mushroomchow
Member
We have a Mk. 1 converted into a veranda coach at the Central, if that counts. You have to pay through the nose to use it, sure, but at least we have it.
My main bugbear is the insistence on using BR liveries 90% of the time for steam locos. I get that it's what people "around back then" remember, but with the greatest of due respect, the heritage movement isn't just for the old boys. Preservation was much more adventurous with its livery choices in its earlier years, but even that was partially driven by the senior members of the early movement wanting to see the liveries they grew up with back on the rails.
I'd go further and encourage lines to develop their own liveries and identities. Some lines do this to an extent, but I enjoy seeing a steamer with a unique livery - the K&ESR do it a lot, but that's largely due to their unique identity as a Colonel Stephens product rather than any modern intention of developing a bespoke identity.
After all, a lot of heritage lines have now been operating as independent entities for almost as long as they existed in commercial use. It's about time they broke out to form their own identity, because the paying public care less and less about authentic recreation of a tiny period in railway history (usually the 1960s) than they do about steam traction and a "heritage" feeling in general.
Increasingly, I'm noticing lines trending towards BR Blue as a focus, too. It's exactly the same thing that has happened with the standardisation of focus on the 50s and 60s over the past couple of decades - the people calling the shots remember it and want to recreate it. That nostalgia is even more misplaced than the previous creative dearth - the 1970s and early 80s were an absolute wilderness for the railways and should not be remembered fondly.
As for "mutilating" coaches, there are plenty of Mk. 1s rotting in carriage sidings up and down the land, and converting a few of these wouldn't exactly hurt the preservation movement. If anything, there are too many coaches in preservation not to experiment. And then there's the necessity for equal access - the days of being able to bung wheelchair passengers in the guard cage of trains are thankfully coming to an end, but that means stripping out all or part of a coach interior to provide ample space - and I don't see anybody complaining about that.
So yes, in a nutshell, heritage railways need to be more adventurous. A unique identity is far more marketable than "we recreate the same thing you can see at 50 other places in Britain". And God forbid we get 30 years down the line and find the people in charge nostalgic for clapped-out sprinters still running in Regional Railways livery half a decade after privatisation!
My main bugbear is the insistence on using BR liveries 90% of the time for steam locos. I get that it's what people "around back then" remember, but with the greatest of due respect, the heritage movement isn't just for the old boys. Preservation was much more adventurous with its livery choices in its earlier years, but even that was partially driven by the senior members of the early movement wanting to see the liveries they grew up with back on the rails.
I'd go further and encourage lines to develop their own liveries and identities. Some lines do this to an extent, but I enjoy seeing a steamer with a unique livery - the K&ESR do it a lot, but that's largely due to their unique identity as a Colonel Stephens product rather than any modern intention of developing a bespoke identity.
After all, a lot of heritage lines have now been operating as independent entities for almost as long as they existed in commercial use. It's about time they broke out to form their own identity, because the paying public care less and less about authentic recreation of a tiny period in railway history (usually the 1960s) than they do about steam traction and a "heritage" feeling in general.
Increasingly, I'm noticing lines trending towards BR Blue as a focus, too. It's exactly the same thing that has happened with the standardisation of focus on the 50s and 60s over the past couple of decades - the people calling the shots remember it and want to recreate it. That nostalgia is even more misplaced than the previous creative dearth - the 1970s and early 80s were an absolute wilderness for the railways and should not be remembered fondly.
As for "mutilating" coaches, there are plenty of Mk. 1s rotting in carriage sidings up and down the land, and converting a few of these wouldn't exactly hurt the preservation movement. If anything, there are too many coaches in preservation not to experiment. And then there's the necessity for equal access - the days of being able to bung wheelchair passengers in the guard cage of trains are thankfully coming to an end, but that means stripping out all or part of a coach interior to provide ample space - and I don't see anybody complaining about that.
So yes, in a nutshell, heritage railways need to be more adventurous. A unique identity is far more marketable than "we recreate the same thing you can see at 50 other places in Britain". And God forbid we get 30 years down the line and find the people in charge nostalgic for clapped-out sprinters still running in Regional Railways livery half a decade after privatisation!
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