Vale of Rheidol buys Brecon Mountain Railway.

[papagolfjuliet]

New press release. Should mean some interesting engines working the BMR, considering the VoR's huge collection.

[009 micro modeller]

On 26/10/2023 at 10:24, papagolfjuliet said:

New press release. Should mean some interesting engines working the BMR, considering the VoR's huge collection.

 

 

Agree in some ways, although on the other hand it seems a shame to dilute the American image created on the BMR. They refer to a merger, but is it definitely that the VoR has bought the BMR? I hadn’t even realised it was for sale (in contrast to, say, the Rudyard Lake miniature line which is/was up for sale and was quite well publicised).

 

I wonder if we will see any shared branding or ticketing (although with the latter I’m not sure they’re close enough together for people to visit both while on holiday). It’s interesting that they talk about job creation but also cost savings - I assume the latter would come from merging back of house/admin functions but that the savings from this would also allow further expansion. Possibly a good idea for some other lines as well - it has worked in the wider heritage sector for years, after all.

 

Edit: I see that Graf the Jung loco is now at the VoR in the new museum shed but apparently it has been at the VoR since last year and of course it can’t really run on the upper section of the BMR anyway so not sure that’s directly related.

Edited November 2, 2023 by 009 micro modeller

[papagolfjuliet]

The first of the Collection X locos, a WW1 Dick Kerr petrol-electric, is now on display in the new VoR Museum (alongside the aforementioned Jung and the late Adrian Shooter's Ford Model T railcar): https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=850168953775877&set=pcb.850172647108841

 

The rest of Collection X can't be far behind, as the late Peter Rampton's house and farm are now on the market: https://search.savills.com/property-detail/gblhralar230028

[009 micro modeller]

24 minutes ago, papagolfjuliet said:

The first of the Collection X locos, a WW1 Dick Kerr petrol-electric, is now on display in the new VoR Museum (alongside the aforementioned Jung and the late Adrian Shooter's Ford Model T railcar): https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=850168953775877&set=pcb.850172647108841

 

The rest of Collection X can't be far behind, as the late Peter Rampton's house and farm are now on the market: https://search.savills.com/property-detail/gblhralar230028

Are the small locos from Brecon (Redstone etc.) going to the Rheidol museum or staying at Brecon?

[papagolfjuliet]

33 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

Are the small locos from Brecon (Redstone etc.) going to the Rheidol museum or staying at Brecon?

 

No idea. I've never understood why the two VBTs (and the Hunslet, now sold) were restored to full working order merely to be placed on static display. I note however that the BMR website states that the museum is closed until further notice and no longer lists 'Redstone' as BMR stock. 

[009 micro modeller]

2 minutes ago, papagolfjuliet said:

 

No idea. I've never understood why the two VBTs (and the Hunslet, now sold) were restored to full working order merely to be placed on static display. I note however that the BMR website states that the museum is closed until further notice and no longer lists 'Redstone' as BMR stock. 

Not sure why the museum is closed. No idea about Pendyffryn and Redstone although the latter was apparently in the Hills collection pre-BMR when it was still based in Llanberis (separate from the Lake Railway): https://www.irsociety.co.uk/Archives/54/Redstone.htm

 

I don’t think Pendyffryn has ever operated ‘main line’ services at Brecon and Redstone is almost certainly too light, as it’s effectively a miniature loco (being based on a 3ft gauge De Winton at a reduced size for 2ft gauge track, whereas Pendyffryn is a proper loco actually built by De Winton). However Sybil, the Hunslet (apparently now at the Richmond Light Railway) was actually used (with only one of the BMR coaches) to run some services in the very early days: https://www.pressreader.com/uk/steam-railway-uk/20211015/282248078735789

 

Not sure when this stopped but it appears from other information on the BMR website and elsewhere that the first of the Baldwins was not available at this stage, and the Jung not until about a year after the railway opened, so Sybil must have worked trains for the first year or two.

[papagolfjuliet]

'Pendyffryn' and 'Redstone' have now been placed on display in the Aber museum.

 

https://www.rheidolrailway.co.uk/2024/04/19/more-new-exhibits-arrive-in-aberystwyth/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR10aNGEDgrYPxw9bQ3PiSEq_I-Vm7dDrz6zMTTzTQZFdHw2MUcHa81dU5g_aem_AelBenSsTb66-wa_3tMH9wvYWIpT9b13ZgUZl59hdvZy8xNGrdgtcE7d16zlUrnTsY9jogipR5023h1OtEYTGfmv

Edited April 20 by papagolfjuliet

[009 micro modeller]

1 hour ago, papagolfjuliet said:

'Pendyffryn' and 'Redstone' have now been placed on display in the Aber museum.

 

https://www.rheidolrailway.co.uk/2024/04/19/more-new-exhibits-arrive-in-aberystwyth/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR10aNGEDgrYPxw9bQ3PiSEq_I-Vm7dDrz6zMTTzTQZFdHw2MUcHa81dU5g_aem_AelBenSsTb66-wa_3tMH9wvYWIpT9b13ZgUZl59hdvZy8xNGrdgtcE7d16zlUrnTsY9jogipR5023h1OtEYTGfmv

I wonder if they’re doing something else with the museum space on the BMR then, given that the museum locos seem to be being concentrated at Aberystwyth?

