British Railway Operations

[Murphy Siding]

We've seen a lot of discussion about North American rail lines having to be upgraded to handle 286,000 # cars. What kind of loading is typical on British lines? Does the smaller size of British cars limit the weight alot? Thanks

[daveklepper]

Simon, thank you. "There will always be an England, and England shall........
always have working steam locomotives, thank you!!!"

[Tulyar15]

QUOTE: Originally posted by daveklepper
[. But what about railway electric mu's? Anyone preserve a Brighton Bell mu?

The Brighton Belle cars were all sold off individual when these units were withdrawn in 1972. I think all of them still survive in some shapre or form; the people who operate the VSOE have some stored at Stewars Lane. For full details of their whereabouts and those of other preserved SR 3rd emus see the SOuthern Electric Group's website at:-

http://www.southernelectric.org.uk/

The AC Electric loco group also have a good site, which includes links to other groups who've preserved emus- see: http://www.aclocogroup.org.uk/

[owlsroost]

The axles are fixed (other than any movement allowed by the springs and dampers). Two axle wagons are common elsewhere in Europe too.

There are some passenger diesel MU cars ("Pacers") on 2-axle chassis as well - see http://www.therailwaycentre.com/Pages%20DMU/Recognition%20DMU/IllusDMU_142.html - "railbus" is a fairly accurate description of what they are like to ride in.....

Tony

[Murphy Siding]

When I see photos of those *cute*, little Briti***rain cars (wagons?) with the one axle-two wheel trucks,(bogies?), it makes me wonder. Are the wheelsets built to swivel about a point, as a 4-wheel truck would, or are these fixed? Thanks

[Murphy Siding]

mhurley87f & Simon Reed: Thanks both for some interesting reading about the steel mill / locos.

[jchnhtfd]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cogload

For those who like thier humour dark, First have published thier (?????) draft timetable for December 2006. It can be seen on the following....http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk. I am in the process of undertaking a spreadsheet analysis of my bits down here and when completed will post a link.

For American readers - this is a series of timetables which were designed by the government and is probabley an excellent example of what happens when you get a timetable designed by civil servants. For the Brits, well have a look. It is "up for consultation".

Oh dear me yes. I'm familiar with those timetables, and have spent many frustrated hours trying to figure out how to get, to quote the Kingston Trio, today to Morrow. They are incredible!

[Simon Reed]

Right - I'm varnishing a door today and between coats I've been through the Industrial Railway Society's most recent list of existing non-capital locomotives.

Narrow Gauge steam - well you can multiply my previous estimate by 5 but I did'nt count them.

Standard gauge steam - I count, although I could be a few out, 1248 survivors!

I was surprised at how many ex-industrials are in private collections, something I'd not mentioned in my previous post.

Of 1248 I'd estimate that 10-15% are currently operable, have recently been in service or are under overhaul (that's a personal estimate. The lists don't help on that front.)

Of the remainder, and again this is a personal guess, I'd say that about 25% are beyond redemption without the sort of money that could build you a new loco anyway.

Diesels - forget it! I want to get this door done before the summer thank you!

[Anonymous]

For those who like thier humour dark, First have published thier (?????) draft timetable for December 2006. It can be seen on the following....http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk. I am in the process of undertaking a spreadsheet analysis of my bits down here and when completed will post a link.

For American readers - this is a series of timetables which were designed by the government and is probabley an excellent example of what happens when you get a timetable designed by civil servants. For the Brits, well have a look. It is "up for consultation".

[Simon Reed]

Dave - sorry about the dud links, but they seem to work OK for me.

Preserved Steam - a thumbnail guess would be about 750, although that's a real guesstimate.

That number may seem high but it encompasses everything from 0-4-0 saddle tanks built for industrial use to ex BR 2-10-0 9F's, and it includes everything from rotting hulks that will realistically never steam again to 75MPH mainline certified locos.

There are several factors to bear in mind here. One is that BR did not do away with steam until 1968, and incredibly still had a steam building programme in full swing until the early 60's, so many ex-BR locomotives became available during the 1960's that had seen very little use or had been comprehensively overhauled relatively recently.

