Elsecar Heritage Railway looking bare

[adb968008]

Is it only me that thinks £25mn to rebuild a platform, and start by demolishing the existing can only be the imagination of creative consultancies, architects and construction companies ?

 

I suspect someday a block of flats or an enterprise business park may occupy this spot.

Edited November 8, 2023 by adb968008

[AMJ]

@papagolfjuliet yes I looked it up and thought the same as you about the loco being a replica of the Dodd's 0-4-2

 

I have yet to find a breakdown of the £25M.  The loco will easily eat up £1M.

 

If it's council money then I'd expect them to spend locally so that it keeps locals employed.

 

After visiting the Barnsley model show this weekend I intend to have a look at the line to see how much vegetation there is on the line.

[Wheatley]

"The replica station was newly built in the 1990s, on the site of the historic ironworks. There was no station there before. ... The only historic parts of the station are the bridge and parts of the ironwork, brought here from elsewhere in Barnsley".

 

Yes, brought there from the ... er ... Victorian railway station before they replaced it with some ghastly 90s generic  business park / leisure centre architecture. 

 

At least its not a Will Allsop creation - it's not nearly that bad - for yes, this is the same Barnsley Council who spent millions in the middle of a global recession paying Mr Allsop to reimagine the town as a Tuscan hill village. 

[Enterprisingwestern]

12 hours ago, AMJ said:

Looks like Barnsley council have had consultants come up with a £25M idea involving rebuilding the site and a new 1849 steam loco.

 

No mention of where they will attempt to get the funds from nor how or who would operate the railway.  

 

For more info see

https://www.elsecar-heritage.com/forging-ahead

 

 

Bullsh!t bingo anyone?

 

Mike.

[009 micro modeller]

14 hours ago, papagolfjuliet said:

 

Oh goody. An outdoor performance area. That's always a sure sign of something awful.

Why?

 

13 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Is it only me that thinks £25mn to rebuild a platform, and start by demolishing the existing can only be the imagination of creative consultancies, architects and construction companies?

My understanding from reading about this elsewhere was that the archaeological survey was best done after removal of the modern buildings on the site, and ideally should have been done before they were built in the first place. And in the 1990s it wasn’t a Scheduled Ancient Monument, only becoming one in 2020.

[adb968008]

4 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

 

My understanding from reading about this elsewhere was that the archaeological survey was best done after removal of the modern buildings on the site, and ideally should have been done before they were built in the first place. And in the 1990s it wasn’t a Scheduled Ancient Monument, only becoming one in 2020.

Yes but are we tearing down buildings just to view archaeology all over the place ?

no.. only when they are no longer required.

which is where I am going…. 
they are no longer required.

I’m not sure I believe a railway is coming back, but the dog and pony show is exactly that, a show, that needs funding.

so in a few years when no ones funding it and the land has already been cleared and archaeology complete, its not hard to repurpose it looks quite attractive for developers.

The political argument of tried and failed, but just look at this instead can be played.

 

Of course it didnt have to have been that hard by demolishing the buildings, removing the track, leasing off the shed for retail etc.. Was the track saved? Will the footbridge be saved ?

 

The architect elevation drawings show lots more retail, most of the rest of the site is retail already and a loco shed right next door, which i’m not sure would be practical, unless it was a static exhibit… but what it lacks is anything that looks like a station, storage or servicing facilities

 

It sounds good intentions, but right now it feels like its going the wrong way.

I suspect the buildings may go up, become retail, but if trains start my guess is it will be on the other side of the level crossing.

 

What was interesting was the floorplan (TD) view shows three tracks, to both buildings and one in the centre labeled station. But the elevation view (EV) just shows 1 track (with the Finnish loco) in a glass lined warehouse,  a garden, with an open space, and a retail warehouse.. so where has the station gone ?

The old shed becomes a “cultural canteen”.. aka a cafe.

 

But what I dont see is engineering space needed to get messy… coal storage, waste handling, ash pit, fire raising as well as maintenance… unless the plan is to do it in the platform/shed/retail outlet/school building infront of shoppers/restaurant customers ? - the EV and TD views contradict, or are they revealing another agenda ?

