KESR vandalised

[stewartingram]

It did not stop Rover putting an MG badge on the front!

No they didn't. The Rover name passed to Ford with the BMW split so they had to usew MG.

 

Stewart

[faulcon1]

Getting back to the vandalism on the K&ESR, it saddens one to see this sort of unwanted activity. Preserved railways I think need to be more vigilant about the security of their prized possessions. They need to invest in CCTV cameras but also many lines have stock stored in the open which is almost an open invitation for these low lives to come and wreck the stock.

Infra red beams that set off very loud alarms aren't too expensive and when coupled with floodlights that light the area up with their intense light may frighten away vandals before they can do their damaging "work" maybe a good thing. So what if a few grumpy locals complain about the noise of a security system doing it's job at 3am. Much better than to have thousands of hours of work flushed down the drain. 

I was at the the K&ESR last year and I saw their heritage train of four and six wheeled coaches standing in the open. I asked why weren't they under cover out of the weather and out of harms way. I was told that big sheds are very expensive to buy an erect. I replied that the service life of those coaches is shortened by storing them outside where they're at the mercy of mother nature and vandals. Those sheds could be fitted with sensors and a mains pressure sprinkler system so if anyone got in and tried to set fire to them their efforts would be doused before they really had a chance to do any damage.

I don't think I was too popular when I said that I'd give real money for a shed rather than give money to restore the 16xx pannier tank!.

[phil-b259]

I was told that big sheds are very expensive to buy an erect. I replied that the service life of those coaches is shortened by storing them outside where they're at the mercy of mother nature and vandals. Those sheds could be fitted with sensors and a mains pressure sprinkler system so if anyone got in and tried to set fire to them their efforts would be doused before they really had a chance to do any damage.

 

Big sheds are not only expensive - they need a thing called planning permission (itself an expensive process to get, particularly if the site is in an area officially designated a a national park or Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty).

 

Given Heritage railways are not 'Statutory undertakers' then they cannot swerve this requirement like Network Rail can do in certain circumstances, thus anything railway might propose can, and will be vetoed down by councillors if the locals complain enough.

 

 

As for sprinklers - if they go off when there is no fire then they can cause significant water damage - which is why railways that do have carriage sheds tend to avoid them and instead focus on preventing fires starting in the first place.

Edited August 6, 2018 by phil-b259

[royaloak]

No they didn't. The Rover name passed to Ford with the BMW split so they had to usew MG.

 

Stewart

What about the MG Metro, MG Maestro, MG Montego etc?

[Titan]

What about the MG Metro, MG Maestro, MG Montego etc?

 

Slight misunderstanding, he was talking about after 2006, where a company continued to make some Rover models, but could not call them Rovers as they did not have the rights to the Rover name which passed to Ford, but they did have rights to the MG name, so that is what they were badged as.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Titan

[DCB]

It did not stop Rover putting an MG badge on the front!

Yes but it was the bits inside which made the MG different. Seats good for 400 miles a day instead of 150, engines and gearboxes which actually performed.  The original MG Montego sailed along the Fosseway in 5th gear, the bog standard 2.0 Montego needed 3rd up the hills.  Bog standard 2 litre had 20 less horsepower, 30% higher gearing. Ugggh!

[stewartingram]

I have to disagree with that. The Rover 75 was the last car designed by the Rover group (under BMW ownership). Basically designed from the ground up with no expense restrictions, a very good car was designed. Later on, the accountants took hold, various things were "simplified" in later production runs (ie cost cutting under a revamp label). Continued production continued as an MG after the sale of the company by BMW until the final demise of the company.

It is a known fact - ask on any Rover/MG forum - that with the later MG models vs early Rovers, they are not a match for comfort, ride quality, or indeed for the amount of extras. Still good quality, but "tarted up" for performance/brand image, and loosing the ride and comfort of the original Rover.

 

Stewart

[jjb1970]

The Rover 75 was a very under rated car and I thought that the cooking models captured the essence of what a comfortable family cruiser should be far better than rivals pretending to be sports cars. There was a really nice relaxing feeling about it. That said I think that they fell into the same ye olde English purveyor of horseless carriages styling trap as Jaguar prior to the XF. Smart retro styling can work very well but the 75 and several generations of Jaguars just looked staid and Conservative to me.

[Tim Hall]

Not that anyone is going off topic at all here 

[Steamport Southport]

I don't know. I believe some owners have a desire to vandalise cr@ppy British cars. Usually by hitting them with a big branch.

 

 

 

Jason

[Steamport Southport]

Getting back to the vandalism on the K&ESR, it saddens one to see this sort of unwanted activity. Preserved railways I think need to be more vigilant about the security of their prized possessions. They need to invest in CCTV cameras but also many lines have stock stored in the open which is almost an open invitation for these low lives to come and wreck the stock.

Infra red beams that set off very loud alarms aren't too expensive and when coupled with floodlights that light the area up with their intense light may frighten away vandals before they can do their damaging "work" maybe a good thing. So what if a few grumpy locals complain about the noise of a security system doing it's job at 3am. Much better than to have thousands of hours of work flushed down the drain. 

I was at the the K&ESR last year and I saw their heritage train of four and six wheeled coaches standing in the open. I asked why weren't they under cover out of the weather and out of harms way. I was told that big sheds are very expensive to buy an erect. I replied that the service life of those coaches is shortened by storing them outside where they're at the mercy of mother nature and vandals. Those sheds could be fitted with sensors and a mains pressure sprinkler system so if anyone got in and tried to set fire to them their efforts would be doused before they really had a chance to do any damage.

