Heritage railways may be running out of steam

[russ p]

I didn't have skills regarding mechanical work on rail vehicles,  cars yes but not locos. 

But I learned from friends on the railway and became pretty competent in it and then gaining official qualifications in it through work 

[thedman]

On 28/10/2019 at 19:37, russ p said:

 

On 28/10/2019 at 19:37, russ p said:

 

In the 90s we had a big crowd of us who went out in sheringham on Friday and Saturday nights virtually all have now left the railway because it's not fun anymore.  Even back then the drink and drug regulations were in and no one went stupid,  granted on days when we weren't doing much there was some mega sessions. 

 

I have the pictures to prove it with MM & KB, et al

[russ p]

So obviously I know you from the past

[FraserClarke]

On 29/10/2019 at 10:20, Reorte said:

 

Probably increasingly few people who feel they'd have any useful skills in that area. Sure, most of us could slap on paint in the right general area but not much more. I wouldn't feel confident in volunteering for anything practical, just don't have the skills beyond basic DIY. But the bigger reason is that, working all week, I'd loathe to lose weekend time (when I was doing the mine exploration it was usually just a once a month thing).

 

I understand those sentiments, but I wouldn't let them hold you back. I'm in a similar situation, and only manage to volunteer 1--2 times a month (rarely for a full day, and not at all in the past six weeks!).  I work in scientific engineering - but don't have any practical experience with heavy mechanical engineering.  I haven't found either of these things matter! 

 

I'm finding the operations side hard to progress with this level of commitment, but the engineering/restoration part seems much more feasible.  I suspect that if you volunteer regularly - even if not that frequently - you can fit into most projects. 

 

My experience with a heritage site is that it does come with some 'heritage attitudes' - but most people I've found are very helpful and willing to teach - at least once you get past the occasional initial clique aspect.  I'd never used a oxy-acetelene cutter, or a needle gun, or even an angle grinder before last year. I wouldn't claim to be knowledgeable in any of these -- but I've been taught a bit, and can work with increasing independence on different bits of the overhaul I help with. Though I always try to remember a quote from one of my colleagues: "the most important skill in a volunteer is knowing when to stop and ask for advice"

 

I think as long as you're sensible, willing to listen/learn, and don't mind being a bit 'inefficient' - you'll make a positive contribution.  

 

 

[Oldddudders]

I volunteered only once - but I was not put off, just unable/unwilling to do the travel etc. I lived in Surrey at the time, but spent Easter weekend 1973 on the Talyllyn, on Good Friday digging trenches in Pendre Yard, another day taking ballast up to the Nant Gwernol extension. My Control colleague who had encouraged my attendance was qualified to drive a diesel thingie, so that was fun. It had a hydrostatic drive, as does my current lawn-tractor. I was introduced to movers and shakers, including a Cornish Mines Captain retained for his explosives expertise. He could move and shake whole mountains! It was fun, there was a social life after hours. And among people I met was a chap with whom I was reacquainted later the same year as we were both accepted as staff entrants to the BR Management Training Scheme.

 

Whether in 2019 the volunteer ambience has dropped off the graph I know not. But for younger people to be hooked the package needs to be tailored, I am quite sure. 

[Northmoor]

On 23/08/2019 at 18:01, Tim V said:

I am afraid I agree about the volunteers. I have seen too many railways where all the fun operational jobs on the railway were being done by older men, their wives running the catering/shops. No youngsters in sight. A few more years, and no one will be capable/interested in running those lines.

 

Until you get the the Talyllyn. There are a mixture of ages and sexes running the railway, everywhere you look there are people across the age range in all the important jobs. The age profile of the volunteers is great. Is there a future for the TR? I think there is.

 

While agree the Talyllyn is a very well-run railway, it's passenger numbers were steadily falling by a couple of percent per annum for about 30 years (and my still be, I haven't seen the figures recently) and there seems to be very little they can do about it.

[Dava]

The UK Govt has just killed off the coal supply chain for the steam hauled, coal fired heritage rail sector.

