RichmondCommu said:
Ok thanks for that, shame about the housing estate though. I love the SVR, visit it every year. The old junction looks intriguing, there's all sorts of overgrown stuff there and then the bit of track leading off tantalisingly...
.Lots of permanent way wagons normally parked up there. Roll on the Spring Gala
Ok thanks for that, shame about the housing estate though. I love the SVR, visit it every year. The old junction looks intriguing, there's all sorts of overgrown stuff there and then the bit of track leading off tantalisingly...
Ah, that old canard again...
Fortunately, it's pleasing to see that its most vociforous proponents seem to have finally accepted that it's a non-starter and disappeared - funny, at one time, one of them was loudly claiming that it was pretty much a 'done deal'
What happened to that American consortium or whatever it was that was going to cut through Pickering and use it as a privately high-speed alternative between Whitby and York or something like that?
Can't understand why that never happened.
Ah, that old canard
SVR members have tentatively suggested that relaying of track on part of the Stourport branch from Bewdley would be a 'nice to have' in the long term, even if only used during galas and other special events. However the furthest they could go would be (almost) to Burlish Halt, near to the south end of Mount Pleasant Tunnel, rather than all the way to Stourport.
Yes, the Severn Valley Railway have admitted that even if an extension to Ironbridge were physically possible, even with the likely traffic to and from such a well known tourist attraction, it would not be at all desirable due to the overall journey length and ticket cost being unattractive to the visitor. The Welsh Highland Railway for one must surely be pushing the limit to which a preserved railway as a tourist attraction can extend before the economics outweigh the cost to the visitor, as good as that line is.
).
I'm not sure of the precise distance but it would be about a mile from the junction (three quarters of a mile were temporarily relaid over that stretch in 1974 for the filming of The Seven Percent Solution). Not much to tempt the typical day visitor, perhaps, also ending as it does on the edge of a nondescript housing estate, but the idea of an autotrain shuttle trundling between Burlish and Bewdley during galas does seem appealing.
Yes, there's a number of external factors that determine the likely patronage for a preserved railway and it's optimum length, prime amongst these being, as you say, the quality of the scenery traversed, the attractiveness of the locations served at intermediate stations and termini and accessibility (and visibility) from the local road network and bus or train services.It's an interesting question. I think it depends on the scenery travelled through, what there is to do near the stations and what there is at either end.
Clearly the NYMR, SVR and WSR don't struggle for patronage but I do remember that when my kids were little and if we went on for instance The West Somerset that sitting on a train for nearly two hours was a bit too long (and they were used to it
As an enthusiast though, obviously the longer (and the hillier) the better, but it's not the likes of me (as an enthusiast that is) that pay the bills.
I fully understand the SVR and other railways deciding to stick rather than twist. I'd dearly love to see the West Somerset properly linked with Taunton station, using the bay platform and having through trains etc, but not if it jeopardises what they've done already.
It costs so much money to put a stretch of railway back these days that railways really have to decide if it's justified or whether it's better to work on and improve what they've got. It is amazing what we have got of course