 

 

Edited November 9, 2023 by adb968008

[Lacathedrale]

I had my first loco driving experience at Elsecar and I'm sad to see this. I must say the cynic in me agrees with @adb968008 - this seems like a ploy to get the land completely cleared and then in a few years there'll be a nice new warehouse/outlet there instead. What a shame!

[MartinRS]

The BBC reports part of the plans are for a track engineering college. Some of the funding has come from the Arts Council managed Cultural Development Fund, which had a £30 million pot to play with for the whole of England in the 2022-23 period.

[Enterprisingwestern]

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

there'll be a nice new warehouse/outlet there instead.

 

Convenient for a Judith Edge kits expansion!!

 

Mike.

[AMJ]

Elsecar before the pandemic had one of the training providers doing some track work.  There seems to be a few of these companies doing this type of training.  For other railways that have them doing track work they pay the railway and carry out the less glamorous task of sorting out rail joints etc that gives the railway volunteers chance to spend time sorting out other things.

[009 micro modeller]

4 hours ago, adb968008 said:

but what it lacks is anything that looks like a station

Isn’t it number 3 on the map? It sounds like the need to have a station that is more related to the history of the site has come from its recent designation as a Scheduled Ancient Monument. The station and railway buildings even seem to be on the same site as the previous station. My concern though is that a run round loop doesn’t seem to be there, which might make running over a longer distance difficult, but hopefully the track plan is just representational. Personally though when I visit a preserved industrial railway I quite like it to look different from other preserved lines that are based on passenger railways, and it helps to put it in context, so in that sense I sort of see where they’re coming from with the description of the 1990s station as inappropriate for the site.

 

1 hour ago, AMJ said:

Elsecar before the pandemic had one of the training providers doing some track work.  There seems to be a few of these companies doing this type of training.  For other railways that have them doing track work they pay the railway and carry out the less glamorous task of sorting out rail joints etc that gives the railway volunteers chance to spend time sorting out other things.

 

Are they involved with the proposed Rail College?

 

4 hours ago, adb968008 said:

most of the rest of the site is retail already and a loco shed right next door, which i’m not sure would be practical, unless it was a static exhibit…

I’m struggling to work out where this is on the plan. The market and event space is close to the loco shed but I interpreted this more as an open space that could be used either for a temporary market or an event etc. rather than permanently retail-focused.

To me the map seems a lot clearer than the artists’ impressions - for instance, the latter makes the ‘cultural canteen’ just look like a café whereas the implication from the map and other information is that it should include some sort of cultural space as well.

 

4 hours ago, adb968008 said:

It sounds good intentions, but right now it feels like its going the wrong way.

I suspect the buildings may go up, become retail, but if trains start my guess is it will be on the other side of the level crossing.

I quite like the plan - it seems to have a good mix of engineering, arts/culture and heritage and there are spaces that could be used for community activities (and a bit of retail appropriate to the site and the heritage centre is not a bad thing). But I do worry that the heritage and cultural elements will become diluted by too much commercial retail, or will need to be in order to generate funding (lots of civic museums in England are currently struggling with funding for ongoing running costs). I don’t know exactly what the mix is within the existing heritage centre building although unfortunately it looks like there isn’t a huge amount of museum/exhibition space.

 

Edit: I think I’d be happier about this and more confident that the railway will be revived (from a railway perspective, as obviously the heritage centre remains open) if the railway was still operating from some sort of interim temporary platform while the site was redeveloped, but obviously that isn’t the situation now.

Edited November 9, 2023 by 009 micro modeller

[AMJ]

Interesting to look at the NLS maps of fairly recent and historic showing what was there previously.

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=18.8&lat=53.49456&lon=-1.41869&layers=168&right=ESRIWorld

 

@009 micro modeller I presume the "Rail college" is a management type speak for these types of trackwork courses.  Some often just have a Portacabin for theory based sessions but in the main they are interested in getting people skilled that can then possibly join Network Rail.  

[Wheatley]

In fairness, what they're demolishing is this ramshackle collection of pretend railway architecture pastiche  (behind the footbridge), so provided they don't just weigh all the recovered ironwork in for scrap* I don't have a problem with them knocking down the rest. https://maps.app.goo.gl/F9KhBjKTrYPNpMuD8

 

The only bit of that that looks anything like the old Barnsley Exchange from where it was recovered, is the bridge; quite frankly a recreation of a 1980s Acme deck and bus shelter halt would be an improvement. 