 

'Sales of all bagged traditional house coal will be phased out by February 2021, and the sale of loose coal direct to customers via approved coal merchants will end by February 2023.'

 

It doesnt matter if the heritage rail sector is exempt, there will be no coal supply chain. They will have to use alternative fuels such as dry wood, clean substitutes, newspaper briquettes [remember those?] or oil firing. 

 

All the good work from the HRA has had no effect.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/21/house-coal-and-wet-wood-to-be-phased-out-by-2023-to-cut-pollution

 

Dava

 

Edited February 21, 2020 by Dava
delete table

[russ p]

Those b@$tards who have come up with this pathetic idea don't seem to have thought about the amount of people still employed supplying coal and wood.

I have recently gone back to using normal coal as the smokeless briquettes don't emit much heat seems since they started making them from foreign coal.

One thing that this will cause is a black market for firewood 

[sir douglas]

On 28/08/2019 at 17:01, pete_mcfarlane said:

It wasn't really an implosion though - they didn't own the site and the council sold off the land for redevelopment, presumably because it needed the cash.

It was one of an occasional but steady stream of closed schemes that includes Dinting, Ashford, Buxton, the North Downs Steam Railway, the NG railway in Leeds (whose name escapes me), the Market Overton scheme near Grantham in the 1970s, and so on. 

 

may you be thinking of Kirkstall Abbey? that was a completely different matter, it was a small privately owned affair and the owner died, it wasnt killed off by the council

[Georgeconna]

If this climate thing is real WTF is the Euros in 11 different venues this year. For Instance you have Poland and Sweden playing in Dublin so 2 sets of Fans travelling around Europe instead of 1 location.

 

The tournament is scheduled to be held in 12 cities in 12 UEFA countries from 12 June to 12 July 2020. Portugal are the defending champions, having won the 2016 edition. For the first time, the video assistant referee (VAR) system will be used at the UEFA European Championship.[2]

Former UEFA President Michel Platini said the tournament is being hosted in several nations as a "romantic" one-off event to celebrate the 60th "birthday" of the European Championship competition.[3] Having the largest capacity of any of the stadiums entered for the competition, Wembley Stadium in London will host the semi-finals and final for the second time, having done so before at the 1996 tournament in its former incarnation. The Stadio Olimpico in Rome will host the opening game, involving Turkey and hosts Italy.

 

Never heard anything so Daft. Wonder will Greta be cheering on.

 

Seems to be the easy stuff there preying on.

 

let hope the steam stuff is not too affected.

 

[Nearholmer]

A blooming good question, and one which even my young son has asked, for the same reasons.

 

If UEFA aren't embarrassed, they blasted well should be.

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, God's Wonderful Railway 1835 said:

I read this is about household coal which is been banned and, not the type of coal which is used in steam/traction engines.

 

The question is whether that'll affect the necessary infrastructure and arrangements that they rely on too. It also shows how absurd and tokenistic the whole damned thing is, since the issues caused by household coal consumption these days are utterly negligable.

[Northmoor]

6 hours ago, God's Wonderful Railway 1835 said:

I read this is about household coal which is been banned and, not the type of coal which is used in steam/traction engines.

Agreed, don't panic.  Coal is still supplied in volume to quite a few power stations to well beyond 2021 and cement work rely on it.  Heritage railways are almost certain to be classed as industrial users.

 

5 hours ago, Reorte said:

 

The question is whether that'll affect the necessary infrastructure and arrangements that they rely on too. It also shows how absurd and tokenistic the whole damned thing is, since the issues caused by household coal consumption these days are utterly negligable.

Actually it really isn't negligible.  There are affluent, leafy areas of London where people with more money than sense are installing woodburners (despite the fact that they are almost all in smokeless zones which should but haven't been enforced) because they look rural and rustic but serve no purpose whatsoever in areas with mains gas powered central heating.  They also put out considerably more PM2.5s than an HGV does over an equivalent period and they are controlled by considerably stricter legislation.

