NWAG joint meeting with the Stephenson Locomotive Society

The next L&B North West group meeting will be a joint meeting with the Stephenson Locomotive Society, hosted by the SLS as the opening meeting of their 2018/19 session.

The talk is called “The Lynton & Barnstaple Railway - Towards the Next Stage” and will be at the Friends’ Meeting House, Mount Street, Manchester, M2 5NS (the same venue the L&B have used in the past for meetings, but this time in a much larger room) at 14:00 on Saturday 6th October 2018.

The SLS welcome visitors in return for the usual small donation, and would be very happy if local L&BR members were able to attend. So it effectively becomes the next opportunity for L&BR NW group members to get together, as well.

Bob Barnard was invited to give a new talk about the L&BR to the SLS, and the subject matter he has chosen follows on from a well-attended NW group talk earlier in the year by Chris Duffell from the L&B’s Construction Design Group (CDG), about the survey, infrastructure assessment and track and structures design work that underpins the extension to Wistlandpound.

Bob has been using his professional railway systems engineering experience to help the CDG, but looking at rather different aspects of the Phase 2A 5.5 mile railway, and the talk is based on his thinking and analysis on the subject.

The October 6th talk will begin with a very brief summary of “The L&B Story So Far”, and then will look at a number of topics that have to be considered, when planning a major extension like this.  The topics to be discussed include:

The Route

• The Planning Conditions, and what we have to do before we can begin construction
• How many staff/volunteers will we need to run the extended line?
• Defining the L&B Trust’s requirements for Phase 2A.
• How historically accurate a rebuild are we aiming for?
• The Visitor Experience, and what train service do we want to run?
• What rolling stock should we design for?
• What facilities do we need at Blackmoor - in the station and also in the depot?
• What operational and signalling principles do we adopt?
• What signalling and telecoms technology should we use?

Examples from the L&BR and other narrow and standard gauge heritage railways will illustrate the talk. There will most likely be a few photos of LYN and LYD working together at the coming September Gala at Woody Bay.

These topics are presumably thought about each time a heritage line extension is planned, and we eventually see the finished results, but they are rarely discussed during the planning stage. So do come along and join in the debate that we hope some of the discussion points will raise.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Bob Barnard