 

*As well as their collective Tuscan acid trip, BMBC also has form on 'removing' old structures for conservation and then mislaying them - https://www.pinterest.jp/pin/this-is-the-tithe-barn-that-stood-in-barnsley-for-over-600-years-in-2023--900508887973998758/

[Bri.dolan]

51 minutes ago, Wheatley said:

In fairness, what they're demolishing is this ramshackle collection of pretend railway architecture pastiche  (behind the footbridge), so provided they don't just weigh all the recovered ironwork in for scrap* I don't have a problem with them knocking down the rest. https://maps.app.goo.gl/F9KhBjKTrYPNpMuD8

 

The only bit of that that looks anything like the old Barnsley Exchange from where it was recovered, is the bridge; quite frankly a recreation of a 1980s Acme deck and bus shelter halt would be an improvement. 

 

*As well as their collective Tuscan acid trip, BMBC also has form on 'removing' old structures for conservation and then mislaying them - https://www.pinterest.jp/pin/this-is-the-tithe-barn-that-stood-in-barnsley-for-over-600-years-in-2023--900508887973998758/

I believe the footbridge came from Dovecliffe level crossing 

 

regards 

 

 

Brian 

Edited November 9, 2023 by Bri.dolan

[Wheatley]

You're right. The one from Exchange had wider staircases with a landing halfway up. 

 

[009 micro modeller]

4 hours ago, AMJ said:

Interesting to look at the NLS maps of fairly recent and historic showing what was there previously.

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=18.8&lat=53.49456&lon=-1.41869&layers=168&right=ESRIWorld

 

@009 micro modeller I presume the "Rail college" is a management type speak for these types of trackwork courses.  Some often just have a Portacabin for theory based sessions but in the main they are interested in getting people skilled that can then possibly join Network Rail.  

But the rail college if it goes ahead would seem to benefit the heritage railway in the sense that it sounds like they will do trackwork for them to allow their students to get experience doing it, which would save a lot of money compared to doing it via outside contractors and avoid some of the logistical and skills issues of renewing track exclusively with volunteers. I’ve read about other railways that have benefited from similar schemes in the past, even where it’s only been some Network Rail trainees there as a one-off rather than an ongoing relationship.

 

4 hours ago, Wheatley said:

In fairness, what they're demolishing is this ramshackle collection of pretend railway architecture pastiche  (behind the footbridge), so provided they don't just weigh all the recovered ironwork in for scrap* I don't have a problem with them knocking down the rest. https://maps.app.goo.gl/F9KhBjKTrYPNpMuD8

That’s sort of what I was getting at above when I said I like preserved industrial railways to still look a bit industrial (as far as is possible given that, as heritage lines, they generally carry passengers now), rather than being a sort of approximation of a passenger railway (‘pastiche’ as you put it is a better word though). So I quite like the idea of new buildings whose design is inspired by the original industrial ones, and it hopefully would also help visitors to appreciate the industrial railway heritage, rather than assuming it’s ‘just another’ heritage railway based on a former passenger branch line. My concern would be whether the new buildings turn out to be an improvement in more practical terms (assuming they actually get built as planned) - will they offer the facilities that visitors need and that they would have got from the 1990s station building? It’s arguably a bit different at somewhere like, for example, Bredgar & Wormshill or Statfold; although those both include lots of industrial locos, they’re all from different places and are completely new lines built on sites with no previous railway or industrial history. If there were more original structures left I could even see an argument for making things like platforms so that they’re technically removable (a bit like the walkways and false floors seen at some heritage sites) to lessen the impact on the original features of the site, although I’m not sure that would work or be especially necessary at Elsecar.

[sir douglas]

My own experience there is that theres a lot buildings at the heritage centre but only about half them are open, if there isnt something happening in the event hall or the railway isnt running, there isnt much to do

Edited November 9, 2023 by sir douglas

[Erichill16]

2 hours ago, sir douglas said:

My own experience there is that theres a lot buildings at the heritage centre but only about half them are open, if there isnt something happening in the event hall or the railway isnt running, there isnt much to do

And check the opening times as some of the retail units  arn’t  open seven days a week. Some are closed Monday (and Tuesdays?)