The business of the meeting concluded, we were very well entertained by a talk from our treasurer Bob Ellison entitled ‘New Zealand – a Railway Travelogue’.

Bob had first visited New Zealand after retiring in 1998 as this was somewhere he had been keen to visit but had never had the opportunity before. He and his wife loved it so much that they have since visited on a number of occasions and the talk was illustrated by a compilation of pictures from those visits. Included were aspects of railways both current and heritage set against the backdrop of the magnificent scenery. As background we were presented with some history and statistics, and maps to provide orientation. Railway history began in New Zealand (NZ) in 1863 with the first line built from Christchurch to Lyttelton which was 7 miles of 5’3” gauge line including 2 miles of tunnel. This was followed by a 3’6” gauge line from Port Chalmers and 4’8½” on the Waikato Plains. The decision to standardise the gauge to 3’6” was made in 1876. The railways were run as a government department for over 100 years but moves towards commercialisation began in 1982 and the railways were privatised in 1993 although the sale excluded the land. By 2003 the company had collapsed and the track and infrastructure were repurchased by the government and a new company formed. It has now gone full circle as the railways were renationalised in May 2008. In contrast with the UK where there was a lot of investment after privatisation, the same has not happened in NZ.

After the concise history up to the present day, Bob went on to talk about the lines and rolling stock beginning in the north at Auckland where work is on-going to re-establish the suburban network. There are a number of difficulties here partly because of the limited railways in the area and because the main railway station was not in the centre of Auckland. The 1930s railway station building was sold off some years ago and converted into a student hostel. However, within this building the original and imposing booking office has been preserved and Bob had a fine photograph showing what a magnificent place it still is even if it no longer serves its original function. Rolling stock consisted of mainly 2 coach diesel multiple units – cast offs from Perth, Australia and bus links were provided running from the station into the town centre. The line has now been extended back into the town centre with the provision of a new underground station at Britomart. This area now creates a main transport hub for ferries, buses and trains. The 2 car units have been refurbished and improved and there are also new 4 car diesel hauled sets using ex BR MkII coaches, imported and rebuilt. These developments have been very successful and suburban traffic is growing. The main depot is at Westfield just outside Auckland. Bob had a number of photos of various locos and explained about the numbering system. The old engine shed at Parnell has been taken over by a group of enthusiasts as a steam depot for steam rail tours and examples were shown. There are good workshop facilities for overhauling and maintenance and Bob provided a lot of detail on types, numbers and dates with photos to illustrate.

The mainline from Auckland to Wellington is 420 miles but now serves mainly as a freight route. This is largely because it is much quicker to fly (around 1½ hours) because of the speed restrictions on the narrow gauge, but steam excursions are a regular feature. Moving southwards there is the Glenbrook Vintage Railway which was closed then taken over by enthusiasts. Although it only a short stretch – approximately 6 to 7km – they have some interesting locos eg a 2-4-4-2 Mallett compound, a good workshop and the facility to do major overhauls.

Bob continued southwards with excellent illustrations of a number of other interesting lines some of which are now preserved, such as The Bush Tramway Club, some are for freight or industrial use only, mostly diesel powered but with some electric. These included a rather magnificent railway at Driving Creek situated in a 60 acre plantation owned by a co-operative brickworks and pottery. It has 3km of 15” gauge line and was originally intended to bring clay down to the works. This is shown as a really ‘fun’ place with the rolling stock and lines built and run with the help of members and friends. It has unsurprisingly become quite a tourist attraction with its Eyefull Tower, scenery and other unusual features.

The mainline progresses on through the national park up on to the central plateau. This is not only an interesting railway journey but goes through some really stunning scenery – still an active volcanic landscape. The area includes the site of a major rail disaster in December 1953 which resulted in the death of 155 people. It is a beautiful but potentially wild and dangerous place and there were some very good photographs as illustration.

Another line shown was the one to New Plymouth. Part of the line is uphill and full of twists and turns and there was a fascinating photograph showing two locos that had derailed – a real engineering headache to retrieve given the landscape. There have been no passenger services for years although the station at Waverley is still well looked after by local people. In the past, in a number of places, old locomotives have been dumped in the rivers to provide a basis for flood defences and near New Plymouth there is a restoration project where some have been dug back out with the intention of restoring them. We saw pictures of several, mostly without boilers and either rusting well or with rather a lot missing. Another interesting project that would be unlikely anywhere else. After much searching Bob eventually located the museum at Tawhiti. It included one small elderly industrial loco almost hidden by vegetation, and three sheep.

