The one that means that we are unable to enjoy a mainline railtour on the VEP for starters.
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Is a Steam ban 'Inevitable'?
- Thread starter Johnny_w
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The one that means that we are unable to enjoy a mainline railtour on the VEP for starters.
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R
RailUK Forums
What do you mean and ?
No, I wanted you to clarify your point on your previous post "and".
I don't know whether it's a hangover from the restrictions on Mk 1's (before we were able to do away with barrier vehicles) but even without the barrier vehicle restriction, there seems to be absolutely no chance of having a railtour on the VEP - even though it is main line registered and in full working order.
When I made my post about poorly thought out and illogical bans, I included an example in that post. You implied that you weren't happy with that one.
If you require another, you'll have to ask someone else I'm afraid.
well it was you that posted " for starters " .......which , unless I m completely mistaken, would suggest that you had a few more poorly thought out bans???
Peter Mugridge
Veteran Member
I thought it was more to do with the lack of central door locking on that unit? ( A VEP is not exactly short of doors; even if they put a steward on each door to get round that they'll lose about 220% of their total seat capacity which would mean a tour would then not be viable anyway... )
Well, if you'd have posted something along the lines of:
"and what other examples of poorly thought out bans do you have ?"
rather than
"such as"
We might have avoided all of this confusion.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Well quite - but then again, the old Met stock has plenty of doors and they managed to get around that.
My apologies
- I forget not everyone's as familiar with the old train types - a VEP is one of these:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_423
But then again, no different from Mk 1 carriages on railtours today (they have a steward for each carriage to keep an eye on things) and certainly no different from steam age Met stock.
I suppose my point is, sadly it's not hard to envisage steam loco's being banned for convenience unnecessarily.
which is why I mentioned the point earlier about penalty payments for what amounts to Toc on Toc delays.....
The other thing to bear in mind is that some of Network rail charges come under what is termed as " avoidable costs " ....in the main this applies to freight operations who impact more with wear and tear etc. As always , the devil is in the detail, and one such detail is chunks of coal stuck in points. I actually have the document which states that....clearly something to consider with steam trains...
Johnny_w
Member
I assume your taking about the "Gordon Petit" VEP.
that one really is strange to be honest. I can't imagine it's beyond the impossible to retrofit central door locking to each door?
What is it? A bolt and a servo maybe?
JW
that one really is strange to be honest. I can't imagine it's beyond the impossible to retrofit central door locking to each door?
What is it? A bolt and a servo maybe?
JW
I've seen chunks of coal in the middle of the track from freight trains. At the end of the day, it's a charge rather than a reason for banning.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Indeed. Central locking is prohibitively expensive ( I believe that's why Hasting's diesels haven't put it on one of their compartment carriages).
That said, I believe the railtour Mk 1's operate without central locking.
Its a risk as well I m afraid.....and as was stated only the other week by the CEO of Network Rail in front of the Transport Select Committee, track maintainance is become more subject to risk management techniques....which in actually fact isnt so far away from what BR used to do in the so called patch and mend days.....
All the more reason why steam fans should be ware (and fight if necessary !).
I hope you're wrong. If the kettles don't run, there's even less chance my sort of trains will run.
and it could just as easily be a winnable fight also
maybe, but their possibly will be as much of the public outraged over such a bann then who would support it, it is certainly something that all heritage railways should be co-operating with each other to fight against if it does happen
I cant see the public being outraged at all............steam train charters are such a minority interest that they just dont register with the general population. I simply dont see any mention of this in political party manifestos. When you consider the scrutiny that " rail industry costs " have come under recently , I would consider steam charters a definite avoidable cost.
Not convinced I agree with you. Travelling on a steam train charter might be a minority interest although a lot of that is do with cost I expect, but if more of the general public knew when steam trains were passing through their local stations then I am sure more would turn up to watch.
I also suspect that if you ran a steam train instead of a DMU or EMU you'd find it would be packed, and not just with enthusiasts.
Obviously both difficult to prove because you don't want hoardes of people crowding bridges, stations etc to watch steam trains passing, and you are not going to find a steam train running a mainline service.
However the heritage railways seem to be doing ok which must mean a general interest in steam. You could say they should be doing better but that depends on cost and population in the catchment area,
Oh i dont doubt the attraction of heritage rail, but of course that is a different experience altogether more akin to the tourism industry. So it would appear that steam enthusiasts are certainly catered for in that respect.
As for how well they are doing.....well that is invariably linked to net disposable income, which has declined over the last few years. An added bonus of the last 20 years or so however is the availability of National Lottery Funding ....
As for how well they are doing.....well that is invariably linked to net disposable income, which has declined over the last few years. An added bonus of the last 20 years or so however is the availability of National Lottery Funding ....
Wider public would not be outraged, but a regular summer train such as the Scarborough Spa Express is a good tourist draw for Scarborough in terms of depositing a large trainload of people into the town for a few hours - in fact it's (a tad ironically) the modern-day equivalent of the old day-tripper trains. I'm sure the Borough Council would be very disappointed if it ceased.
Indeed it is ironic, though invariably the success of such operations would
depend on how well they are marketed as a heritage operation. What is also slighly ironic is that heritage rail operations tend to fund themselves privately with share offerings......and are actually self sufficent financially. In effect , a classic case of where private equity has replaced state industry and done rather well.....
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