Edited February 21, 2020 by Northmoor

[Reorte]

6 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Actually it really isn't negligible.  There are affluent, leafy areas of London where people with more money than sense are installing woodburners (despite the fact that they are almost all in smokeless zones which should but haven't been enforced) because they look rural and rustic but serve no purpose whatsoever in areas with mains gas powered central heating.  They also put out considerably more PM2.5s than an HGV does over an equivalent period and they are controlled by considerably stricter legislation.

 

That's not relevant to how significant coal burning is though, which is what I mentioned. There are good arguments for getting a bit stricter on some of the ways around the smokeless zone rules, but that's a separate subject. If wood burning is an actual problem then I do wonder just how many people are burning unseasoned wood though.

 

As for "serve no purpose", anything that improves quality of life serves a purpose. If something makes you happier then it improves quality of life and therefore serves a purpose. Everything else is merely a means to that end otherwise why do it? When you dig your way through to the bottom of it that's the only reason for doing anything, even the those that are essential for survival (we want to survive, which I'd argue is an entirely emotional response, even if it's an almost universal one).

[Nearholmer]

26 minutes ago, Reorte said:

As for "serve no purpose", anything that improves quality of life serves a purpose.

Yes.
 

The “but”, of course, is that none of us lives in isolation from our fellows, so any potential improvement in the quality of A’s life, by making them happier, has to be balanced against the potential detriment to quality of life that it might cause to B, C, D etc by making them more miserable (giving them bronchitis or COPD, in this case, I think, as well as subjecting them to a minuscule amount more climate change).

 

Mind you, burning logs in urban areas does seem quite a small selfishness to pick on, compared with a lot of other collective-misery-imposing selfishness that goes on: driving about in unnecessarily big cars; indulging in polluting and disease-spreading air-travel; turning the central heating up too high; that sort of stuff.

 

(I’m in a puritanical mood on behalf of other people this evening - I don’t intend to indulge in purity myself, you understand)

 

 

[Bon Accord]

56 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Agreed, don't panic.  Coal is still supplied in volume to quite a few power stations to well beyond 2021 and cement work rely on it.  Heritage railways are almost certain to be classed as industrial users.

 

 

The heritage steam sector (rail and road) rely on the existing domestic coal supply network as that type of coal is the closest to what is required for heritage steam generation - that used by steel and cement works is a different grade of coal/coke and of no use to the heritage sector.

Coal fired power stations are irrelevant as all remaining UK coal fired power stations will be switched off in 2025 and in any event they also use the wrong kind of coal.

The heritage railway sector consumes approximately 40,000 tonnes of coal per annum most of which is still mined in the UK as that is the type/grade most suitable, e.g. size, sulphur content, calorific value etc. Eliminating the UK supplier/distrbution network aslo eliminates these last sources of British coal which would otherwise still be economically viable. 

Substituting these UK sources with imports so as to get around these new environmental regs is problematic due to the low tonnage required together with the difficulty in sourcing the right grades, both of which would make supply potentially prohibitively expensive. 

Unlike what others have suggested the heritage rail industry has not had a decade to prepare for this outcome, it was only seriously put forward as a consultation exercise (which turned out to be anything but) last year.

 

As for the ban on wet wood, I rather suspect that will have a negligible effect on the existence of these stoves or wet wood being burnt - I can't think of anyone I know who has a stove (and there are a lot of them) who actually pay for wood from a proper supplier.

In any event, even if it was unavailable we'd just use the traditional reserve fuel of which we have a near inexhaustible supply and which is of course free - peat!

 

Edited February 21, 2020 by Bon Accord

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, Bon Accord said:

 

The heritage steam sector (rail and road) rely on the existing domestic coal supply network as that type of coal is the closest to what is required for heritage steam generation - that used by steel and cement works is a different grade of coal/coke and of no use to the heritage sector.

 

 

 

As for the ban on wet wood, I rather suspect that will have a negligible effect on the existence of these stoves or wet wood being burnt - I can't think of anyone I know who has a stove (and there are a lot of them) who actually pay for wood from a proper supplier.

