Heritage lines
DANIEL PUDDICOMBE examines the growing trend for heritage railways to accommodate service trains and for volunteer-run railways to run out onto the main line network
The growing trend for heritage railways to accommodate service trains and for volunteer-operated railways to run on the main line.
For just over a decade, the North Yorkshire Moors Railway (NYMR) has been running regular, timetabled services on the national network between Grosmont and Whitby.
To achieve this, the heritage railway became a ‘mini-TOC’ (train operating company), with its locomotives and carriages needing to attain main line standards. It also opened the door for other heritage railways to look more seriously at expansion projects.
“Running into Whitby increases our portfolio of offerings to the public, and it also increases turnover. There’s no two ways about it - our annual turnover is a million and a quarter pounds more than it would have been had we not run into Whitby,” NYMR General Manager Chris Price explains.
“You also become more of a player within the tourism sector. You command more gravitas because you’re turning over more money and carrying more people. There are also political benefits - it perhaps brings us to tables we weren’t otherwise at before.”
While some heritage railways - such as the Bodmin & Wenford in Cornwall and the Dartmouth Steam Railway in Devon - have had cross-platform connections with the main line for a number of years, others have had to rebuild their connections over time.
For the Chinnor and Princes Risborough Railway, the completion of Platform 4 at Princes Risborough in August 2018 crowned a long-term desire to reconnect the line with the ‘big railway’.
The new platform allows passengers to step off Chiltern services and onto steam services. And chairman Danny Woodward tells RAIL that the extension makes the C&PRR the closest heritage line to London, in terms of the amount of time it takes to travel from the capital by train.
“I always used to say that we had a railway that went from nowhere special to nowhere at all, but we’re going from somewhere that’s up and coming [Chinnor] and we’re now into Risborough,” he says, adding that thanks to the link, members of the public are starting to use his services as a way of getting from Point A to Point B.
“We’ve been pleased with the increase in traffic. But I think the most remarkable thing was that on the first normal Sunday of the new timetable, the first train left Chinnor full and as we approached Risborough, the platform had a load of people on it. And we thought: ‘if those people get on the train, where are they going to go?’
“Around 50% of the people onboard got off and didn’t just wander around to have a look at the locomotive and then jump on again - they got off.”
Woodward adds that a group of swimmers living in Chinnor regularly use the heritage line’s services to take them to and from a pool in Princes Risborough, instead of driving. He also has anecdotal evidence of others using his services to connect with Chiltern services, in order for them to travel around the country for work.
For local operator Chiltern Railways, having a heritage railway on its doorstep provides benefits in terms of raising the line’s appeal, while showing it is ‘doing the right thing’ and winning easy PR in the process.
“At Chiltern, we are very pleased to have this rail heritage destination directly connected to our services,” says Senior Stakeholder Manager David Heathfield.
“And the cross-platform connection makes it a convenient journey from central London to Princes Risborough in just 40 minutes. We are working hard to grow the market for leisure travel and contribute to the visitor economy of the communities we serve.
“Accessing the line through the national rail network is the ideal way to experience the best of the modern and heritage railway in this country. In early 2019 we will be introducing through-ticketing to Chinnor from selected destinations, which will make it even easier for visitors to enjoy a day out on the heritage railway.”
In order for the C&PRR to run into Princes Risborough, its services have to run along an otherwise unused siding, and that requires Network Rail’s blessing until the heritage line can build its own line adjacent to the siding.
A Network Rail spokesman tells RAIL the track and infrastructure owner is “supportive of any proposals that help improve passenger experience of rail travel and utilise any spare capacity on the network effectively.”
However, he clarifies: “It is vitally important that any heritage lines hosting service trains must be able to operate on our infrastructure while adhering to the industry’s high safety standards.”
The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) also has a positive view on the growing trend for heritage lines to connect with main line services.
“The ORR appreciates that the non-main line railways with connections onto the network have the potential to play a useful role in the wider transport network,” says Head of Non-Mainline Railways Ian Skinner.
“In safety terms, there are important issues that non-main line heritage companies need to consider - for example, the suitability of the railway’s infrastructure to accommodate services from the main line, staff competence to deal with those services, and necessary arrangements for providing servicing of the rolling stock.
Skinner adds: “Where a minor railway proposes to run its services onto the main line network, it requires a safety certificate to demonstrate it has a safety management system that meets the requirements of schedule 1 of the Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations Act.
“It is certainly the case that the more a minor railway operation looks and operates like a main line operator, then the more closely we will expect its arrangements for managing safety to align with those of the main line. ORR also deals not only with safety but also the economic regulation of the main line network, so issues also arise around licensing and passenger rights such as delay compensation.”
Speaking of high standards on the main line, the NYMR’s Chris Price says running on the national network has added benefits, other than increasing the number of destinations it serves.
“Our standards of maintenance are driven higher by running on the national network, so therefore there are reliability benefits as well.
