Rother Valley Railway

How long is the projected journey time between Tenterden and Robertsbridge? compare that to say East Grinstead to Sheffield park obviously having to stop to open crossings, at Rolvendon and possibly newendon lane, might be an issue, other crossings are next to stations so station staff could if available operate the crossings before the train arrives,

 

The heritage instinct says that traditional gates should stay but their presence is becoming fairly untenable. Putting the timing aspect aside, they are increased risk due to the normality of barriers. The traditional gates on the KESR have been on many occasion by speeding drivers. With barriers come wig-wag lights, which are more visible to oncoming traffic.

 

It would have to be longer. The KESR is already more or less the same length as the Bluebell, and you are adding on a few extra miles.

(FWIW, standard Bluebell timings are 40 minutes up; 20 minutes run round; 50 minutes down - the crossings are arranged so that the up train goes through with quick stops, and the down train has the long waits on the "first in, last out" basis. That gives a basic round trip of 2 hours, more or less).

Tom

 

That of course is the ongoing currently unanswerable question, as there a less and less hardcore enthusiasts what is the right length to keep Joe Public happy and coming back? There will always be those that like a long journey, and those that don't, but somewhere on that bell chart there must be a sweet spot. I have no idea what it is, but hopefully railway managements have some idea, and of course something like a Whitby or a Minehead at one end may influence things as well making a longer line attractive for some reason other than "a ride".
Not that you can do much about it if you have a 15 mile line (and hence its equivalent elapsed time for a journey) and it turns out to be 10, but it may say at some places extensions may not always be best result.

 

There are other factors such as no of stops and Passsing Loops that add to the duration of a trip, my local KWVR to my mind has too many stops and is a bit on the short side... but it is what it is. I Doubt whether some of the intermediate stations justify their existence as boarding points... but that is only one of they reasons they are in use... time wise in the time taken to make a stop a train could have travelled another 3 miles or more

 

How long is a piece of string? I think a lot will depend on the reason for the journey. If the destination is a place on the railway, such as with the NYMR going to Whitby then the length of time may be less important as there is the anticipation of arriving that you get on most days out, even with a car or bus. If the railway is the destination a full line trip may be too long, especially with children as you have already reached your destination and there is little to do on the journey other than sit and watch the scenery. In terms of the KESR/RVR there is the destination of Bodiam for the castle and Tenterden isn't too bad a place for adults to wander around for an hour or too. I've done it with my wife on more than one occasion when in the area. Not sure about Robertsbridge as it is somewhere I've never explored. I can see intermediate journey's to Bodiam from both ends as being a prime destination for Joe Public with far less making the full line trip from Tenterden once the novelty of doing so has worn off. Only time will tell, as they say.

The above only considers passengers. Of perhaps equal importance are the available resources of locos, coaches and crews to run the service. On a thirty minute trip you can probably get away with one loco, set of coaches and crew as that will give a 1½ hourly frequency. Increase that to an hour or more will essentially double your resource requirements, maybe more as length of day becomes more significant. For example, with a thirty minute journey a last train at 16.00 will see the crew back at 17.15 ready to start disposing (say an hour). Keeping within a 12 hour day would be achievable with an 06.15 start but with an hour's journey that 16.00 last train would mean a sign off time of 19.15 so require an additional crew to maintain an 06.15 light up. Before anyone comes back and says we light up at 05.00/07.00/whatever, the times I've used are purely illustrative to show the problem. I'm sure that the KESR are fully aware of what resources will be required.

 

We already mitigate crew hours by rostering steam raisers, meaning that crews can be in much later. We do have to factor in that the crew's day isn't done once they return to Tenterden. A steam loco has to return to Rolvenden for disposal. Often, if shunting is needed at the end of a running day, a specific shunt diesel driver will be rostered, to make sure that the steam crew aren't left faffing around at the end of a long day. We do what we can, and the review will help with this.

 

Don't forget, there are going to be stabling facilities at Robertsbridge, and of course engine shed. so its entirely possible one service will start / terminate at the end of the day, from Robertsbridge, that of course means some crews will have to sign on at Robertsbridge but that shouldn't present to many problems, if each round trip is balanced, on non operating days, there will need to be ecs and loco transfers for maintaince and washouts etc, but again, its not that difficault, but what it does mean is, the KESR, will have to get used to having to work from two ends, rather than everything starting at Tenterden, as it does now, there will be trains starting at both ends,

 

Pertinent point about stabling: there will be both a carriage shed and an engine shed and to be able to start and finish from both ends would have major advantages especially to provide an earlier first up train from a mainline connection to Tenterden.

