'Failed' preservation projects

[Horsetan]

Riccarton Junction? There was a length of track and a Shark brakevan there. I photographed that track in 2005 and I hear that it's gone now and the site handed back to the Forestry Commission.

A lot of internal politics in that one....

[cromptonnut]

Reopening Axminster to Lyme Regis - first mooted in 2002, newspaper article from 2006 http://www.bridportnews.co.uk/news/990827.bluebell_line_back_on_track/ but no progress that I can otherwise locate.

 

According to that article it should have opened in 2011...

[Butler Henderson]

There was a late 1970s scheme to reopen part of the Nidd Valley Light Railway albeit I think using narrow or miniature gauge stock.

[roundhouse]

To me the biggest shame is that of the Barnstaple to Ilfracombe line.

 

That would have been a fantastic line if it were to have succeeded.

 

OK a little bit of South Western bias I admit!

Ian

[The Stationmaster]

Any more info on that Waverley scheme, Mike?  I'm sure I heard something similar but using ex-China Rail QJs.  That would have given the inspectorate kittens, as they were far from well engineered...

It involved a number of well known (at the time) names although I don't recall any of them as having previous preservation experience but what they had in mind was beyond that as effectively it would be a mainline railway including freight - hence the ex DB locos.

[andyman7]

It involved a number of well known (at the time) names although I don't recall any of them as having previous preservation experience but what they had in mind was beyond that as effectively it would be a mainline railway including freight - hence the ex DB locos.

I think it was promoted under the title of the Border Union Railway

[jjnewitt]

What about the scheme at Bulmers, Hereford?

Bulmer's is a bit of an odd case. It wasn't really a presevation scheme in the sense of preserving the line which was a freight only branch serving Bulmer's private sidings from where they operated their preserved locos and stock. The last time I was in Hereford and looked the sidings were still there though I have no idea when the last time they saw any goods traffic. I wonder what happend to the operation? I assumed that the business decided they didn't want to continue with it either because they couldn't afford it or because the people who drove the project left/retired.

 

Justin

[James Harrison]

Apparently back in the 1970s my hometown (Hednesford, on the Birmingham- Rugeley TV line) had a railway museum, or depot, for what is now the Chasewater Railway.  Other than references to various bits of ex-NCB rolling stock (much of it in turn pre-Grouping in age and origin) being stored there I can't find much about where exactly it was, what was there or when/if it ever opened to the public. 

[Tim V]

A lot of these replies don't seem to fit the OP's terms, so in the same vein - Hayling Island.

[jamie92208]

Steamtown has been mentioned but IIRC it was jointly promoited with what became the Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway.  The lakeside line was going to be where they ran the locos kept at Carnforth.   The original plan was to have the whole of the branch with the main line connection at Plumpton Junction.  However politics intervened in the form of the Ministry if Transport wanting to make the road to Barrow into a dual carriageway so in the end the connection south of Haverthwaite was severed so that the road could be widened.  I think that a few stock moves traversed the line before it was severed.  The tie with carnforth wa eventualy severed and the akeside line ended up as what it is today.

 

Jamie

[Andy Kirkham]

One other was an abortive attempt to preserve all or part of the Clevedon branch in the 1960s. Two 8750 panniers were earmarked and one even repainted in green and displayed at a Bath Road open day, but the scheme came to nothing and the panniers scrapped in the end.

 

All or part, indeed.

 

Latterly this was rather like the knight in Monty Python & the Holy Grail who refuses to admit defeat despite having had all his limbs chopped off. The scheme was doomed when its trackbed was severed by the M5 but its spokesman Mr O H Prosser refused to give in (one suspects that by this stage Mr Prosser was the Clevedon & Yatton Preservation Society). I remember a letter of his in the Evening Post advocating the use of a road/rail vehicle which would begin its journey from Yatton on the rails, then dismount when it got to the M5 and continue to Clevedon along the road.

[Andy Kirkham]

The grand flop of a scheme for the Waverley route complete with a fleet of ex DB locos (Class 43 I think?) which wouldn't even have fitted the loading gauge.  Must rate as the most glorious failure of the lot.

I remember reading that the locos they had in mind had been built in Germany during WW2 to the British loading gauge for use following the invasion. However I've never otherwise heard of any such locos, so I'm a bit sceptical.