“You can’t run a two-standard workshop. Our engines that don’t go on the national network don’t have a maintenance policy that says we will look after them in a different way than the ones that go to Whitby, and the same applies for our coaches. It builds in place mechanisms that guarantee you stay compliant. It not only pushes up our maintenance regimes, but our safety standards as well - we don’t fear an inspection or any kind of scrutiny because we’re having to meet those standards anyway on a regular timetabled basis.
“The advantage of running between Grosmont and Whitby is that we’re not actually managing the track, but paying to use it. It does mean that we have regular meetings with Network Rail, and it means we have to meet their standards.”
However, Price cautions that running on the main line may not help heritage railways ease any financial concerns.
“We are a little mini-TOC in a tiny bit of Yorkshire, so it is naive to assume you’re going to make mounds of surplus out of the operation because your costs and safety standards go up to meet that liability.
“There is a danger that people can go diving into main line operations thinking there
I always used to say that we had a railway that went from nowhere special to nowhere at all, but we’re going from somewhere that’s up and coming and we’re now into Risborough. Danny Woodward, Chairman, Chinnor and Princes Risborough Railway
are huge levels of money to be made out of it, when in reality running a railway means there isn’t a big pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”
Price continues: “This is a warning that this isn’t a route to riches. One of the things worrying me is that the heritage sector is being very aspirational about running onto the main line network. It does bring with it an awful lot of hard work and effort to do so. Sometimes I think we need to balance whether the effort and hard work is worth the reward. There are some projects that I think ‘where’s the return?’ We have to be honest and realise that ambition can mask good business sense.”
A watershed moment occurred on the Swanage Railway in the summer of 2017, when for the first time in 40 years the seaside town was reconnected to Wareham - and therefore, the national network - with timetabled services.
The Wareham shuttles used a main lineregistered Class 33 based at Swanage. This and a WCR locomotive top-and-tailed WCR coaches that were later replaced by London Transport Museum’s 4TC set. The plan is for the line to run its own diesel multiple units (DMUs) to Wareham and (eventually) steam to Poole and Bournemouth on a regular basis.
“The link is very important as it opens up new markets over time, so we see it being a key part of our future,” says David Rawsthorn, Head of Sales and Marketing at Swanage Railway.
“It’s also a fulfilment of the raison d’etre of the preservationists, which was to restore the rail link between Swanage and Wareham, so we’re fulfilling a 40-year promise.”
He is also hopeful that the link could ease congestion in the area, through a better provision of public transport options: “Having a proper Swanage-Wareham link will hopefully take cars off the Isle of Purbeck and encourage people to use the railway whenever possible.
“The challenge we face is: how do you square a circle? You have to carry sufficient passenger numbers to make the service viable. These rail links are aimed towards leisure travellers. It’s not normally practical for heritage railways to offer commuter services (say at 0700 or 0800) or to operate an evening service, so it isn’t quite a full circle, but if passenger numbers grow there’s no reason why the days of operation and times of operation can’t grow accordingly.”
The third-party stock was hired in because upgrades to the line’s own DMUs were delayed, and the same thing happened again in 2018. Instead of hiring in stock to plug the gap, the line reached an agreement with South Western Railway (SWR) to run Saturdayonly services to and from the branch’s Corfe Castle station over the summer. SWR offered £10 return tickets from Salisbury, Tisbury, Gillingham, Templecombe, Sherborne and Yeovil Junction, with passengers then having the option to add on discounted tickets in order to reach Swanage by steam.
The partnership was announced a few days ahead of the first train that ran to the Isle of Purbeck, and the services - which used spare SWR Class 158 and ‘159’ units - were beset by the RMT strikes over the summer, but nevertheless both parties considered the runs to and from Corfe Castle to be successful.
“It mimicked a good old-fashioned day excursion train, and we were delighted with it. It brought lots of people who hadn’t seen Corfe Castle before, and a very significant proportion transferred onto our steam service down to Swanage,” says Rawsthorn.
He adds that the railway would like to see SWR run to Corfe Castle on a regular basis, not just as a one-off solution to cover for rolling stock that wasn’t ready in time.
Some online commentators objected to modern, everyday trains running along a heritage railway, and there is an argument that the SWR solution took away farebox revenue from the heritage line, but Rawsthorn believes that because people were able to take a normal, service train from their local station, it made it easier for families to make a day-trip out of visiting the seaside town and having a short run behind steam.
After all, in the same way that most of an aquarium’s visitors are not fish enthusiasts, the majority of people who visit heritage railways are not gricers - they’re mainly people (and families in particular) looking to have a nice day out and to do something different, rather than coming along with a red pen to tick off track they travel along.
Says Rawsthorn: “We’re hoping to run our own service this year, when the two diesel DMUs have been returned and we have our passenger operator licence. There is a great deal of merit to working with SWR in partnership to allow them to operate the Corfe Castle service - if we can dovetail the two together, so much the better.
