ForestPines

Two Voyagers at Yate

A pedant writes: you're possibly thinking of the C9 class, a pair of ex-NER C7 Atlantics rebuilt with an articulated booster bogie (and arguably a 4-4-4-4T!). They were converted in 1931, had the booster engines removed in 1936/7, and were scrapped in 1942/3. Gresley rather liked booster experiments: earlier, he had tried fitting a booster to the rear carrying axle of an ex-GN C1 Atlantic - indeed, the project started before Grouping, with the modified engine going into service in summer 1923. That experiment didn't alter the wheel arrangement, though, but the booster wasn't removed until 1935. As for streamlining, Locomotives Of The LNER has a general arrangement of a proposed streamlined C1, dated Feb. 1936. All the people who said above that Raven as CME would have meant mainline electrification sooner: remember, Gresley started electrification as soon as he could get the money for it. Which meant: when the government was willing to fund it, because the board certainly wouldn't. All this speculation about different possible CMEs tends to gloss over the company directors' role in company leadership. The LNER was lead by Whitelaw, who had already shown his parsimonious nature before Grouping (hence why Gresley ordered an extra batch of D11s, because he needed something quick to sort out the state of the ex-NB area's traction). If someone else had been elected Chairman - for example, if Sir Frederick Banbury hadn't been so anti-Grouping that he refused to become an LNER director - then things could have been very different again.

You could also get the bus from Bangor to Caernarfon.

The plans involve the Bristol Harbour Railway being turned into a sort of tramway - or "new and improved track" in that PDF - running on Sundays only, or in other words about half the running days it had before the guided bus plans were published. See the picture of the Spike Island stop? That's part of the Harbour Ralway route, and the railway, in the plans submitted for funding and in that artist's impression, is a tramway embedded in the busway line nearest the camera. For reference, this is what the site of that artist's impression looks like at the moment: - compare and contrast.

Bristol have included "getting a Transport & Works Act order" in the timeline of their proposals, once funding is in place, so presumably their lawyers have advised them that busways aren't covered by their highway powers.

One of the sillier aspects of the Bristol scheme is that they're trying to turn a single-track line into a busway, which there definitely isn't room for. So for a large part of the route, should it go ahead, there will be a single lane of busway along the former railway alignment, and a bus lane for the other direction along the adjacent road. That will still leave some sections which have to be "bidirectional busway", with traffic light controls. Personally, I think that one of the factors prompting councils to go for this - apart from their cheapness compared to a proper rapid-transit solution - is part of the aftermath of the Thatcherite bus deregulation. If councils provide big, expensive infrastructure works that bus companies essentially become obliged to use, that re-exerts some of the council controls over bus routing that they had before deregulation, whilst the private bus owners still have to do most of the work.

You have a point there - whereas there aren't any other V2s.

I'm also looking forward to seeing those Belgian tender locos restored. My point about the attitude of preserved lines and the "museum" side of heritage is, I think, a fairly modern thing - Linda and Blanche were rebuilt, what, 40 years ago now? Different mores applied then - I don't think there's any way that the NRM, were it to be a new institution, would contemplate sectioning Ellerman Lines the way it did in the 70s, even though it's an ideal education tool. (Does anyone know when Manchester museum sectioned its Isle of Man loco?). Then again, the FR completely rebuilt one of the Funkey diesels to fit their structure gauge; so they have one in original condition, and one rebuilt, which to me seems like a fair compromise.

Bristol City Council have an ongoing plan to convert the Bristol Harbour Railway into one of these, although government cutbacks may have put it off the agenda for now: lately, the Council have been dropping hints that they'd rather like a tram system stocked with Parry People Movers instead.

On the other hand, you can argue that what's left preserved is what was left to preserve - by the 1990s, very little NWNGR or Croesor Tramway stuff was left, and the FR Co generally have taken preservation of the remaining heritage structures seriously. I've noticed that the "big business" end of preservation does seem to try to take its heritage responsibilities more seriously in a museums sense - by which, I mean, try to take their heritage preservation responsibilities in the same way that a professional museum or archaeological service would do. So, you have structures like the Tryfan Jn station building being maintained in their ruined condition, the railway trying to prevent further decay but at the same time not restoring the structure, because current thinking in archaeology is to stabilise sites for the future, without unnecessary destruction-of-evidence either from the elements or from over-zealous restoration. I have to admit that I'm guessing as to the railway's motivation there, but you never know, I might be right! (the archaeology of railways isn't exactly well-developed compared to other industrial archaeology - the standout-significant event in the subject is still the Liverpool dig from 1980 or so)

I recognise it, and where it is! It's one of the economical FPLs on the Bristol Harbour Railway, hence the rather complex and unusual look to it.