A steam locomotive owner that I know of decided he wanted a couple of locomotives for a fledgling preservation line (which became the Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway in North West England) so he wrote to BR, was invited to look at stored locomotives that had only just come out of traffic and effectively said "How much for those please?" - deal done on the spot!

Another factor is that steam in British Industry lasted until the 80's, so a large number of smaller tank engines became available in the 1970's, the decade that the preservation movement really took off. The very last steam locomotive in industrial use switched the yard at Crossley's Scrap Metal, Shipley, West Yorkshire until 1985. That's about 2 miles from where I'm sitting now!

A third factor is that a good number of BR steam locomotives were sold straight out of service to Woodham Brothers Scrap Metal at Barry in South Wales. Woodham's chose not to break them up straight away, as most other contractors did, and gradually made a whole lot of money selling them on to enthusiasts for preservation. Over 100 steam locos' entered preservation by this route.

All but a handful of our preserved steam is on preserved railways, or preservation sites. The exceptions are a few examples in non-railway-specific museums, and some of the main line certified machines which are kept on Network Rail sites.

I suppose there'd be maybe 200 more narrow gauge steam locos around, once again in various states of repair/disrepair.

If I get a spare hour or so I'll do a proper count and possibly surprise us all!

[mhurley87f]

QUOTE: Originally posted by malcolmyoung

Quote:
I would also like to know how this ALCO ended up in Wales? Why didn't British Steel Corp buy English Electric? What were they used for? I think i can understand why you want to save it as i've heard ALCO's on videos and they sound great. Not that enviromentaly friendly but a top sound.

The Steel Company Of Wales (SCOW) built a large integrated steelworks at Port Talbot in South Wales and wanted powerful diesel locos to move the very heavy hot metal trains from the blast furnaces to the steel making plant. At that time, the late 1940s- early 1950s, there was nobody in the UK building diesel locos above two or three hundred horsepower for industrial use, in fact the majority of industrial loco builders were still building steam locos. Alco was in a position to supply off the shelf S1s at short notice so SCOW ordered five. They were very highly thought of by both the managent and the crews who operated them. When we went to Port Talbot to look at 803 before buying it, the works transport manager told us that they were the best locos that they ever had and was sorry to see them go.
Malc.

Part of the answer is that while Steelmakers co-exist in a very competitive environment and to the devil the hindmost, there has always been a spirit of co-operation in that your competitors' problems might come round to bite you on the **** in time, and I'm sure there is world-wide interest in what exactly went wrong at Port Talbot when its No. 5 Blast Furnace blew up spectacularly a few years ago. Similarly, I dare say there is a bit of unofficial and secret benchmarking of costs of common processes as they all strive to get down to "world class" costs and up to "world class" quality standards.

When the Steel Company of Wales contemplated dieselisation of its internal locomotive fleet, they certainly sought out best practice among their friendlier competitors, and most of whom would have been happy to help by passing on good ideas. In passing, SCOW built their loco maintenance facilities in line with the best practice (in particular the ergonomic layout of three separate levels to ease the work of the fitters) that they saw in the US, and British Railways went on to use the same when designing their new Diesel Running & Maintenance Depots.

The ALCOs must have arrived with someone's blessing but they weren't the only class bought around that time. The 700 series looked dead ringers of the English Electric 0-6-0 shunters (BR's class 08) while the 900 series were assembled by Brush, but whose engine it was I have no idea). Lastly the 500 series, even though 0-4-0s, were strong enough to deal with sharp radius curves within the complex, and were also ideal for the outlying Trostre and Velindre Tinplate works.

1969 -70 was a time of transition at Port Talbot in that steelmaking was about to go over to a new LD steel making plant, and a new tidal harbour would also decimate the cost of delivered iron ore. Simultaneously, the Open Hearth steelmaking plant and the smaller Bessemer plant (SCOW called it the VLN Plant - short for very low Nitrogen as after burning the carbon down sufficently to make the grade, they followed up with a blast of carbon dioxide to blow through as much air, i.e. nitrogen, as possible - nitrogen tends to make steel brittle and its main product was low carbon rimming steels for extra deep drawing for car bodies, tin cans, and enamelling for white goods) would be closed as soon as possible.

