MSLO PLANS WEST COAST WATER TOWER BAN

Appleby water column will become off limits to West Coast Railways from May if a row about bills is not resolved, the Main Line Steam Locomotive Operators Association has decided. Stopping the Carnforth operator taking water at the ’S&C’ facility was one of the options under consideration by its custodian, which instituted charges for the first time last year and says it is owed £1,700 (SR478). “We have advised West Coast that as from May 1, unless they settle their outstanding account, we will be unable to supply them with water at Appleby,” MSLO Chairman David McIntosh said on April 16. The proposed ban does not affect trains operated by WCR for other parties – the charge being levied on promoters rather than operators. He said WCR was told of the decision in a letter sent on March 29. WCR said it did not want to add anything on the subject beyond its comment last issue; the organisation’s James Shuttleworth told the magazine on March 16 that “our frustration is borne out of many years of trying to save everyone, including MSLO and its members, both money and hassle.” In a letter to MSLO on January 16 the train operator had said it had rejected the organisation’s invoices but was “quite prepared to pay for the actual water supplied” – and that it had offered “to take over the whole Appleby water supply from MSLO”. WCR subsequently announced it would no longer recognise MSLO, and called on locomotive owners to resign from the organisation if they wanted to continue working with the Carnforth firm. David McIntosh said on April 16 that MSLO had lost one member, but gained four. Starting last year, MSLO initially imposed a charge of £150 per use of the Appleby tower, but later reduced this to £100 after a review of what it described as “actual costs and use in 2017.”