The Lavender Line

Hi Bramleyman, I just had a nosey round your line's website, looks very interesting. Have you actually purchased the trackbed then? Is building or reconstruction work progressing? Are there any more pictures I can see? It looks good! And I am sure you will be more than welcome at the Lavender Line BTW. It maybe an idea to contact one of the more senior members first if a group of you are travelling so you can pick a good date with plenty going on, contact details via the website.

And Richard, I also just had a look at the Chasewater set-up. Wow! Much bigger line and facilities but still using the smaller engines and stock, so well done you! Some great pics on the site there and yet another line to visit if up your way.....

Another smaller heritage line not far from me and in my home county of Kent is the East Kent Railway which is preserving the industrial heritage of the Kent coalfields, the line running from the Kent coast mainline at Shepherdswell into Eyethorne. Eventually I understand the plan is to continue further. I have only visited once a long while back, so no recent information and their old website has moved. A Google search found this one but not much information on it, although there is more on the brilliant Kent Rail site, links below:

East Kent Railway

Kent Rail

[domeyhead]

I have always felt that no real rail enthusiast would ever stand in the way if there was a possibility of their railway being reintegrated into the national passenger (and hopefully freight)network. I won't repeat the economics of this case because we have probably all read Rail Magazine et al's pieces anyway, but is should be clear that the Wealden Line reopening team are not so much motivated by some kind of "green agenda" but by the belief that a business case can and should be made for this rail link. To infer that the campaign team have somehow overlooked details like bridges and land ownership is just plain silly. Recent articles detail all these points in some detail, and plans and solutions too. I think the greatest triumph and achievement of any rail preservation group would be the knowledge that they safeguarded a route long enough to help ensure that it once again fulfilled its original purpose. This particularly and also applies to the Spa Valley line, not just the Lavender Line, and in truth I wish it applied to my own local line (The Mid Hants). I would like to see heritage coexist with normal through commuter and diversonary running. The SELRAP team in the north have shown how these things can be done, and if 35 miles of the Waverley Route can be reopened after all these years then there should be an even stronger case in the South East!

You maybe right, however business 'sense' isn't about making life easier, only in making money.

In the South East currently there is far more demand for services than can ever hoped to be met by the current infrastructure, and if you travel by train ever, you can see this first hand. Government and businesses response to this has not been to make new lines, increase capacities of trains and lines existing, but merely to put the prices up, which effectively keeps more people off the network.

Businesses' first and only priority is profit and currently the railways in the South East can make enormous profits by keeping prices sky-high, useage at a contained maximum and doing the exact opposite of what's actually needed, i.e. new lines and greater capacity.

I am sure that if the case for profit for any line in the area is overwhelming than it will become a reality, but at the moment, the profits to be gained simply aren't big enough for these schemes to work.....YET and I see no reason for that to change in the short term.

[Gandalf]

In our area we lost the line and are having a guided bus,
Meanwhile even more containers are rumbling along the A14 every day from Felixstowe to the M6 running in parallel from Cambridge to Huntingdon to the now dug up rails.
John (G)

[domeyhead]

Nice to have a sensible and civilised debate, and perhaps we are in the wrong part of the forum for others to find it and join in! The issue of profit is an intersting one because as we all know they aren't "real" profits at all. The Operating Companies make operating profits, while the capital and infrastructure costs are accounted separately (through Banks (ROSCOs) and The Treasury (Network Rail)). What frustrates me is that the case for rail investment v road is not equal. Rail can almost never hope to make the kind of 2:1 positive return demanded by the treasury for a big capital project even in London -Crossrail and Thameslink will never, ever make a straight return, so the decision to proceed needs political will. In Uckfield the Government will ask itself "Why bother? - The rest of the country doesn't care one way or the other if we rebuild it or not, therefore not" It is about political as well as economic pressure. This is where SELRAP are quietly creating a coalition of political support, and to its credit, Wealden Link are doing the same thing. I don;t think the story end with the recent NR review. I hope not anyway.
I actually have a soft spot for the Lavender Line - but I'm passionate about the rail network fulfilling its primary function.

I quite agree. A proper function network is priority over preserved lines, painful as that may be.

With regards to political will, this is the drag. There is none to build railways in Britain and hasn't been for a long, long time. The recent 'green' pressure has converted a few more ministers to rail from road, but in the end, rails mean lots of public investment whereas road require and are easier to gain private investment. although even the roads in Britain are woefully inadequate and grossly underfunded.

Truth is, we have a government and political system in Britian ingrained with the traditional British capitalist ideal of selling cheap goods at cheap prices and scamp and cut every corner possible. Keynes was banging his head against a hard wall here alongside the other 'soft' capitalist economists.

Our Government at all levels is apron string tied to capitalist and business ideas and agendas and sadly unless it suits the majority of sections of industry or capital, further investments in rail links, new or renewed, I just cannot see to be forthcoming. IN fact your examples of the Crossrail and Thameslink are good ones of just how much pressure was required to get even hacked around minimal investment into new infrastructure off the ground - there just isn't the incentive there to do it and most business and politicians in Britain do not look further than next week.

True regarding the direct profits, but much of the profit generated are unseen and third party investments, which is why there sometimes gets generated bigger political will (they all smell the trough!)....

[domeyhead]

I thought to myself (and I have also seen it mentioned elsewhere) that IF (big if) the Wealden line is ultimately successful, then the stock and arefacts of the Lavender Line team could relocate to the Ardingley branch of the Bluebell line, which will otherwise be in limbo for years while they concentrate on the East Grinstead link. This would allow The Lavender line a degree of autonomy to continue to run a railway in Horsted Keynes from Ardingley, and allow them to also help build an integrated railway, albeit a heritage one. Some of the staff of the Lavender Line have spent a lifetime building their line and I don't say this lightly, but nothing that they have achieved would be lost, and I for one would be glad for their achievement in helping to keep the Uckfield route viable, for which they would have the gratitude of local commuters as well as rail enthusiasts. And they would continue to have a federated identity while being part of the Bluebell Railway as well. If only life was like this!

That is an excellent suggestion should the Wealden line re-open! It would work on the stock level too, in that Bluebell would remain 100% steam and the Lavender / Ardingly Line would be able to run preserved diesels and electric stock as well as steam, exactly as it was years ago. Good plan!