In any event, even if it was unavailable we'd just use the traditional reserve fuel of which we have a near inexhaustible supply and which is of course free - peat!

 

Sorry I didn't make it clear but I'm aware of the different coal grades, although much of that is to do with how it is pulverised for power stations, the coal is the same coal.  As you say, 40,000tpa is pretty trivial (about a week's production at GCG), but there is a business there for someone.  Perhaps that "someone" should be the HRA....?

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

The “but”, of course, is that none of us lives in isolation from our fellows, so any potential improvement in the quality of A’s life, by making them happier, has to be balanced against the potential detriment to quality of life that it might cause to B, C, D etc by making them more miserable (giving them bronchitis or COPD, in this case, I think, as well as subjecting them to a minuscule amount more climate change).

 

Agreed, it's just not at all clear to me in this case that anyone's even tried to work that out. And I'm also getting more and more concerned that an increasing obsession with very minor improvements to physical health are having much greater detrimental effects on mental health.

[Siberian Snooper]

Most heritage railways managed to source coal during the miners strike, mostly from Europe and South Africa, so it may not be a total disaster.

 

 

 

 

[Nick C]

On 21/02/2020 at 21:48, Northmoor said:

Actually it really isn't negligible.  There are affluent, leafy areas of London where people with more money than sense are installing woodburners (despite the fact that they are almost all in smokeless zones which should but haven't been enforced) because they look rural and rustic but serve no purpose whatsoever in areas with mains gas powered central heating.  They also put out considerably more PM2.5s than an HGV does over an equivalent period and they are controlled by considerably stricter legislation.

 

The problem of course is that those people aren't the ones who will actually suffer from it - that will be the poorer rural people who rely on solid fuels for heat, and will now have to buy more expensive approved fuels - which will put large numbers in fuel poverty.

[phil-b259]

On 21/02/2020 at 22:00, Reorte said:

 

That's not relevant to how significant coal burning is though, which is what I mentioned. There are good arguments for getting a bit stricter on some of the ways around the smokeless zone rules, but that's a separate subject. If wood burning is an actual problem then I do wonder just how many people are burning unseasoned wood though.

 

 

Lots!

 

The point is that it has become 'trendy' to install a wood burner in your house - and its something that will raise the selling price. As a consequence you have lots of Urbanites who have no knowledge of how to use the things properly (or barns to dry wood for 12 months before use). Plenty also probably believe they are being 'green' by burning wood as opposed to fossil fuel, not appreciating that burning wet wood on an open half creates considerably more pollution* than coal burnt in a state of the art power station does

 

Its not unlike the trend for a certain segment of the urban population to drive round town in 'Chelsea tractors' / large SUVs even though they take up far more road space than more traditional cars. Again rural dwellers who have such vehicles do so through a general need - rather that  simply to look good on the school run.

 

* pollution is NOT just CO2 as some would have you believe - focusing on that is what led Governments to encourage the purchase of diesel cars over petrol, even though in Urban areas diesel cars chuck out way more harmful pollution (as far as the human respiratory system goes) than petrol ones.

[Reorte]

2 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

* pollution is NOT just CO2 as some would have you believe - focusing on that is what led Governments to encourage the purchase of diesel cars over petrol, even though in Urban areas diesel cars chuck out way more harmful pollution (as far as the human respiratory system goes) than petrol ones.

 

Even the diesel backlash strikes me as another case of oversimplification, rather than encouraging the right tool for the job - petrol for cars that spend most of their time pottering around cities (and which are also the easiest to change to electric), diesel for the ones that spend most of their time going up and down the motorway.

Edited February 24, 2020 by Reorte

[Ben B]

This makes for interesting reading... I've been wading through from the start, over the last hour or two, and it's clear there are a lot of issues at play, as well as concerns for the future of the railways.  Apologies in advance if this goes on a bit and turns into a bit of an essay!

 

   What I've been thinking about, reading all this is; what exact function do preserved railways fulfil nowadays?  What function will they be forced to fulfil in a changing world? 

