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Author Topic: Heritage line threatened by potential re-opening for commuter services?  (Read 11157 times)
grahame
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« Reply #15 on: December 26, 2018, 12:24:16 »

[snip]

Heritage railways are not, and cannot be, 'preserved' as such; wooden sleepers and 60-foot bullhead rail are slowly dying out, traditional-looking signalboxes are connected with electronic telecoms and station gaslamps are converted to LED lighting. Some heritage lines make a decent fist at being 'conserved' railways though. In this context it seems to me that it ought to be possible to operate these as 'conservation lines', rather like areas of historic towns are granted 'conservation area' status.

[snip]

At with conservation areas, this approach could be applied irrespective of who owns the assets of the railway - it would work just as well on the West Somerset as on the Settle and Carlisle.

There would be challenges to overcome, not least in signalling: it is highly desirable from an aesthetic viewpoint to retain semaphore signals, but there are obvious cost implications with this. Light railway restrictions might need to be overcome to run modern trains at sensible speeds. And volunteers might find it hard to adapt. But with the right regulations and encouragement, this approach could give a massive boost to a number of heritage lines.

Couldn't agree with you more.
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« Reply #16 on: December 26, 2018, 16:06:45 »

As I pointed out above, it nearly happened to my heritage line, the Chinnor & P. Risborough back in its infancy when the first thought of the subsequent 'Evergreen' programme started to materialise in the minds of - then - M40 Trains; predecessors to the current Chiltern Railways.  When we were still running over a very short stretch of line, there came a proposal to rebuild the line back to a massive Park & Ride at Aston Rowant (Junction 6 on the M40) and run commuter expresses through to Marylebone on weekdays whilst we would have a beautifully rebuilt railway to play with at the weekends.  I was not in country at that time but it raised considerable passion among the membership.  On the one hand, we would have a magnificent piece of infrastructure but I don't think the heritage character could be there without our hand operated level crossing gates, wayside halts and semaphore signalling. We would however been running trains between Aston Rowant and Princes Risborough - our stated final goal - some 20 years ago.

Obviously it all fell through, not least the well heeled burghers of Aston Rowant that wanted nothing to do with a huge West Oxfordshire Park & Ride outside of their lovely village. Oxford Parkway - Evergreen 3 - now fills that niche and with the help of our sponsors, supporters and volunteers, we finally have our mainline connection.  With the continuing support of Aston Rowant for a heritage railway terminus we will hopefully reach that objective, but without a miracle - not in my lifetime.
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« Reply #17 on: December 26, 2018, 16:32:18 »

Before running off to the 'colonies' after uni, I was bought up in Lancashire and the East Lancs was always one of my local heritage lines that I took a great deal of interest in. Again, a late closure of questionable justification and if the whole line through to Accrington with its branches up the Rossendale Valley have survived the 80s slump, I am of no doubt that it would be part of an important and thriving local transport system under the support and care of Greater Manchester and TftN. It is one of those lines in an area of high population density with a good, but still overloaded, road network that could add value if integrated into the local transport network and get people to and from their jobs in Manchester out of their cars. 

It really is a matter of how. Local authority money going into permanent way infrastructure - with professionally contracted renewals and repairs - would be welcome on any railway. There is never enough money for that. But operations wise, even if one can run a commuter service a greater than 25 mph, operational hubs like Ramsbottom signal box and level crossing would have to be manned permanently by professional signallers and then there is the infrastructure to integrate with the rest of the Manchester network - presumably Metrolink. A new platform and link at the Bury Interchange overbridge ? - think gradients. Cross platform at Buckley Wells - think money. It could be a valuable community benefit for both the locals and the railway but I see it being placed in the 'Too Difficult' box unfortunately.
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Red Squirrel
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« Reply #18 on: December 26, 2018, 17:55:40 »


[snip]

It really is a matter of how. Local authority money going into permanent way infrastructure - with professionally contracted renewals and repairs - would be welcome on any railway. There is never enough money for that. But operations wise, even if one can run a commuter service a greater than 25 mph, operational hubs like Ramsbottom signal box and level crossing would have to be manned permanently by professional signallers and then there is the infrastructure to integrate with the rest of the Manchester network - presumably Metrolink. A new platform and link at the Bury Interchange overbridge ? - think gradients. Cross platform at Buckley Wells - think money. It could be a valuable community benefit for both the locals and the railway but I see it being placed in the 'Too Difficult' box unfortunately.

These are precisely the kinds of conundrum that face urban conservation areas: how do you maintain and enhance the character of a line whilst continuously adapting it to keep it relevant?

Signalling is probably the biggest challenge. Semaphore signals will hopefully be extinct on the big railway before too long, but they form an essential part of the atmosphere of a heritage line as does the whole working infrastructure of signalboxes, manual level crossings, tokens, point rodding and so on. My instinct is that with goodwill and pragmatism it ought to be possible to find a way to retain much of this atmosphere, allowing a line to operate as both a modern railway and a museum.
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« Reply #19 on: December 26, 2018, 18:16:00 »

Signalling is probably the biggest challenge. Semaphore signals will hopefully be extinct on the big railway before too long, but they form an essential part of the atmosphere of a heritage line as does the whole working infrastructure of signalboxes, manual level crossings, tokens, point rodding and so on. My instinct is that with goodwill and pragmatism it ought to be possible to find a way to retain much of this atmosphere, allowing a line to operate as both a modern railway and a museum.

