Bo'ness & Kinneil Railway landslide appeal.

[Alanko]

Sad news from the Bo'ness railway. They have posted on Facebook today that a number of landslides have been identified along their track, including one major slip: Bo'ness & Kinneil Railway

For those who don't Facebook, the text is:

"On the evening of Tuesday 11th and in the early hours of Wednesday 12th August, much of Scotland was battered by severe thunderstorms. During a subsequent inspection of the B&KR, the Scottish Railway Preservation Society Civil Engineer identified multiple landslips along approximately a mile-long stretch of the railway. The line was declared unfit for traffic and the Railway closed to all trains.

The worst of the landslips has occurred on a steep embankment near ‘High Bridge’. A geo-structural engineer has inspected the site and we have since estimated that this damage may cost £100,000 to repair.
The significant damage to our railway line could not have come at worse time: we had planned a limited reopening of the Railway in mid-September, after a lengthy closure due to the Coronavirus pandemic that has left our income at a record low.
Until the embankment is repaired, we cannot operate any trains meaning that we cannot generate any income. Once again, we are reaching out to our generous supporters: we need your help to raise £100,000 to fix the storm damage on the Railway. Any donation, large or small, will help secure the future of our Railway.
2020 seems to be the year that keeps on giving. But we will rise to this new challenge but we need your help, too."

The link to donate is: https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/ch...nPage.action?charityCampaignUrl=SRPSlandslide

 

[Journeyman]

It's really serious and completely beyond the railway's own civils team to repair. Please help if you can.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Really bad news.

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

Sorry to hear this, hope they can come back soon. There seem to have been many landslips all over the UK.

 

[BigB]

SRPS are being affected by ther other landslides as their stock was to be used for A1 Railtours Edinburgh - Aberdeen runs behind Tornado, which would have provided useful income too. Understandably these cannot run at present, and even if the line out of Bo'ness was clear, and Stonehaven was repaired, there remain issues getting locos and returning stock into the SRPS site by rail as the blockage on the Edinburgh - Glasgow line prevents traffic running in its usual route - there is a trailing point on the up line to the SRPS site so traffic runs on the up line, stops and reverses into the site under NR control. The E&G line is blocked about a mile west of the junction so without wrong line working from Linlithgow it is not possible to enter the site. Leaving site is possible once the Bo'ness line is repaired as it is a straightforward join to the up main line, although no services are currently running between Linlithgow and Edinburgh Park.
For the last few weeks there has been a lot of work to ready the railtour stock, so hopefully later in The year the lines will all be clear and the tours can resume - the A1 trust also need this income too to continue their good work.

We really didn't need this, but we also need to balance it with the fact that the impact of the floods affected some people far worse, and we are lucky that this is something that we can - and will repair.

Great news - the fund for the line repairs has exceeded £80,000 already including a whopping £10,000 from the Scottish Class 37 Group, which goes a very long way to starting the line reinstatement. The directors have done a fantastic job of raising the issue including amongst every local radio station in the central belt, and lots of people have pitched in to get us back up and running!

Unfortunately repairs will be too late to release stock for the A1 railtours runs to Aberdeen and so they have had to turn to West Coast who will be providing the stock for the journeys. SRPS are still looking to provide stewards for the journeys though, to enable the trips to still take place, which shows the spirit of camaraderie within the railtour world.

 

[Journeyman]

£110k has been raised! Engineers have been appointed to design a solution. Still a lot of effort ahead, but the fundraising effort has been staggeringly successful.

 

[YorkshireBear]

£110k has been raised! Engineers have been appointed to design a solution. Still a lot of effort ahead, but the fundraising effort has been staggeringly successful.

Amazing news!