 

One of the promoters was Baron Bob Symes-Schutzmann, better known for his interest in model and miniature railways.

[Andy Kirkham]

Reopening Axminster to Lyme Regis - first mooted in 2002, newspaper article from 2006 http://www.bridportnews.co.uk/news/990827.bluebell_line_back_on_track/ but no progress that I can otherwise locate.

 

According to that article it should have opened in 2011...

 

That is not the first attempt with the Lyme Regis line. There was a (rather more realistic) scheme in the 70's to relay it as fifteen inch which got as far as accumulating materials and stock on site http://s9.zetaboards.com/MRW_Forums/topic/7045681/1/

 

Another abortive plan of a similar kind  was the North Somerset Light Railway which, in the mid-1950's proposed to relay a section of the Weston, Clevedon and Portishead as a narrow gauge line. the gauge of 2ft 8in was dictated by the loco they had purchased - the Peckett 0-4-2ST Septimus of the Furzebrook Tramway, which they had had overhauled by its maker. The scheme failed due to the legal complexities surrounding the winding up of the WC&P which meant that nobody knew who owned the trackbed.

[Andy Kirkham]

I don't think most of the examples mentioned so far (including by me) have satisfied the OP's conditions.

 

However one system which actually did operate under preservation but then closed were the Peel and Ramsey lines of the Isle of Man.

[Captain Kernow]

I seem to recall reading about one or two prominent NE business men advocating purchase and operation of the Stainmore line when BR closed it...

 

A bit closer to home, the Tucking Mill Tramway at the ex-S&DJR station at Midford was another failed 'preservation' scheme, albeit probably not very well known, either.

 

Narrow gauge tracks were laid by 'a small group of local individuals' in the mid-1980s, and a Simplex loco was occasionally operated there, although more commonly the motive power was a 'push-me/pull you' hand-wound 'trolley', the traction being activated by winding a handle on the 'footplate'. It was very cleverly constructed by Brian Clarke (of Saltford Models fame) from a 2' gauge skip chassis.

 

The whole scheme was never intended to be more than a private facility, but it was certainly fun, but complaints from local residents meant that the railway was eventually evicted (whether this also had anything to do with the original lease being taken out on the basis of the site becoming a 'private nature reserve' I have no idea.....  )...

[RJS1977]

A couiple of Welsh examples:

 

The Swansea Vale Railway operated for a few years before becoming moribund and has now been subsumed into the Gwili Railway (stock, track and members, not route!).

 

There have also been a couple of attempts ar reopening parts of the Saundersfoot Railway as a miniature railway. The more recent attempt (1990s) got as far as a circle of track at Stepaside Heritage Park and a LRO for the line to Wiseman's Bridge but got ensnared with difficulties with the caravan park they shared the heritage site with. Eventually the circle of track was lifted and the loco went to Canada! :-(

[PaulG]

I'm trying to put together a list of 'failed' railway preservation projects in the UK and I was hoping RM Web members might be able to suggest a few. The criteria I am using are that a project must have been on an original railway site (ie. no green-field sites), it must have had rolling stock on that site, and it must have been open on at least one occasion to visits by society members or the public. As examples of what I am looking for, in the 1960s there was the Westerham Valley Railway Association's project to revive the Westerham branch in Kent, and the scheme at Droxford station on the Meon Valley line in Hampshire. I'd be pleased to hear of other candidiates (and thoughts on why they failed too).

 

Many thanks,

 

Alan

 

When the Midland & Great Northern Jt Rly closed in February 1959 there were various plans to re-open sections of the line, the first proposal was the 22 mile section from North Walsham to Great Yarmouth; in the end only the section from Weybourne (minus track) to Sheringham was preserved in 1965.

 

When the Great Yarmouth-Gorleston-Lowestoft line closed in May 1970 they were proposals to re-open the line on a semi-commercial basis; if memory serves Gerry Fiennes had some involvement.

 

Paul

[kernowtim]

South Bedfordshire Railway, Dunstable.

