Commuter service on heritage railway

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Taking a steam train to get to work?  Surely not?

But the answer is "yes" - and narrow gauge, and in the British Isles too ...

TT commuter trains have proved popular this year.

And new for TT2014 was the chance for passengers to tuck into a tasty breakfast on board the dining car including the option of a full English breakfast served on a fireman^s shovel.

The trains ran on eight days during the festival fortnight, allowing residents in the south of the island to avoid any rush hour traffic congestion.

In race week, the Monday morning service which left Port Erin at 7.45am was packed out while an estimated 60 passengers used the commuter train the next morning.

Fares were the same as those on the buses.

TT commuter trains were introduced in 2007 and have operated every year since then.

One again, the trains were pulled by steam this year ...

http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/steam-up-for-tt-commuter-trains-1-6657594

We've had various kites flown about commuter services on heritage lines in the South West over the years (Kingswear, Minehead and Bodmin come to my mind), and a suggestion that a line with commuter trains early and late every day be supplemented by regular steam trains during the day (Portishead; NOT part of the main business case!).  Yet - thus far - it's not (quite ?) worked out.

[John R]

I guess it's a different matter to run services whilst an event is on, and the commitment (often volunteer) and financial resources required to run services every working day. Even railways which seem the most obvious candidates, like the Mid Hants Railway haven't been able to justify it, although they came close to running an experiment a couple of years ago.

[bobm]

The Romney Hythe & Dymchurch have run a diesel service for school children for many years.

[Rhydgaled]

I've thought in the past that some NR^» (Network Rail - home page)-connected heritage railways could form a useful part of the network. The West Somerset is the obvious one, but I tend to think in terms of re-linking the Llangollen railway with Ruabon. My idea is that the local national rail TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) operates a DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) service on days the heritage railway are not operating. Then, in the busy tourist season the heritage railway runs their steam service, releasing the TOC's DMU for strengthing elsewhere (eg. Llangollen steam service allowing the Wales (& borders) TOC to lengthen Pembroke Dock trains in the summer).

[ChrisB]

The Romney Hythe & Dymchurch have run a diesel service for school children for many years.

I was one of those schoolkids, many moons ago. Littlestone-Hythe. Boy, winters were cold. No heating, drafty.....

[onthecushions]

I believe that the Festiniog had an advertised connection to/from Euston not too long ago.

Steam heritage services are essentially land cruises, i.e you travel on them for fun, paying premium prices. The costs are high and when a locomotive boiler certificate expires, perhaps a decade of work lies ahead.

Heritage commuter services need FT staff, not volunteers and rolling stock with competitive running costs and reliability. Preserved MU^▸ (Multiple Unit)'s, whether DMMU's or DEMU^▸ (Diesel Electric Multiple Unit)'s have slam shut doors and may need extensive work to put them in daily use, as the Worth Valley has recently shown. I imagine that a 4TC + Class 33 would be similarly expensive.

The group I'm involved in had an option on the remaining Class 210 cars (2 DTSO and 2DMSO) but the power cars (equipped with half-Valentas!) couldn't be extracted from Eastleigh, so were cut.

I think that heritage line daily/commuter trains will only be widely possible when some "modern" DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit)'s come off-lease, such as the 150's. I think that one of the N Yorks lines has a single car railbus, that has proved itself.

We may have to be patient.


OTC

[bobm]

The group I'm involved in had an option on the remaining Class 210 cars (2 DTSO and 2DMSO) but the power cars (equipped with half-Valentas!) couldn't be extracted from Eastleigh, so were cut.

Oh that is a shame. Although there were only two sets, I was rather a fan of them.