I don't think I was too popular when I said that I'd give real money for a shed rather than give money to restore the 16xx pannier tank!.

 

I think we've got to remember that these incidents are extremely rare. Even in the UK.

 

I think it was just unfortunate that we had four high profile vandalisms in a short space of time. The fact they made the headlines on the TV news and in the national press show how newsworthy they actually are. It's also pretty obvious that at least two of the incidents were copycat attacks. Probably started by social media.

 

If the security at heritage railways wasn't sufficient then I would expect the insurance companies to get involved and tell the railway to "beef up" security or increase the payments. I would think that the vast majority of heritage railways have their security "just right". But you aren't going to deter the most determined of vandals, even if you had guard dogs and machine gun posts. Just look at the graffiti "artists" that risk life and limb trespassing on the "real" railway, dodging high voltage electricity and high speed trains.

 

 

Jason

[Christopher125]

I was at the the K&ESR last year and I saw their heritage train of four and six wheeled coaches standing in the open. I asked why weren't they under cover out of the weather and out of harms way. I was told that big sheds are very expensive to buy an erect.

 

True, but fortunately the K&ESR have had a 'big shed' for their carriage fleet since 2015: http://rvrailway.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-rolvenden-carriage-shed-is-official.html

Edited August 9, 2018 by Christopher125

[Dava]

Chris,

 

Any hints on what the KESR loco roster may be for the Hop-pickers weekend and next week? We're on holiday in Kent so looking forward to a visit from Sunday onwards. We have to visit the Col Stephens Museum [and some vineyards].

 

Dava

[roythebus]

I can't help at the moment with the loco roster for the weekend, but may have time to look on the members' roster site later.

 

The KESR has had use of the carriage shed at Rolvenden kindly built by the Rother Valley Railway and the coaching stock is generally berthed there. the Pullman set has to remain in the open at Tenterden as that's where the catering facilities are. There is also CCTV at both sites and I would not disclose where they are sited, but people have already been brought to book for breaking in to the staff accommodation and nicking stuff from the restaurant.

 

The "Swiss thingy" is actually Swedish and operated by the Norwegian State Railways. It is now owned by the Norwegian loco trust on long term loan to the KESR.

 

The damage to the Pullman cra was mainly to a passenger door; fortunately a spare door was available so the damage was fairly quickly repaired.

 

In the past few years there's been a number of thefts of materials from the railway, including a some of a new set of cast iron station lamps from Wittersham Road. the replacements were made from cast glass fibre or similar, so of little use to the local travelling fraternity, as they found out when they cut through one. .

[Dava]

Very enjoyable visit to the KESR Hop-pickers weekend on Sunday, a busy day but enjoyed the vintage train on the return to Tenterden after sampling the fair at Bodiam.Hardly any photos as I was mainly using video and need to edit it.

 

The KESR coped very well with the crowds with a 3 train service. The 4 road carriage shed at Rolvenden is very impressive. Returning to visit the museum later in the week.

 

Dava

[roythebus]

Regarding the cost of big sheds, my partner Lisa recently had 2 sheds built in the garden to house our collection of vintage buses. 2 sheds 40'x40' with a headspan of 25' and door height of 15' to allow for double deckers weren't all that expensive relatively speaking.

 

Luckily she bought the buildings when the £ was at a sensible rate to the euro from a company in the RoI. 2 sheds, delivered by artic lorry was around £20k. they are of similar construction to the Rolvenden sheds. With groundworks and erection costs, the total was probably around £56k. Retrospective planning permission was obtained with no problems as the sheds are hidden from sight by trees round the boundary of the garden.

 

So that ought to give some idea of the costs of sheds.

[Oldddudders]

4RF4s!

[faulcon1]

Of the three coaches in the picture, the rear one looks to be a Met-Cam Mk1 Pullman. The journalist (who probably wasn't 'disinterested') was, no doubt, tasked with finding a photo of the KES Pullman wine and dine train, and that he did. When I first went to the KES in the 1960s, the two Pullman cars, Theodora and Barbara, were still in the SR green livery in which they had run as non-Pullman cafeteria cars on Kent Coast expresses. A curious reversal of what has happened to some Mk1s which have ended up as Pullmans. The reference to Pullman in the UK refers to cars owned and operated by the Pullman Car Co, the UK outpost of the organisation founded by George Mortimer Pullman in order to provide a better standard of rail travel initially for travellers in the USA. Only a few of the cars operated by the company in the UK were actually built by Pullman, either in the USA or at Preston Park, Brighton, where the UK company had its works. The main builders were Metro-Cammell, Birmingham RC&W and Clayton. Here's one of the cars, with Hastings-line gauge Maunsell at Robertsbridge c. 1968. (Thanks to my friend Keith Jaggers for the shot - and, yes, that's me) (CJL)

In the USA George Pullman built an entire town to house his workforce dibber25. It was meant to be so he could control the lives of his workers. There was no saloons so workers couldn't get drunk and not show up for work. There were shops, school etc. When the Pullman works was receiving orders things went well and the workers lived in company housing that they paid a rent to George Pullman. However when the orders dropped off Pullman cut the wages but insisted on his workers paying the same rate in rent. So his workers went on strike. It got so bad that Pullman's utopian village fell apart and when he died Pullman was hated and despised by his workforce. He even left instructions that his grave was to be protected with railway lines welded over the grave itself lest his former workers would dig him up and desecrate him. That's how afraid he became of his former loyal workforce.