Until the coming of the new steel plant, although the open hearth melting shop had 400 ton furnaces, they were tapped into 2 separate ladles to be teemed into 2 separate traisn of ingot moulds. The capacity of the new steel plant ranged between 240 tons and around 340 tons as the working lining of the converter would wear away until relining became necessary.

That change meant that the most demanding job for the internal locos changed from bringing hot metal from the blast furnaces in torpedo cars (bottle cars in the US) to taking away the ingots to the stripper bay / soakingpits for re-heating for the slabbing mill. 340 tons of ingots needed moulds of around the same weight, bottom plates of around half, and the special cars on which they all sat would weigh around a quarter of the load carried. The wight of the ingot trains then increased by around 170%.

It also goes without saying that those cars were unbraked and the traffic was moved around very, very, gingerly as any over-run or derailment would be hazardous to say the least. And in my time at Port Talbot the ALCOS seemed to be exclusively reserved for that work, so they must have had excellent brakes as well as plenty of grunt at low speed !!

By now, of course, it's all changed again, and steel is teemed into Continuous Casting machines and comes out as slabs, that will be reheated in accordance with strip mill schedules.

Yet another US import is the use of remote control of locos. Most, but not all, internal loco duties call for the drivers to use belly packs for train control. The downside is that drivers now have to walk miles every day, but theupside is that safety is vastly better where a shunt is being propelled and the driver walks at the leading end of that shunt able to see what's ahead of him and not relying on others' hand signals. Two years ago, my stepson, grandson and I were invited up for a cab-ride on a loco at the very south end of the complex, and it was unnerving for the three of us to be standing in the cab, while the engine was under the control of a man 100 yards or so away from us.

PS

Rugbytown,
Sorry no photos - my family only ran to a Box Brownie at that time.

[daveklepper]

I got good answers concerning preserved emu's.

But for lists of diesels and steam locomotives preserved, I consistantly come up with:

"This page cannot be displayed, please contact your supervisor or server."

Just some round numbers according the best of your knowledge would be appreciated.

[Tulyar15]

Sustrans is a non-profit organisation and their cycleways are free for walkers and cyclists to use. The own a section of line in Worcestershire (between Broadway and Honeybourne) that the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway want to re-open as a railway. Fortunately, both the local council and Worcestershire County Council support the re-opening of the railway so they have served a planning order on Sustrans preventing Sustrans from doing anything that would prevent it being re-opened as a rail line.

the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway at present runs 10 miles from just outside Cheltenham to Toddington. They bought the line after British Rail closed and lifted it in 1976 and have relaid all 10 miles. They are currently re-laying a 4 mile section north from Toddington to Broadway - a tourispot hot spot. They own this section of the line but the missing link from Broadway to Honeybourne is owned by Sustrans. At present the GWR is not connected to the national network but if they can get to Honeybourne they will be able to do so. They're ultime aim is to extend further north to Stratford-upon-Avon.
Their website is at: http://www.gwsr.com

[Murphy Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Tulyar15

Genrally British Rail sold off closed lines as quickly as possible, often piecemeal, with the result that it is often difficult to re-build them. Still that hasn't detered some people - The Corris Railway society in Wales are re-building a line that closed in 1948, while the Lynton & Barnstaple society in SW England are re-building a line that closed in 1935!

More recently, Network Rail has tended to leave track in place and make it easier for anyone who wants to take over a line to do so.

In some cases local authorities have sensibly bought up abandoned lines to make it easier for them to be re-opened. A lot of abandoned lines were sold in the 1990's to a group called Sustrans who have turned them into cycleways. They have crossed swords with a number of groups who want to see the lines in question re-opened as Sustrans seem to think that cycleways and railways cant live together, when there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. The preserved Avon Valley line near Bristol, which I am a volunteer worker on, shares its right of way with a cycle way and we find it a good source of revenue. We get so much revenue from walkers and cyclist that we open our shop and cafe 364 days a year.