“It’s about offering the customer as much choice as possible. Although the Wareham link is very important, it’s helpful when there
Accessing the line through the national rail network is the ideal way to experience the best of the modern and heritage railway in this country. David Heathfield, Senior Stakeholder Manager, Chiltern Railways
One of the things worrying me is that the heritage sector is being very aspirational about running onto the main line network. It does bring with it an awful lot of hard work and effort to do so. Chris Price, General Manager, North Yorkshire Moors Railway
are through services down the branch line and running a 1950s or 1960s excursion train is marketable. Day-trippers don’t like changing trains too much, so if we can offer some direct trains so much the better.
“I’m hoping we’ll have a heritage DMU service between Swanage and Wareham four or five days a week, and I am hopeful that SWR will operate a longer excursion train from somewhere in Somerset or Wiltshire every Saturday. The two can work together.”
The benefits for the heritage line are obvious, but what’s in it for the TOC, which took the plunge and tried something a little different?
“What we saw was a considerable amount of people who decided to travel with us who would not have done so before, so generating business and revenue was probably the biggest benefit,” says SWR Head of Service Strategy Chris Loder.
“When you do look at it, would we do it for money? Of course, we wouldn’t want to lose any, but we were really prepared to give it a go. It was announced only a couple of days beforehand, because we had lots to sort out and agree. But we did it and we made it work, and there were days when we had in excess of 350 people onboard - and that’s huge.”
As for future operations, SWR is keen for the Corfe service to run following a successful year one.
“We’re fully investigating looking at doing it again this year, because I think more than anything the Swanage Railway will have seen a huge conversion factor, and I doubt it represents a distraction or concern regarding their own services up to the main line in due course,” says Loder.
“It was a resounding success. The overall point is that we’ve identified an opportunity - and I say that as a partnership because we couldn’t run on the Swanage Railway without its blessing, and what’s come to light is that there is a huge opportunity for that partnership to come to life and grow.”
Rawsthorn doesn’t believe that a heritage railway can host commuter traffic, but the Minehead Rail Link Group believes that if Great Western Railway were to extend its services beyond Taunton to the coastal town along the West Somerset Railway, it could help revitalise the region.
“The economy is going through the floor thanks to the lack of infrastructure, and it is a huge problem for businesses. We have £100 million worth of railway line snaking its way across West Somerset used at 30% capacity, which is a huge waste,” says Alex de Mendoza, the group’s chairman.
The group wants to see GWR run a train every other hour from Minehead to Taunton during the day (with steam services running to Bishops Lydeard filling in the gaps), plus commuter services in the mornings and evenings.
“We’ve done train planning diagrams and we can accommodate them,” says publicity officer David Latimer, although when asked how he expects the railway to operate ‘out of hours’ to accommodate these extra services (at present, like most heritage lines, the WSR is staffed by volunteers), he suggested employing people to operate the signal boxes.
The group wants Somerset County Council to put up half the amount of money to fund a feasibility study into its proposals, but Latimer claims the council “is at pains to stress they don’t have vast amounts of reserves of money, and they haven’t made any promises yet”.
Latimer also claims that the group has a huge amount of support both from the public and the local council. But as of late December 2018, a crowdfunding page to put up the other half of the money for a study had raised just £ 270, despite being online for more than a year.
While the link group is keen to restore a link between Minehead and Taunton, the heritage railway wants GWR to run a shuttle between its southern terminus at Bishops Lydeard and Taunton, and has put in an application to the local train operating company to run for 50 days in the summer of 2019.
“That may look like a unit coming up from Exeter, where it would be stabled, run a number of shuttles to and from us, and then go back to Exeter. If that is successful, that would enable us to look at years two
and three onwards,” says WSR General Manager Paul Conibeare.
“We believe that is the first step in reconnecting West Somerset with the national network. We’re not trying to compete with the bus service, which is successful. However, it simply can’t cope on changeover days at Butlin’s with the large numbers of people.”
Conibeare adds: “With the new rolling stock coming onto GWR, it has cascaded some spare rolling stock. And that’s always been the problem - there’s always been a will to do, and not the rolling stock.
“It may be a ‘150’ or a Pacer, but to be honest I’m not worried - it has wheels on it, it isn’t going to be doing 100mph, so anything would do for that trial in year one. If we can start it running, it will be the advertising that you need, because the moment it starts running the people in Butlin’s will start putting it on as their point of sell, which is very important.
“I understand the last train that left Corfe Castle had 200 people on it, and if we have 100 people on the last train out of Bishops Lydeard I’d be very happy. From the railway’s point of view, we have to supply a route conductor and guard but everything else is in place.”
In 1968, when steam was phased out on the national network, few would have imagined that steam locomotives would be pounding up and down the national network.
Probably even fewer would have foreseen heritage railways ‘going back to their roots’ and operating a public service. But in 2019, that appears to be the case for more and more heritage lines.
The challenge we face is: how do you square a circle? You have to carry sufficient passenger numbers to make the service viable. David Rawsthorn, Head of Sales and Marketing, Swanage Railway