aln valley approaches starting gate ...

The Aln Valley Railway ran from Alnmouth to Alnwick in Northumberland and was closed in 1966. It has long been the subject of a preservation scheme with elements of tourist and 'real' traffic in its plans.

A recent study costing £30,000 has found that operating costs would be covered by just 10,000 passengers a year, easily achievable in an area where there are few other heritage railways but many tourists!

Veering onto Rail Revival territory, the scheme includes an ultra-light rail link into the heart of the town from Alnwick station.

Rolling stock already owned by the society includes 2 locos and 2 coaches. All being well tracklaying should commence in about 6 months time.

the southwold militant tendency

Okay, I know it's not a scene from the Southwold above, but in a few years it will be - albeit on 3 foot gauge!

Our sister site has had a visit from a lovely Southwold troll. In response to my original post - '

The Southwold Railway are having a few problems from the locals. They don't want Southwold turned into 'Toy Town'.

They obviously have a 70s idea of preservationists - as knuckle dragging Asperger's Displaying NHS-wearing train buffs. And a 70s idea of what the Southwold Railway will be - a plaything for the socially inept and wealthy.

Perhaps the Southwold Railway need to be proactive and explain that all communities will need railways in the future as Peak Oil hits. That what they are planning is first and foremost a transport link that will keep them attached to the wider world once their cars splutter to a stop. That a railway will be able to carry freight in and out, that unless they stake their claim now and start building their line before the rush they'll be left behind as the skills of railway workers and builders become a fought over commodity.

Fortunately at Midsomer Norton we seem to be bereft of the Learning Difficulties Community, and that we are welcomed with open arms. We have the advantage of having many members in the community who remember the line running up to 1966. The Southwold of course closed in 1929, few locals there will remember it.

The Southwold Railway WILL be rebuilt, it's just such a shame that a few locals can't understand what's going on ...

Our troll chum came up with this gem -

The Southwold countryside is for EVERYONE not just some selfish overgrown "enthusiasts" who wish to play trains at everyone else's expense.

Which suggests he/she TOTALLY missed the point of my original post - and which underlines the difficulty of actually reasoning with these people! The whole point of my post is that the new Southwold Railway will be NOTHING to do with 'playing trains' - which we all know would be economic suicide - but with providing a future transport link on the back of a tourist start-up (a la Swanage, Minehead etc etc). Yet all that comes back as 'argument' is a repetition of the same criticisms (now of course anachronistic) of both 70s style 'rail buffs' and others' views of rail enthusiasts that haven't moved on since the 70s. The anorak-tendency!

If this is the opposition then no wonder railways are springing up everywhere. There will always be the occasional (normally retired and adrift from the community) lefty who will try to come up with facetious arguments, but they are always trampled down by logic.

The new Southwold Railway will open sooner rather than later with 'opposition' like this, and the countryside will indeed by enjoyed by EVERYONE (including the immobile young and old, the disabled etc) from the windows of a train carriage.

Southwold should indeed be proud of its railway 'enthusiasts' (overgrown or not) who are looking to the future rather than the past, and will give Southwold modern transport again well in advance of other, more backwards-looking, communities.

And isn't it great that post Peak-Oil transport planning is already firing off such intriguing dialogues? Railways certainly are riding the crest of a wave of popularity - and that's before the average fool in the street has even heard of Peak Oil!

So let's hail 'Disgruntled of Southwold', a true dinosaur of the communist era. Perhaps the railway will dedicate a statue of him/her in an ironic gesture once the first trains steam back triumphantly into Southwold!!

English narrow gauge renaisscence

Woody Bay, 1980 and 2006.

The English narrow gauge railway is on its way back - and about time!

There were (I think!) five English public narrow gauge lines - the Lynton and Barnstaple, Rye and Camber, Leek and Manifold, Ashover and Southwold. I'm not counting the Ravenglass and Eskdale and Romney, Hythe Dymchurch as they are 15" gauge and still very much with us!

Only one, so far, is physically back, even if only a small part has been restored. And quite rightly it's the magnificent Lynton and Barnstaple, which may well have 8 miles running within ten years. It's a no-brainer restoring the L&B, along with the S&D it was probably England's favourite line.

The Rye and Camber doesn't currently have a preservation group, but remarkably about half a mile of the track survives, and (climate change and sea level rise permitting) it may well see the light of day again.

The Leek and Manifold is currently sleeping, but the physical route survives as a footpath and may also attract preservationist interest sooner rather than later.

There is now an active preservation group dedicated to restoring the Ashover Railway, at least in part.

And the Southwold Railway - despite nostalgist opposition from some misguided old fogeys - is definitely on the way back, with a very active group persuing a business plan which includes tourist and 'real' trains.