What doe Sustrans do with them? Are they cycleways that charge? Or is Sustrans a non-profit company? Thanks

[Simon Reed]

DaveKlepper - I've put these links on here before but :-

http://www.preserved-diesels.co.uk/news/index.htm

and:-

http://www.ukhrail.uel.ac.uk/

may go some way to answering your question.

[Anonymous]

There are a few preserved EMUs - the problem is that there are no preserved lines with 3rd rail so they can't be run under their own power. Some lines just use them as hauled stock while some use either a Class 73/1 or 33/1 (both of which are fitted with MU equipment that's compatible with the majority of 3rd rail EMUs). The EPB Preservation Group have come up with a very neat way to power theirs using a couple of Motor Luggage Vans - these have onboard batteries allowing them to work away from the 3rd rail for up to 30mins or so. This feature was originally fitted to allow them to work onto the dockside at Dover and Folkestone to collect luggage from incoming ships. Website for the EPB Group is here http://www.epbpg.co.uk/

The Suburban Electric Railway Association at http://www.emus.co.uk/ have a few as do the Southern Electric Group here http://www.southernelectric.org.uk/ which may also be of interest.

Abandoned ROW are, sad to say, very common out here. A whole network of lines was torn out, leaving behind the occasional set of bridge piers and railway buildings. One section near me (the old Llanidloes-Brecon and Hay on Wye line) has been converted to a single-track road (still using some of the original rail bridges). I can't see anyone managing to restore the line, partly due to the road but also due to the terrain. The trackbed is heavily overgrown (we're talking sizable trees here!) and has been built on in some locations, access for heavy plant would be almost impossible.

[Hugh Jampton]

A lot of times they're right though,, the right of way just isn't wide enough for both.

[daveklepper]

About how many preserved steam locomotives are there in the United Kingdom? What precentage are on preserved private railways and what percentage are in operating condition?

If you can anser the same for preserved diesels, that too is of interest.

I am aware of the trolley musuems and Chrich and Beamish and other preserved tramcars. But what about railway electric mu's? Anyone preserve a Brighton Bell mu? I know slam-door coaches used in steam service have been preserved (including the Isle of Man trains) but what about mu's?

[Tulyar15]

Genrally British Rail sold off closed lines as quickly as possible, often piecemeal, with the result that it is often difficult to re-build them. Still that hasn't detered some people - The Corris Railway society in Wales are re-building a line that closed in 1948, while the Lynton & Barnstaple society in SW England are re-building a line that closed in 1935!

More recently, Network Rail has tended to leave track in place and make it easier for anyone who wants to take over a line to do so.

In some cases local authorities have sensibly bought up abandoned lines to make it easier for them to be re-opened. A lot of abandoned lines were sold in the 1990's to a group called Sustrans who have turned them into cycleways. They have crossed swords with a number of groups who want to see the lines in question re-opened as Sustrans seem to think that cycleways and railways cant live together, when there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. The preserved Avon Valley line near Bristol, which I am a volunteer worker on, shares its right of way with a cycle way and we find it a good source of revenue. We get so much revenue from walkers and cyclist that we open our shop and cafe 364 days a year.

[Murphy Siding]

What's become of abandonded rail lines in Britain? I have the impression that the Beeching era probably eliminated a lot of *excess* rail lines? Are abandonded right of ways common? Is it common for lines be abandoned now? Thanks

[owlsroost]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cogload

Incidentally, I would like to recommend to anyone interested in the workings of the HMRI until it was thoroughly rogered by the HSE to purchase "Red for Danger" by the Late, Great Tom Rolt.