 Based at the former Bedford Trucks sidings behind a retail park(white lion), with a collection of ex departmental coaches and a DMU car, did use (hire??) a diesel shunter and run on the mothballed former branch line to Dunstable via an unauthorised connection,the offending pointwork was take out by railtrack , the shunter and dmu removed and  I think the remaining stock was scrapped on site. some details on..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/16677680@N04/5933467174/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/16677680@N04/5932907169/in/photostream/

http://preserved.railcar.co.uk/Images/103/56160-2001-07-21-Alf-Roberts.jpg

The class 103 DMU 56160 was moved to a similar site in Bodfari 

http://preserved.railcar.co.uk/56160.html

The site was cleared  around 2003 and is now part of the Luton to Dunstable busway

There was a proposal for a heritage line alongside the busway but nothing so far!!

http://railways.national-preservation.com/heritage-railways-centres-uk/30289-registration-south-bedfordshire-railway-society-ltd.html

Not sure if there is any connection between the 2 projects .

The following is the area after work started on the busway. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dayoff171/8193398193/in/set-72157625280815424/

[roythebus]

There was a steam line on the outskirts of Dartford in about 1993 which is now gone (the steam line,not Dartford). I ran a bus service to it for a weekend from Dartford BR station for a few days. It was on the high ground just to the east of the river crossing.

 

There were plans to keep Waddon Power station sidings as steam centre at one time. That is now Ikea and the tram depot! Plans too (already mentioned) for Cowes-Newport as a 15" gauge line. References to this can be found in back copies of The Wight Report.

 

And the line built by Rev. Teddy Boston round his vicarage in Leicestershire, the Cadeby Light Railway.

[EdChap]

The line on the outskirts of Dartford was the North Downs Railway.

 

Edwin

[Eggesford box]

From what I can remember of the Ilfracombe scheme it foundered as the funds raised where embezzeled by one of the organisers to keep his business going. Whether it would have succeeded otherwise is another matter.

[Horsetan]

The old steam shed at Ashford in Kent.

 

That was Esmond Lewis-Evans' brainchild. There wasn't enough cash to keep it going. After it closed down, his ex-SECR "O1" disappeared for almost 30 years, boiler and cab resurfacing at a farm near Sellinge, Kent, and the rest of it being hidden near Gamlingay in Cambridgeshire....

 

 

The grand flop of a scheme for the Waverley route complete with a fleet of ex DB locos (Class 43 I think?) which wouldn't even have fitted the loading gauge. Must rate as the most glorious failure of the lot.

Br. 01 and 01.10 pacifics as well. The late Dr. Peter Beet actually shipped his own 01.10 to Carnforth some years later, along with his ex-SNCF 231K.

 

The designation "043" denoted oil-fired 3-cylinder Br.44 2-10-0s....

 

Remember these engines were never less than at least 9'6" wide and at least 13'6" at the chimney top, so clearances on any British route would have been interesting.

 

But what would the German Einheitsloks have looked like if they had been built to the British loading gauge?

[Suzie]

The St Ives line was a sort of preservation effort. I think they acquired a loco and some Mk2 aircons but but busses were the politically correct solution at the time - trains would not cause enough traffic congestion..

['CHARD]

The Riccarton Jct scheme is a rather toxic subject.  

 

http://www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk/news/local-headlines/rail-buff-faces-return-journey-to-court-after-shooting-mouth-off-1-93067

 

And there's far, far worse if you Google for fifteen seconds.

 

I'd not heard of the German locos forming a serious part of the BURCo business plan for continued service operation of the Waverley Route, all the data and correspondence seen to date involved sold-off domestic assets.

[byron]

The Riccarton Jct scheme is a rather toxic subject.  

 

http://www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk/news/local-headlines/rail-buff-faces-return-journey-to-court-after-shooting-mouth-off-1-93067

 

And there's far, far worse if you Google for fifteen seconds.

 

I'd not heard of the German locos forming a serious part of the BURCo business plan for continued service operation of the Waverley Route, all the data and correspondence seen to date involved sold-off domestic assets.

 There was talk in 1975 of the Waverley route being operated as a commercial railway, rather than a preservation scheme. Three of us from Stoke Control went to Carlisle for an interview, but saw straight away that it was a pipe dream. A nice dream, but still all it was. The DB traction being considered was the 042 class 2-8-2 oil fired rebuilds of the DRG 41. The were

rebuilt between 1957 & 1961, so were only just "run in"!!!!!.

 

Mike