And yes, I know there are/were other English NG lines. Volks Railway for example. And the Snailbeach is also being restored. There's also the fantastic Leighton Buzzard Railway, the Sittingbourne and Kemsley and a few others, mainly built on former standard gauge routes. So there's still a lot of interest for English fans of NG railways, something that can only increase as the years pass. It may well be of course that there is a huge expansion in the narrow gauge network as Peak Oil hits, with ultra-light tramways etc springing up everywhere. But perhaps that's a subject better persued in Future Economics and Rail Revival!

site visit - swanage railway May 2007

The park and ride station at Norden.



Crowds at Swanage - on a wet Wednesday in May!


Soft focus Corfe Castle.

I visited the Swanage branch a few times shortly before it closed in 1972. Then it was a depressing sight with almost empty trains traversing a long siding and reaching a forlorn terminus. It seemed barely believable that a line that passed the tourist honeypot of Corfe Castle and terminated in a classic small seaside resort could do anything but make money, even in the 70s.

The line duly closed, the track was ripped up on most of the route, the platforms at Swanage were demolished and the station site at Corfe was threatened - unbelievably - with a by-pass. For several years the future of the line was in the balance, the preservation society struggled and the by-pass was still a threat on the horizon. To visit the line today both of these previous situations seem incredible - it is a thriving transport link as well as one of the most important tourist facilities in the region.

We arrived at Norden on a wet Wednesday, not even sure trains were running. Not only were they running, but behind steam (albeit a GWR loco!) We had a few minutes in the catering coach, which had a nice range of snacks etc. The journey is quite scenic, especially around Corfe, running through heathland and fields. The train had five coaches which were pretty full throughout. The coaches themselves were a little spartan. The staff were very friendly at all points and seemed to really enjoy what they were doing.

The shop at Swanage was a little bland with nothing standing out as a must-buy. The destination is excellent, with many small shops, a vegetarian restaurant and of course the sea front. You really feel like you've used the train to get somewhere.

There were a lot of junk wagons lining the route but the lineside generally was neat and tidy with no litter. The intermediate stations were pleasant, especially Corfe Castle which had a real Southern Region atmosphere.

Generally a very pleasant and professional set up with much to commend it to both railway enthusiasts and the general public. I'm looking forward to visiting again in a few years with hopefully the extension to Wareham complete and the narrow gauge museum at Norden open and running demonstration trains on a decent length of track.

abbey light railway

A bit of a rarity - tourist line construction in the 1980s. This is the Abbey Light Railway under construction. This is a narrow gauge line based near Leeds.

south tynedale railway

Not an easy line to find much on, but this is a 4 minute plus shot of this narrow gauge railway in northern England.

manx delights

The Isle of Man is still a railway enthusiast's dream come true with 2 steam lines and 2 electric lines - and a new 19" gauge mine railway at Laxey. A few youtube offerings to give a taste of this island.

towards the new steam age ...

It's no big secret that oil is running out, Peak Oil is a phrase on everybody's lips these days. Peak Oil will see the end of road transport, air travel, plastics and a whole lot more. It will also be the death-knell for both network and heritage diesel trains. But a less-familiar term also being bandied about is Peak Coal. As oil runs out and a desperate world switches to coal for its energy then coal production will also soon peak. This is going to create a very tight squeeze on coal for heritage railways.

However, steam can be generated by other means - not the mad scheme by the Ffestiniog a few years ago to use oil-burning (now of course reversed) - but by burning wood and perhaps even other biofuels. Already a few new-build and prospective lines in the UK are looking at wood-burning, it's also been discussed (informally) at the Somerset and Dorset.

There's no reason why wood-burning wouldn't work. Technically it requires more cleaning of the insides, but this is a good thing! Steam in the UK has always used coal because it used to be a cheap and readily available home-produced fuel. Peak Coal will see the end of this. Other countries with large forests used wood-burners in the past - Russia, Canada, USA and Finland for example.

The future is steam, if we survive the rigours of the end of fossil fuels of course. Even a nuclear power station is a huge steam engine - uranium is processed to produce heat to boil water to drive turbines. The railways everywhere will have to look to electrification (using renewables) or steam for lightly-used routes, steam burning wood. The forests will help stabilise the climate and will provide a cheap, local, carbon-neutral (with replanting) and renewable energy source for the new generation of steam trains. Railways will be far more heavily used with no competition from the dying road network. The rail network will expand enormously.

What this means for heritage railways is unclear. Heritage railways in the future will need to provide real transport in addition to their tourist role in a more difficult world, steam won't have the same novelty value when it's everywhere, but I'm sure the heritage railway community is already taking these changes on board and will adapt very well to the new conditions.

Expect many diesel locomotives to appear at bargain prices in the market over the next few decades!



For wise words see here!