We must remember that semaphore signalling works perfectly well and has done on the big railway with speeds well in excess of 100 mph. ATP (Automatic Train Protection) can be integrated with signalling system; it is the fact that it is extremely manual, and thus expensive to run in a commuting environment and the signal spacings might not be right for 40 mph running rather than 25 mph.  The big issue is the manning costs while keeping the heritage equipment.
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« Reply #20 on: December 26, 2018, 19:13:03 »

The biggest restriction heritage railways have is the number of people it takes to operate a service; most have geared themselves to represent a 1930 to 1950's type of railway operation.  To convert themselves to a modern 21st century type of operation whilst this is feasible they would loose the ethos that many exist for, loose their attraction that many visitors want; for perhaps very little revenue in return.
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« Reply #21 on: December 26, 2018, 19:29:30 »

That's where goodwill and pragmatism would be required - to adapt the signalling and safety-critical equipment to allow modern trains to run using modern systems (i.e. switching out the heritage signalboxes etc and running it all from a Signalling Centre) but retaining the old kit for its atmosphere, potentially allowing some or all of it to be switched-in on heritage days if that is practical.

When NR» (Network Rail - home page) modernise, they tend to be fairly efficient at removing old kit - but on a heritage line there are plenty of volunteers who would be happy to keep it oiled and painted and looking good...
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« Reply #22 on: December 26, 2018, 19:43:37 »

When NR» (Network Rail - home page) modernise, they tend to be fairly efficient at removing old kit - but on a heritage line there are plenty of volunteers who would be happy to keep it oiled and painted and looking good...

This is the crux of the problem challenge: if the old signalling exists, it must be obeyed by everyone - heritage and modern; you couldn't sign-off a safety case, if not.  One either automates the heritage equipment (complex and very expensive) or one uses it as nature intended (manually and expensive). Heritage railways get away with the expensive part because trained people like me do it for free.
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« Reply #23 on: December 26, 2018, 23:49:23 »

When NR» (Network Rail - home page) modernise, they tend to be fairly efficient at removing old kit - but on a heritage line there are plenty of volunteers who would be happy to keep it oiled and painted and looking good...

This is the crux of the problem challenge: if the old signalling exists, it must be obeyed by everyone - heritage and modern; you couldn't sign-off a safety case, if not.  One either automates the heritage equipment (complex and very expensive) or one uses it as nature intended (manually and expensive). Heritage railways get away with the expensive part because trained people like me do it for free.

Are we thinking of running a mix of heritage and modern services simultaneously, or or we planning to have 'heritage days'? My crayons and I can't see a mixed service working very well, for all sorts of reasons. However if you had (say) modern trains Mon-Sat and heritage trains on Sunday, might it be possible to swap systems? Semaphore signals could  be marked inactive during the week, and a simplified modern signalling system (without run-rounds, engine release roads and so on) could be operated; on heritage days the LED signals could be switched out and the X's would come off the boards... I can see that there might be a strong argument that this is not as safe as running a single system, but then rusty old slam-door Mk.1's aren't as safe as modern stock - that's the price we pay for hanging on to the past.
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« Reply #24 on: December 27, 2018, 07:52:43 »

When NR» (Network Rail - home page) modernise, they tend to be fairly efficient at removing old kit - but on a heritage line there are plenty of volunteers who would be happy to keep it oiled and painted and looking good...

This is the crux of the problem challenge: if the old signalling exists, it must be obeyed by everyone - heritage and modern; you couldn't sign-off a safety case, if not.  One either automates the heritage equipment (complex and very expensive) or one uses it as nature intended (manually and expensive). Heritage railways get away with the expensive part because trained people like me do it for free.

Are we thinking of running a mix of heritage and modern services simultaneously, or or we planning to have 'heritage days'? My crayons and I can't see a mixed service working very well, for all sorts of reasons. However if you had (say) modern trains Mon-Sat and heritage trains on Sunday, might it be possible to swap systems? Semaphore signals could  be marked inactive during the week, and a simplified modern signalling system (without run-rounds, engine release roads and so on) could be operated; on heritage days the LED signals could be switched out and the X's would come off the boards... I can see that there might be a strong argument that this is not as safe as running a single system, but then rusty old slam-door Mk.1's aren't as safe as modern stock - that's the price we pay for hanging on to the past.


It is easy to say switch out one system and switch in another, technically hardware wise its possible expensive but possible; the difficult part is not the hardware its the softer issue of regulations / rules would be the challenging bit, things like who would be the operating authority the heritage railway, NR an third party (eg a TOC (Train Operating Company))?

A Token / key controlled type of operation is achievable to give access to a heritage line from the national network and this currently available on quite a few heritage lines now for occasional movement of "specials"; however for regular access by trains the heritage line as the owners (and operator) of the infrastructure would be required to have staff on duty (just as NR has staff on duty) to control the railway and for incident management.

Also heritage railways operate under the "light railway" regulations where the permitted max speed is 25 mph, there is nothing to stop a heritage railway to apply for higher speed but their costs would increase considerably due to the levels of maintenance and inspections required also a much higher requirement than they currently have demonstrating that they have the systems and competence (of staff) in place to manage the railway
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« Reply #25 on: December 27, 2018, 20:13:00 »

And just for info: right now, that largest user of of heritage signalling equipment in Great Britain is - ...

Network Rail!
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« Reply #26 on: December 27, 2018, 21:29:40 »

The Swanage Railway did have a timetabled through service from Waterloo this last summer, ran by SWR» (South Western Railway - about), it did a run, albeit only a few times due to our friends at the union..
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