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And so it begins…
AS I WRITE this, January is not yet over and already upheavals are taking place across both the main line and heritage railway sectors. First, and most prominent, is the ORR’s decision to revoke West Coast Railway Company’s license to operate coaches not fitted with central door locking on the national network. As we know, other operators have retro-fitted their stock with this modification (which you may, or may not deem necessary), but WCRC has, until now, chosen not to. Other operators have expressed chagrin at this stance, and have long called for the Carnforth-based operation to be held to account.
That has now happened.
What is sad here is not that action has been taken by the ORR, whose word is literally law, but that many customers may have their journeys and excursions cancelled unless replacement stock can be found. It is a body blow too to the charter operators who have now found themselves in the unenviable situation of having little or no stock to use. Yet this storm has been brewing for a long time, and few could have guessed it would escalate to this stage, while all of us would have wanted this sorry situation to have been avoided, no matter how strongly we feel about WCRC’s stance. Let us hope that wiser heads prevail, and that our main line steam can recover its feet with a minimum of bad grace.
Secondly, and just before this issue went to press, there came the unexpected news that redundancies are to happen at the Great Central Railway. This news also makes me sad, not only because I started my preservation ‘career’ on the platform of Loughborough station many moons ago, but because it is yet another one of our heritage lines – and an established one at that – to admit that it is suffering. Our thoughts are with GCR boss Malcolm Holmes and his team, but once again this brings home the fact that our railways are not to be squandered. Very much in the spirit of the famous Lord Kitchener poster, ‘Our heritage lines need YOU!’ and they need you NOW. ‘Use or lose it’ is the slogan of the day, and supporting our railways and societies is more important than ever – probably since the early days of the movement. Let’s hope that the situation improves over the next 12 months, and our movement rekindles its former momentum.
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Steam Railway, H Bauer Publishing, Media House, Lynchwood, Peterborough Business Park, Peterborough, PE2 6EA
steam.railway@bauermedia.co.uk
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