'Trespassing' properties demolished on the new Waverly Route!

Censorship - a bit melodramatic! This is the S&D not the Eastern Bloc...and yes it is fair to ask pertinent questions. I never have any trouble. Ok there are one or 2 points that I haven't tackled yet and would like addressed but they are not fundamental, so can wait, as I believe the whole thing fits into a much bigger picture.

 

OK Dave point taken on your first sentence above. However this guy is challenged everyday on precisely the issues you indicate. When I started a group in 1980 to rescue a Barry wreck people would say..."where you gonna put it".."where's the money coming from"..."£400,000!-get out of here"..."what about no tender"..."who's gonna do the engineering".."you're a cretin"... "people have previously failed to buy this engine"..."this engine has cracked frames and shot boiler"..."where you gonna get the tools"..."you're mental"... "it's a joke"..." nobody will join you"..."what about all the missing parts"..oh by the way good luck must go now-will join when you have more members! ..."...on and on and on and on. Frankly in those days in the beginning at times I was at my wits end I did not know any of the answers to any of the questions or how to cope with any of the jibes, but 25years later the loco was running-was it worth it? YES. Thankfully these were well before the days of blogging so I dealt with criticism by avoiding being challenged. When work on the loco was advanced then restored it didn't matter any more as by that time I had all the answers.
Why not approach the blogger in a matter of fact way and discuss accordingly.For example:- " ... now I was wondering what your thoughts were about potential challenges at Sturminster Newton-how do think the townsfolk would react to the resuscitation of the railway?" The answer I got was feasible and the outcome possible whether I chose to believe it or not was irrelevant. Was it going to be easy? He answered no.The question of cost was also irrelevant.Who could possibly put a finger on such a sum-for all the reasons you mention Dave. A business plan at this stage would fudge the issue-however I believe work is going on in that area with the recruitment of several professionals with expertise in the right fields.

 

You'd need to demonstrate that an enormous number of people (and a heavy tonnage of frieght perhaps) wants to travel from Bath to Bournemouth, and can't go on existing railways. There isn't the online business to justify the expenditure, and in truth there never was. The S&D was built as a bold plan to ship south wales products to France.

 

I believe that the 'trespassing' thing is really metaphor for foolish way that none of our closed railways were simply mothballed for future use with no regard for their intrinsic value.

 

Another spectacularly uninformed post. Any piece of construction requires maintenance purely to keep it safe. The costs of such an activity could only come from the revenues of the basic business, the railway, which is already haemmoraging funds.

So what would your answer be to that equation? The business answer is to divest itself of redundant alignments and structures and that is what was done, properly, legally, and professionally.

Grow up.

 

Why should there be any need to justify the expense of (re)establishing a community lifeline in terms of freight tonnage and passenger use... South Wales products(coal) to France?...bold indeed. Part of the route related to the ancient passage of the Stone Henge blue stones.

I digress... There are railways elsewhere in the country going down the route of community requirement and operation-eg Churnet Valley,Weardale and the new Tavistock venture. Where a community railway is needed cost should not be a consideration.

 

Its this aspect which i find most disturbing - he doesnt just predict that a post-oil world is also post-road transport, he appears to want it as well despite the inevitable consequences to the modern world, which has become so dependent on road vehicles. While it appeared his only interest was its affect on reopening old rural railway lines, however illogical, this talk of promoting 'localism' instead of a 'growth (greed) based economy' gives it a bizarre and worrying political edge too.

Chris

 

Thankyou Dr Beeching...

 

Was your job, at one point, working in the division of BR/Railtrack that disposed of railway property or have I mixed you up with someone else? (Just asking...)

 

Oh really. Thanks very much. And as the person paying for these community railways, regardless of cost, do I actually have any say as to whether or not each one is needed? I suspect that in your ideal world it'll be some publicly funded water melon that decides "Ooh, let's have a community railway, don't care what it costs." And it'll be tax payers (me!) that are expected to pay for it.

 

I have tried to tackle the cost element and have of yet no plausable reply. I find it also hard to believe that Midford/Spetisbury will be self funding, Shillingstone has a shop and well stocked at that but i'm sure they don't rely on it for income. In his world it is all so easy like it's just gonna happen.
It was sad to see the bridges and viaducts demolished but the cost of rebuilding them as you know would be major. He disribes industrial estates as "tuppenny Ha'penny", since when? Is there really that much revenue to be had from the S&D between Bath AND Bournemouth?There is a rail service from one to the other anyway. Why discribe home owners as stupid when i suspect many have no idea that there was once a railway. The N S&D makes out it can do more than any other organisation has achieved on the line, Bit of an insult in my book.