 

   When the likes of the Bluebell or the Tallylyn or SVR were first preserved, they were just that; preservation schemes.  I might ruffle feathers here, because I wasn't there in the 60's  (I'm in my mid-30's) and so apologise if I've got this wrong, but I get the impression that these were schemes set up to preserve something that was being lost, done so by people who were afraid that something they knew and loved was at risk of disappearing forever. 

   In many ways and attitudes, I think it's human nature to be something of a backwards-looking people, and struggle with accepting and implementing change a lot of the time...  so in an age of rocket ships, atomic power stations, fast diesel trains, delta-winged supersonic aircraft and 6-lane motorways, the steam tank locomotive and four-wheeled wooden carriage was an anachronism, and would vanish withoutout the love and support of a dedicated preservationist- but for the right people in the right place at the right time, there was something comforting about it, and they felt it needed saving for a wider society who'd come around to appreciating it when the novelty of the flash new technology had worn off.  I also think it's why every local council still has museums chocked-full of old paintings, boxes, bits of machinery, and so on- it's important to realise how we got to now, acknowledging the things from then that got us here, if that makes sense.  I suppose there's also an element of 'future shock', of clinging to old certainties in a rapidly-changing and disorientating world.

 

   But a railway isn't like all that other stuff, you can't just leave it all in a cabinet in a big old gothic building in the town square, and pay someone to dust it twice a year.  What do you do when you've preserved a railway?  It can't just sit there static, it has a function, and it's worth in being preserved means it needs to fulfill that function, else we just as well make do with "Rocket" or "Mallard" stuffed and mounted in a museum, and damn the rest.

   So it needs passengers to fulfil that function, and needs lots of them to pay the bills.  The further on in time things get though from those early days, the fewer people remember them 'in service'.  So the railway becomes a tourist attraction rather than a historic recreation- this is the sort of thing I grew up with, the Severn Valley and Ffestiniog of the 80's-90's.  Thomas-branded everything in the gift shops, GWR panniers or maroon diesels on LNER teaks- not really accurate heritage preservation perhaps, but a business trying to provide a fun day out for the changing demographic of visitors, and not a bad thing either- the bills have to be paid, and that means it keeps existing.  You need to shift hundreds of people per train, and can't do it with a clapped-out Edwardian tank loco with two carriages twice a day on overgrown track, even if that is more accurate to the history of the place.

 

   Now?  I'm a foster-father of three whose kids are at least young enough to not automatically rebel at the idea of a trip to a museum or a railway, and a trip to a railway is thus a big day out.  And much as I love railways, I find I don't really want a perfect historical recreation of the 1930's; the most important things to consider (beyond the considerable cost factor, and making sure you can sit down together as a family) are; 

a) are there enough trains to make a day out practical?  It's not fun finding a three-hour gap at a terminus in a field, near a village with no shops.  

b) is it short enough a ride to not bore the kids

c) are there decent lavatories (you've not experienced hell until you've a squirming toddler with a full nappy, and are trying to find a gents loo with a changing table.  Seems to have taken a while for the heritage sector in general to work out that men and not just women might need to deal with that sort of thing) 

d) is there a café for at least a brew break,

e) is there a gift shop, because all kids want to buy something, and

f) is there a playground, because there's only so long you can keep an energetic 8-year old penned up on a train. 

 

The above probably makes me typical of many visitors to preserved railways, or more accurately 'heritage railways' today.  So is that what the railway is now?  A day-out venue rather along the lines of a theme-park or other attraction?  I know that was a discussion causing much debate even fifteen years ago, and seems especially relevant now.

 

   So given that, does the heritage railway still serve a purpose in educating people about the past, and from the education standpoint, what is the future there?  This is something I've seen and heard talked about a lot in recent years, considered important as generations move further and further on from the industrialised society that birthed all this technology and which still existed when the majority of railways were saved in the 60's-70's. 

