, as opposed to what you could manage with if you ran, say, a regular 4 coach service. If you always have a class 4 or bigger pulling four coaches, then adding two extras really costs not very much - for that one trip. But if you could change teh service pattern sufficiently that you ran smaller trains on a large proportion of your services, you could alter the balance of locos and carriages needed to require lower carriage mileage and smaller engines in service, which would, in the long term, reduce costs, provided you did it on enough days of the year to make a real difference.

    Our "core" set, needing 3rd, 1st, brake and wheelchair accommodation, requires a five coach Mk 1 / Bulleid set, so that becomes our de-facto shortest train for at least one of our two service trains all year round. This in turn means we always need a class 3 / 4 in service every day. However, we are working towards changing the mix of carriage types such that we can have a four coach "core" set, still including 3rd, 1st, brake and wheelchair accommodation. That would mean for a lot of the year we would only need a class 2 loco on the main service set, which is cheaper both to run and significantly to maintain, as well as also reducing carriage miles (and maintenance). That four coach "core" would then be strengthened to 5 or 6 vehicles as the traffic demanded, i.e. summer and Santa seasons.

    We also have 1st, 3rd, brake and wheelchair accommodation available on our Victorian set, but not - as yet - on the pre-group non-corridor (1920s) set or the Maunsell (1930s) set. Consideration is currently being applied to how we provide appropriate wheelchair accommodation in those two sets.

    Tom
     
  20. michaelh

    michaelh Part of the furniture

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    That's fine if a 4 coach set is sufficient to consistently carry passengers in comfort. I'm amazed though that you are able to predict passenger numbers with such certainty - or are the numbers so low that 4 coaches provides a decent margin of error?
     

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