 

I find this whole re opening railways thing to be snowballing out of any control , there is only ever going to be a finite amount of money availible to any schemes , and whilst i agree that beeching was short sighted , a lot of closed lines are just not going to be able to be reopened .

Most community railways are branch lines that are still open and already have a service and more importantly people who use it, most need council funding to remain open, so where will the funding come from? Councils have less money now so that is going to impact , the government will only support schemes that network rail might support, such as tavistock to oakhampton because of the dawlish problem , there is no stash of money to finance these new schemes so most will take another 50 years to get there because its going to be bit by bit and most will i think fizzle out in the end , assuming that they go actualy get started

When railways such as the Swanage re opened things were easier funding and grants were availible, land and buildings were cheeper to buy and second hand railway materials were in most cases made availible at less than cost by the big railway because they wanted to assist rebuilding some of these lines

Where there is support for a re opening and a strong financial case to back it up and the finance is already upfront then yeah go ahead , but i get the feeling that a lot of these schemes will rely on council funding to pay for everything and that there is no real case for reopening that line, except for a group of people who want to turn the clock back 60 years but expect everyone else to pay for it its almost a case of saying lets relay the line, rebuild the stations hire in stock and hope that someone will turn up to pay for it and in the meanwhile several million pounds have been sunk in what is in effect someones 1-1 scale train set

 

Yes-if you are part of that community...and they will be needed. Surely there are other things you would rather not pay for (I take it you mean) through your taxes. If so why not object to those.

 

Big if! I can hardly be part of every community that wants / needs a community railway, and it seems unlikely that funding will be available locally, it will only come from the national purse, which in any case is where a lot of local money comes from indirectly.

There are other costs, non-financial, to be dis-regarded in re-opening these railways. Do I understand correctly that Thales have a works or offices or something on the line and would need to be ejected? If so, then maybe all the Thales jobs would go - you cannot guarantee that Thales would simply move locally.

Oh there are and I do. But that would be off topic.

 

Why would they be needed? If you really do want the country to go back to when road transport was at most a luxury for the rich, those in the 'community' needing work will either be looking for it locally or packing their bags and moving elsewhere - campaigning for their local railway to be rebuilt by modern day navvies with picks and shovels wont be a high priority.

The irony of the arguments being made by the 'New S&D' is that reinstatement of rural railway lines is helped by road congestion - what's being suggested instead isnt only illogical, but it actually hurts or even destroys any case for doing so.

Chris

 

Neil wrote

Yes - I was a chartered surveyor working for the BRB for almost thirty years so I have an eye for both the cost of owning property, used or disused, the revenues and capital that it can earn on disposal, or exploitation, and its capacity to renew both infrastructure and rolling stock. Liverpool St or Piccadilly, or just exactly how many HST's did my work buy?

Austerity is clearly from the planet Zarg, a born car hater and totally out of touch with how the national economy and the people within it live and work. The best thing that can happen is that people like him are let loose to expound their barmy theories so the rest of the world can see them for what they are - and then get on with progressing the life of the country. And - like it or not - that will continue to include private independent transport, oil or no oil.

 

Thats a bit harsh isnt it, moff isnt totally mad, well not quite but he does tend to get a bit carried away , or should that be should be carried away prefably by two men in white coats, if not for his own sanity then for everyone elses

I'm surprised he has the time to get involved with all these schemes , involved as he is in the attempt to save the folkestone harbour branch, re build Antwerp, the J94 that is , not the town, save the maxman, and the dover and he still manages to turn up for work , i sometimes wonder does he wear his underpants over his boilersuit ?

 

I'm surprised that everyone on here takes life so seriously! ..and all jumping the gun. I don't recall saying anything about wishing to prevent the use of private independent transport,oil or no oil-I like classic cars and some of the new ones. I even like Martin's kit cars! I'd like to point out that I was never connected with Manxman beyond the 'might get involved stage', expressing concerns like many on this forum over the fate of such an important maritime artifact.