The carriage shed should be pretty straight forward though there should be elbow room enough for the carriage cleaners to open compartment doors. Extra length, so there is a spare carriage handy to cover any that have to be failed at short notice, might be gilding the lily but there should at least be passive provision - i.e. nothing should be put in that would preclude the shed being long enough for a standard full rake plus one coach.

The engine shed is not so obvious, if you are stabling locomotives you would need to clean the ash pans & drop fires and inspect/lubricate underneath.Pits would be helpful to do both but ash and clinker are probably not ideal to have in a well lit pit for inspection and some fitters work - say being able to dismantle an inside big end. So would it be reasonable to provide two pits: one inside and one outside? Also I'm not sure how the current boiler water treatment has developed on the KESR or how good the water to fill the locomotive tanks might be be at Robertsbridge: would it be how useful to provide for washing out boilers there?

 

I'm not sure about your point about "there should be elbow room enough for the carriage cleaners to open compartment doors. " Any carriage shed must have at least sufficient room to allow a guard to walk all the way round for inspection; to enable a guard or shunter to stand clear during coupling / uncoupling movements; and to allow the guard to get on / alight at the beginning and end of all moves. So in practical terms that means clear space right round beyond the envelope of the carriage, probably about four feet at a minimum. At which point opening doors is a non-issue. Of course, if you do want to clean carriages inside the shed, you may find you need to erect a platform for carriage cleaners to work from - at least on one side, i.e. the opposite one to where the main passenger platform is - especially given the current focus on working from height

"Standard length + 1" is probably a luxury for something that wouldn't be commonly used (especially given that on buildings, additional space = additional capital and depreciation cost). We don't have it at Sheffield Park, for example - the available topography sees to that. What is probably more important in the scenario you mention is the flexibility of the sidings outside the shed, to allow shunting - but again, that involves space. (For example - in the situation you outline, suppose the guard turns up in the morning and finds that it is the third coach out of six that is not fit for service. It's quite a lot of shunting to remove that coach and end up with what is essentially 2 + (1) + 3. Then your thought is probably to at least combine the 2 + 3 (assuming that contains a brake as a minimum) by which point the timetable is already screwed and you aren't going to want to additionally then find another coach to make the rake up to six again.

So any putative design is quite complex; you really need to define the requirements of how you'd expect such a building to be used first, because that will determine the size, facilities (like staging, lighting) etc.

Washouts - it would be interesting to know what practice is at other lines with two loco servicing areas (NYMR, SVR, WSR etc). A washout requires quite a degree of capital expense, since you need a substantial water supply, a pump to create high pressure, and you may have issues with the water authorities about discharging the waste into the local sewers: they would probably insist on things like grease traps and so on. So it is a considerable expense to equip a remote depot for washouts; probably much less trouble simply to go to the main depot which, when all is said and done, is only about 10 or 12 miles away. If you were really worried about the light engine mileage, you could probably contrive your diagrams on a tactical basis to ensure that a loco due a washout finished its last day of duty at Tenterden rather than Robertsbridge.

Tom

 

IIRC SVR diagrams were for a Bewdley based loco to be swapped at Bridgnorth during its Sunday diagram, prior to a washout in Bridgnorth on the Tuesday. I can’t recall the arrangements this year.

 

While I can't say for certain, I would expect washouts and maintenance to be done at Rolvenden. I believe that the shed at Robertsbridge is intended to be a stabling shed only. Our water treatment system has already been installed at Northiam, and there is no reason at all why that can't be replicated at Robertsbridge.

 

Given the recent dissent in some corners regarding the visit of 257 Squadron to what is proudly a Light Railway, does anyone know how the railway intends to retain the Light Railway feel following the extension when I understand larger GWR tank engines will take over as the mainstay of steam services?

For clarification, I have (and had) no issue whatsoever with the presence of the Bulleid but feel like large Western tank engines will be very much out of place and out of style. And I’m a big fan of the fact that they still use industrials and and locos in ‘House’ liveries at present.

 

From my point of view had Colonel Stephens still been running the railway he would have run whatever he could get his hands on. So he would even consider running engines from the 'Western Railway'.

 

That, Harold, would be correct but he would have chosen a small pannier tank rather than larger engines. I get the impression that the Colonel understood his railways and their limitations.

 

He did run a GWR loco on the KESR - 1380 Ringing Rock arrived in 1914, soon to be renamed Hesperus, and was in service until 1939.

 

Would he not have chosen a small locomotive because the route was lightly engineered? He couldn't possibly have run such locos as have been seen in preservation times over a now much better engineered permanent way.

 

Well, Col. Stephens did use a hefty 0-8-0T loco on the line for a time, "Hecate" - which was I believe subsequently swapped with the Southern Railway for a couple of old carriages and a Beattie-era saddle tank ...

Tom

 

Colonel Stephens is dead

 

I thought I could smell something....