[papagolfjuliet]

4 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

I wonder if they’re doing something else with the museum space on the BMR then, given that the museum locos seem to be being concentrated at Aberystwyth?

 

No idea. The stationary engine is presumably still in situ. Perhaps in due course some of the Rampton collection be exhibited there?

[009 micro modeller]

6 hours ago, papagolfjuliet said:

Perhaps in due course some of the Rampton collection be exhibited there?

Possibly although I thought that’s what the new space at Aberystwyth was for? Though given the amount of material in the collection (all interesting and mostly not publicly displayed before) it presumably wouldn’t hurt to have more than one place to display it.

[papagolfjuliet]

19 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

Possibly although I thought that’s what the new space at Aberystwyth was for? Though given the amount of material in the collection (all interesting and mostly not publicly displayed before) it presumably wouldn’t hurt to have more than one place to display it.

 

Add together the complete Collection X (even after the sale of a couple fo duplicate engines) and the separate 'Rampton' Collection which was already at the VoR and there's no chance of all of it fitting into the new building even after the on-loan Fire Queen and Earl of Berkeley have left again so I'd be very surprised if the VoR did not make use of its other exhibition space in the fullness of time.

 

That said the VoR does have a long term plan to extend the museum using the London Bridge roof so perhaps the former museum at Pant has some other projected use. The VoR seems to keep its operating fleet to a bare minimum however - three big engines plus a couple of small ones for footplate rides - and the BMR requires very large engines so I can't see much of the Rampton Collections actually being retsored to running order let alone running out of Pant. The Kerr Stuart Gwalior Railway pacifics, perhaps?

 

 

Edited April 21 by papagolfjuliet

[Michael Hodgson]

I really can't see the point of this merger unless the Welsh Nats are planning to extend the lines to build a railway connecting North Wales with South Wales without having to go via the dreaded LLoegr.  They've already made one step in that direction when the Festiniog and Welsh Highland stopped squabblling and connected their systems up, so it is now possible to go as far as Mid Wales from the North by rail.

Edited April 21 by Michael Hodgson

[papagolfjuliet]

The Welsh Highland Railway and the Ffestiniog never squabbled; they're the same company. The squabble was between the Ff&WHR on the one hand and the '64 Company or Welsh Highland Heritage Railway on the other, and although the two organisations have patched things up and do now cooperate WHR trains still don't stop at Pen y Mount junction so you can't make a direct connection to the Cambrian at Porthmadog without a long walk from one end of the high street to the other.

[009 micro modeller]

3 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

I really can't see the point of this merger unless the Welsh Nats are planning to extend the lines to build a railway connecting North Wales with South Wales without having to go via the dreaded LLoegr.

Not sure if that’s hugely relevant though as they are narrow gauge tourist/heritage railways (I know Ffestiniog is as well, but most of the stuff I’ve seen about building a north-south railway in mid-Wales has been around standard gauge, national network proposals). And there’s been no suggestion that they’re actually going to link up the two lines, even from the fantasy extension brigade. It seems to make quite a lot of sense in terms of making back-of-house stuff (e.g. marketing) more efficient, and possibly in engineering terms as well? It’s got more in common with museum groups (like the National Trust, or the Science Museum Group, or on a smaller geographical scale the Jorvik group, not to mention the various local museum trusts in larger cities) that have multiple sites than, for instance, the K&ESR/RVR where they’re physically joining up two sections of railway. I wonder if we’ll see any common branding or ticketing arrangements between Brecon and Rheidol? (Obviously in this case the two lines involved have been under common ownership in the past as well, though I don’t know if that even influenced the decision to do the merger.)

 

4 hours ago, papagolfjuliet said:

The VoR seems to keep its operating fleet to a bare minimum however - three big engines plus a couple of small ones for footplate rides - and the BMR requires very large engines so I can't see much of the Rampton Collections actually being retsored to running order let alone running out of Pant. The Kerr Stuart Gwalior Railway pacifics, perhaps?

 

They do also have the NGG13 at Rheidol as an operating loco now, though that came from Switzerland (largely in working order IIRC) rather than from amongst the stored stock. Would the Gwalior Pacifics suit the loading gauge? If not at Aberystwyth they might have a chance at Pant given that the BMR is on an old standard gauge trackbed.

 

A bit off-topic but I’m in two minds about whether I’d personally like to see items from the Rampton collection running on the BMR. On one hand it would be good to see some of them operating, but equally I quite like the American image that the BMR has created (even though I realise it’s inauthentic and irrelevant to the line’s original history - but arguably that point would still largely apply even if the BMR was narrow gauge with British and European stock) and in some ways it seems a shame to dilute that image. Unless they’ve paused the project I think they are still building a couple of new-build locos to Maine 2ft gauge designs as well.

[papagolfjuliet]

1 hour ago, 009 micro modeller said:

 

They do also have the NGG13 at Rheidol as an operating loco now, though that came from Switzerland (largely in working order IIRC) rather than from amongst the stored stock. Would the Gwalior Pacifics suit the loading gauge?

 

 

 

I think most things will fit the VoR, but re: the NGG13 it's worth noting that the VoR appears in no rush to overhaul No.9 despite it being in very good order so it's back down to three big engines - Nos. 7 and 8 and the Garratt - plus the Wren and the Quarry Hunslet for footplate rides.