   But I speak here from experience of the drastic cuts in school budgets, and the target-driven culture existing in most schools now.  How many schools can afford a trip out to the local preserved railway for a ride?  Is that trip the easiest, quickest way of getting a class-full of kids to hit their target grade?  Will it be cheaper to just tell them to google 'steam trains in Britain' than go out to the nearest railway for a day? 

   And other people on this thread have already mentioned about kids not coming out of school with technical abilities and skills... God knows I sympathise, but it isn't generally the fault of the schools or for lack of enthusiasm by the kids- I was a school DT technician; our department was 'downsized' and classes cut, seemingly because it's harder to quantify a grade, and thus hit a target, for something practical like woodwork compared to a right/wrong answer on a maths question paper.  On top of which you have to fund an inconveniently large suite of classrooms full of machinery and materials, and a load of staff who need specialist training to operate it all.  Hell, the school my wife works at can barely afford an art department, with no machinery or specialised equipment, nor can the one my eldest is at, so it isn't a rare phenomenon.  

   It all adds up in a time of chopped budgets.  So as the practical sort of subject fades from prominence, does it become more important to preserve and explain those skills on a railway, or will the lack of education in that field mean there just isn't the demand to learn about it?  If a 16-year old doesn't get to learn about welding at school, will they give a damn seeing it demonstrated by some middle-aged bloke in a cold engine shed?  Or just consider it some fossilised skill which belonged to their Grandparents' generation.

 

   So what of the future?  A lot of people are discussing about the reduction in coal, and the effect it will have on the heritage sector.  If you believe in climate change or not (that's not a debate for here), regardless Government policy is now to reduce coal and fossil fuel consumption, and frankly a comparative handful of railway enthusiasts aren't going to force a return to coal mining as national policy, even on a tiny scale.  In what direction will the railways adapt?  If there isn't the coal to run steam trains anymore, what will they do?  Will the day-tripping public indulging in some loose sense of 'nostalgia' be content to pay £50 to ride behind an ex-Northern DMU?

 

   To end (finally!) on a more positive thought... If less people are driving because petrol supplies fall and the majority of the general public cannot afford electric cars with decent range (which looks to me like the most likely case in a decade), might more people be forced onto railways?  And assuming (it's depressingly a big assumption) that the Government of the time consequently decides to throw more money at public transport, how many of the current preserved lines might find themselves re-absorbed into the national network, or subsidised to run a proper public service?  I wonder how many heritage societies will be seen as valued, temporary custodians of these routes- it was a working railway for a hundred years, then the KWVR or SVR kept the infrastructure safe from 1960-2040, so there was something left to reopen when Britain really needed it in the future?

 

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, Ben B said:

What I've been thinking about, reading all this is; what exact function do preserved railways fulfil nowadays?  What function will they be forced to fulfil in a changing world? 

 

A good essay there, you've summed up the issues well.  You've also noted the difference between "preserved" and "tourist" railways, because many of the later entrants to the movement/industry cannot realistically be the former.  As for your a-f list, any railway that doesn't understand that these are the most important things is doomed to failure, if it hasn't failed already.

About 20 years ago I started a study of visitor numbers throughout the 50-year history of UK railway preservation.  My data set wasn't and isn't complete, but what is obvious is that what enthusiasts think are the key to passenger numbers and what the data says, are very different things.

However, don't expect railways to suddenly or even slowly replace private road transport.  Economics aside, it would be completely impractical to provide adequate (i.e. frequent, comfortable and cheap) public transport coverage to many areas of the country, without an unfeasible proportion of the UK population being employed in it.  Meanwhile, any government that makes it effectively unaffordable to live in the countryside by pricing private vehicles off the road except for the top 5% earners, isn't going to be the government for long.  This is the problem with so much environmental legislation around vehicles and domestic energy use; the problems of local pollution - PM10/2.5 and NOx - are overwhelmingly an urban problem and predominantly a London problem.  Unfortunately governments don't like giving local (elected) politicians powers to impose locally relevant solutions or legislation.  I don't know why, perhaps they fear someone else might do a better job that they can't take credit for?