Swanage Railway urgent £3 million signalling funding appeal.

[kieranhardy]

See here:

http://swanagerailway.co.uk/news627.htm

And related, a clip of the Swanage DMU being taken to Eastleigh passing Brockenhurst for fitting of the modern safety equipment needed, though not sure what's being done to the pullman?

[Rumpole]

Close (and I appreciate what is said on the Youtube description); the DMU is going to Eastleigh for overhaul rather than just the modern electrical gubbins. The Pullman Car 347 has been sold to WCRC.

I can only encourage people to register their support for the scheme though; this really is a massive opportunity for the railway to get the appropriate work done in a reasonable timescale, and at a reasonable cost. If the work cannot be done at this time then it is ccertain that doing the junction as a stand-alone project will cost much more and be far more time-consuming.

[Axe]

Some years ago I responded to the Swanage Railway appeal for signalling items to be donated for their extension through Corfe Castle. I donated some genuine ex-LSWR lower quadrant signal arms and post fittings. Despite receiving a letter of thanks from the Railway, I later learnt that all the items had been sold for scrap. Beware !!!

Chris

[michael4642]

Some years ago I responded to the Swanage Railway appeal for signalling items to be donated for their extension through Corfe Castle. I donated some genuine ex-LSWR lower quadrant signal arms and post fittings. Despite receiving a letter of thanks from the Railway, I later learnt that all the items had been sold for scrap. Beware !!!

Chris

It seems to me that this appeal is to fund signalling to allow Swanage to run a public transport service on behalf of Dorset County Council - therefore, why aren't the council paying?

[Rumpole]

Michael

Much of the negotiation with a view to re-introducing regular services over the whole Swanage branch is being done by a group called the Purbeck Rail Partnership, which is made up of representatives of the Swanage Railway, Dorset County Council, Purbeck District Council, Network Rail, South West Trains and the Borough of Poole. The appeal for assistance that has been made was made by the PRP, with the SR and other bodies publicising it with a view to gaining public support for the initiative in order to assist with obtaining funding from central government and statutory bodies, rather than obtaining it directly from enthusiast finances.

To say the appeal is to allow the SR to run services on behalf of DCC is premature; as yet there is as yet no decision on who will operate the service (whether it will be the SR, Dorset County Council or A.N.Other), so (in my opinion) given the number of bodies involved it is not appropriate, particularly given current economic and budgetary constraints, for one to contribute all the funding.

Again my personal opinion, but even if no regular service is introduced in the future the improvements to the junction would go a huge way to improving the connection to the SR. At present, any movement onto the branch must stop at Worgret Junction for the operation of the ground frame, stop once on the branch to close off the frame, stop again at Motala for the operation of the boundary ground frame and then again stop at Norden for the BP crossing. When you multiply this by the number of movements on and off the branch, it is clear the number of man hours (and of course the costs involved, particularly re Network Rail staff) which could be cut out by the completion of the re-signalling are considerable.

The Dorset Coast Re-Signalling scheme provides an ideal window of opportunity for the work to be done within the context of a wider scheme that is already in the Network Rail planning; it is common sense that to do the work while such a scheme is within the planning and execution stage would have far less cost implications that at a later date, when the work will have to dovetail into an existing installation around the operation of that system.

Kind regards

Nick

[kieranhardy]

An extension has been granted:

http://swanagerailway.co.uk/news630.htm

[Rumpole]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-10810290