I'd agree 110% - one of the great UK railway writers, and a superb, very readable account of how UK railway safety has evolved as a result of accidents and the subsequent investigations into the causes. I still re-read my dog-eared, 30 year old paperback copy occasionally - it's that good [:)]

Unfortunately I think it's out of print now [:(]

Tony

[jchnhtfd]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Simon Reed

JCHNHTFD (what a lovely name!) - I've replied on your original thread, but you might want to have a look at:-

http://www.wrha.org.uk/

I think there's been a bit of in-fighting up there recently so I'm not sure about the current state of play.

Got it in one, Simon, Thank you! It was Riccarton Junction. That whole line has some amazing bits on it. Also some fantastic scenery -- as well as Hermitage Castle (one of the loneliest Historic Scotland folks I've yet to meet... he was so glad to see us!). That road is a nice ride, if not a place to speed.

Can't think why I haven't been frequenting this thread... I'm a d___ed Yankee, but with close ties to Scotland (ancestry, and my daughter lives in Edinburgh -- one of my favourite cities anywhere in the world).

[Anonymous]

I think the inspecting officer of the Board of Trade also had reservations regarding the wind speed.

Incidentally, I would like to recommend to anyone interested in the workings of the HMRI until it was thoroughly rogered by the HSE to purchase "Red for Danger" by the Late, Great Tom Rolt.

[jchnhtfd]

Just a bit to add on the Tay Bridge. One must remember that the state of art in civil engineering wasn't quite what it is today (and we still make mistakes...). The level of wind forces simply wasn't understood at all; not the engineer's fault, really. Although it is quite likely that there were also metal defects -- one must remember that they were pretty common too in those days!

[Anonymous]

The Waverley Route - echoes of the Great Sir Walter Scott. Another bit of railway being rebuilt.

Kudos to the Scots - now they have devolution they aint hanging about rebuilding bits of track.

[Simon Reed]

JCHNHTFD (what a lovely name!) - I've replied on your original thread, but you might want to have a look at:-

http://www.wrha.org.uk/

I think there's been a bit of in-fighting up there recently so I'm not sure about the current state of play.

[jchnhtfd]

Murph suggested I ask this on this thread, even though it's maybe a little off topic. It's about the Waverley line, between Galashiels and Carlisle.

While driving along the B6399 about 7 - 8 miles south of Hawick, right at the top end of Liddesdale (don't even ask what a Yankee is doing on the B6399... except that it has something to do with Hermitage Castle!) I saw there was some track being installed, and some rolling stock hanging around. Does anyone know anything about this? Looked like it might be a railway historical group, or tourist operation?

[Simon Reed]

Malcolm - in view of our plans for 804 we could do with getting in touch.

I know Rug has already spoken to some of you but a more formal meeting would be a good idea. Basically - we know the lads who tried to buy 801 a few years ago, they're now in with us. There are three left of which 803 and 804 stand the best chance of running again at the moment and I'm determined to make it happen!

E-mail me and we'll see if we can set something up.

[malcolmyoung]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

malcolmyoung: What did SCOW replace the ALOC's with? Am I to read that the S1 was still in service when it was purchased? Thanks

The Alcos were in service for over 30 years with SCOW and had reached a stage where it was uneconomical to keep on spending money on them to keep them going. I think they were replaced with locos built by Brush Electrical Engineering at Loughborough, but I don't know any details about them. When we went to look at 803 it had been out of service 3 or 4 years and was in a shed with 801. By this time 804 was already at Peterborough and 802 and 805 had been either scrapped or broken for parts to keep the others going. 803 was minus its side buffers and about half the battery cells when we bought it but was otherwise complete. We also got a load of spares with it and all the original Alco drawings and drawings of modifications done by SCOW, for example, they modified the cooling system by fitting a by-pass pipe with a thermostat in it to circulate the coolant only round the engine until it was up to operating temperature.
Malc.

[Tulyar15]

Slightly off topic, but they also have some old (1949 I think) AL:CO's in Portugal which I've seen on a number of visits to that country. But I think they were re-engined in the 1970's with Caterpillar engines.

I think they still have US built diesel locos of some sort at MArgam steel works. Because they're out of the gauge for the UK National network the tracks are more widely spaced in the exchange sidings than is usually as these locos run into the exchange sidings where EWS locos take over.