Fire at Bo’ness and Kinneil railway

[duncan]

Not sure if this is the best place to put this  -  moderators please move if you think it should be elsewhere.

 

There has been an alleged arson attack & theft of stock at the Bo'ness 0 gauge group.  (I think this is the correct way to report this as no charges yet.)   If anyone sees stock apparently being sold, please advise the PoliceScotland.  

 

https://www.facebook.com/BonessGaugeOGroup

[Craig1989]

Apparently this seemed to be a targeted attack on the railway. Unfortunately gutted 2 pieces of rolling stock and destroyed an 0 gauge layout aswel.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce991j48q72o.amp

 

cheers Craig 

[BoD]

How awful.

[26power]

BBC news coverage of this:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce991j48q72o
 

Such a shame.

 

The carriages which housed the railway were originally bogie ones from Norway, if I remember correctly.

[sir douglas]

really appalling, i used to follow their flickr group https://www.flickr.com/groups/bogog/pool/

[TheQ]

A great shame, I've seen the o gauge railway many times , it was in a carriage in the bay platform at Bo'ness, but it may have moved, ( I helped lay the 304mm to the foot platform at Bo'ness and some track) . Not actually worked on the model, though I've been a member of SRPS (49 years) from before it moved to Bo'ness, which was handy for me as that's where I lived at the time.

[MikeB]

ALso reported in The National.  https://www.thenational.scot/news/24333632.scottish-towns-model-railway-destroyed-deliberate-fire/

 

[Guest]

Truly despicable.

[big jim]

Go fund me page here 

 

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/bonessgaugeogroup-modelrailway?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1PRpGYYYNlTIED640AVkq5dYpvWq2BQRZzC-zYVk660JjMuLgDCOJ0NRc_aem_ASH82u13lD7zmjBRoEUxz4WrrXBnx_z5x4_tD7_ww-j-gV8l-DcgUhMnGy8VJZBj5F2_XyXgdRnU0bl3YNEduZk8

[26power]

Links to a fundraiser page and the group’s Facebook page:

 

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/bonessgaugeogroup-modelrailway?utm_term=qbZVD2dG6&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0YjikOya8kQdnc2ZP20RRyjluPfj4GTnOAGyxawtWwPBXWGbF44wxGWsg_aem_AdCZcetB_rl0ILdzIn0x7C5KWwjnmYMUNsfoBc0I8aP0k3PESTmWbzX_fpKKWjgnqhZVaj3H0786ocET8yqrb9b8

 

https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=bo'ness gauge o group

[Mike Bellamy]

I'm sure no one will mind me posting an update from the Gauge O Guild forum copied below . . . . . 

 

 

We had a meeting on Tuesday evening in the cafe at the SRPS site at Bo'ness and this will be our meeting place for the foreseeable future, our coaches are unusable for the time being.
It seems the perpetrators were in search of cash across the whole site and although there is CCTV recording in place they manage to evade being caught before leaving. They removed a bit less than £30 from our donation collecting boxes, and then started a fire in the kitchen area of our 'club' coach before leaving with the money and two fairly well used vacuum cleaners! It doesn't look as though they had an interest in the locos and rolling stock at all.

The fire has caused serious damage to one half of the club coach and this will require an complete strip out and rebuild of the interior. Thankfully the fire brigade did not use water to put out the fire, using CO2 instead to prevent water damage as far as possible. The domestic electrics along with the lighting will need replacing before we can make much progress with the rebuilding so the layout is now closed to the public for the time being.

An assessment by our insurers has been taking place today, Thursday, but it sounds like they are making helpful noises about getting the clear up underway as soon as possible.

At our meeting on Tuesday it was clear that we were all keen to see a return to normal as soon as possible but the realisation is that it's likely to take the rest of this year to carry out the repairs and replacements.

The committee also told us that a crowd funding page on the Just Giving platform had been opened that morning as a result of many of our regular visitors wanting to help in some way. By the time the meeting started, at 7pm, donations were apparently pinging at the rate of one every few minutes. Our chairman Chris suggested that it was worth reading the comments that people were making to act as an antidote for anyone who was feeling downhearted about the situation. It certainly reveals that we are a much loved and admired attraction both locally and much further afield.

Some talk today is that it might be possible, once the clean up is complete and electrics reinstated, to run a shuttle service using one end of the layout. This would mean that services from the south would terminate at Glenauchter a bus replacement service would take passengers onwards! Watch this space.

For the time being, we hope to organise a presence on site each weekend either close to the coaches or, even better, on the train on the big railway to keep visitors informed about progress.

 

.

[Dungrange]

Two men have now apparently been arrested and charged in connection with this incident.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn00rk1znkvo#:~:text=Two men have been arrested,display was torched on Sunday.

 

[BlackFivesMatter]

Hopefully the connection with a large and established organisation such as SRPS will enable a media involvement and as much of an appropriate response such as the Spalding club did, rather than all the story to develop onto "folded arms and scowls with an eye, its an awful world". I have every faith in the group. 

[JeremyC]

On 24/05/2024 at 09:08, Mike Bellamy said:

.........The fire has caused serious damage to one half of the club coach and this will require an complete strip out and rebuild of the interior. Thankfully the fire brigade did not use water to put out the fire, using CO2 instead to prevent water damage as far as possible. The domestic electrics along with the lighting will need replacing before we can make much progress with the rebuilding so the layout is now closed to the public for the time being.

For those who do not know the Boness layout it is housed in 2 former Norwegian Railway coaches standing side by side with interconnecting 'tunnels' between them.

The scenic part of the layout (public side) is in one coach with the fiddleyard/club coach being in the other. While the serious fire damage was restricted to one half of the fiddleyard coach there is considerable smoke damage to the whole of the coach and also to the 2nd coach.

[Clive martin]

I feel gutted for the for the guys at Boness ,this is sadly the second time a heritage railway has been the subject of an arson attack in the last couple of months its even more shocking to find out 2 men in their 30s have been arrested in connection with this crime i would love to hear their explanation for their actions !

[rob D2]

2 hours ago, Clive martin said:

I feel gutted for the for the guys at Boness ,this is sadly the second time a heritage railway has been the subject of an arson attack in the last couple of months its even more shocking to find out 2 men in their 30s have been arrested in connection with this crime i would love to hear their explanation for their actions !

Explanation ? They couldn’t spell it.

I’ll try for them - oxygen thieves and pointless wasters ?