Central Wellington included cable cars, trolley buses and an electric suburban rail service with some of the original English Electric units still working these local services. Again there was a wide range of illustrations to show what is happening now and a description of how this fits in with the local railway history.

The North and South Islands are linked together by the Cook Strait Ferry which carries the train from Wellington across the rough seas of the Strait, through the islands and up the fjord to Picton. This is a three hour crossing with a diesel shunter pushing wagons on to the lower deck of the ferry while cars and trucks drive on to the upper level. The scenery is spectacular. The line running from Picton down to Christchurch closely follows the coast for much of the way skirting the main wine growing area and as well as the scenery, there is the chance to see whales if you are lucky and one of the old railway stations has been converted as a centre for whale watching. Pictures here included a nice 2750hp DX class double headed diesel hauled service.

From Christchurch to Greymouth, an old coal-mining town on the West Coast, there is a line across the Southern Alps climbing from sea level to the summit at Arthur’s Pass at 737meters with a very steep section down to the coast on the way down the other side with a long and steep section through the Otira tunnel. This presented its own engineering challenges both to build, maintain and to run services which started in 1923. Originally the tunnel section was exclusively electrically powered as there was no suitable technology to provide adequate ventilation to avoid the problems of fumes from diesel or steam services. This line is strategically important for coal traffic and the turntable at Arthur’s Pass at the summit is still there.

Moving southwards from Christchurch the line is no longer open for passenger traffic and is used exclusively for freight. Bob was lucky enough to travel on this line before it was closed to passenger services and showed some stunning views. At Dunedin we saw the impressive railway station which is now a listed building but has no main line passenger service. The local council bought the line to Middlemarch which was originally built to open up the inland area of Otago, and now runs it for tourists using Japanese built Bo-Bo-Bo locos. There is a dual road/rail bridge apparently with no restrictions (interesting!) and the line continues on, hugging the side of the gorge before reaching the flat grasslands at the top. As well as the scenery, this is another remarkable feat of engineering building a line in what is surely very difficult terrain.

Near Queenstown photographs of the Kingston Flyer were shown which included K92 which was built by Rogers in New Jersey in 1877. This locomotive had been restored to running condition after having been dumped in a river for many years. Also of interest in this area, the steam boat on the lake is powered by two triple expansion steam engines. Moving on to Invercargill, the journey from Auckland to Invercargill used to take 3 days in total when it was still possible to travel the full distance by rail. This does not contrast well with flight times and has been a major factor in the decline of long distance passenger rail travel in NZ. Bluff is at the end of the line and there was a photograph to show the view southwards with a few yards of road, then ocean – the next landfall Antarctica.

There were photographs of the Ferrymead Museum in Christchurch with interesting rolling stock and a number of locos including details of models, manufacturers and numbers and stored electric locos from the Otira tunnel on the Greymouth line. A lot of trains are run within the site including steam, diesel and electric, and trolley buses too. A local bus service from Christchurch provides easy access. The final photographs were of Mcleans Island also in the Christchurch area and open to the public once a month. It belongs to the local railway club and they have developed a bush railway replica

NZ has clearly had a chequered history of rolling stock with a wide variety from different sources being acquired, sometimes converted for local conditions, sometimes unused, sometimes discarded and then retrieved and there were photographs to show all these aspects. However, the final photograph – what else but a view into a glorious sunset over stunning scenery.

An excellent, well planned and balanced presentation with a wealth of railway information, just the right amount of technical detail and good photographs to illustrate as well as additional interesting facts to liven it all up. Bob is an excellent speaker and provided a really good evening’s entertainment.

Tuesday 22nd April
Delivering The Oyster Card to London
Richard Thomas

Richard has had a long history in the railway industry after leaving full-time education having worked for London Underground for 35 years with just a six week gap before joining his present company Cubic. He started off as a booking office clerk and worked his way up through teaching others, becoming an area manager on the District and Piccadilly Lines, working in Singapore for 2 years on the mass transit system being set up there, followed by promotion to District Line general manager. In 1995 he was asked to become the operational general manager for the Prestige Project which was the forerunner to Oyster, looking to the future and the debate about automatic ticketing systems as an alternative to the old card ticket system which required high numbers of booking office clerks and which was becoming very expensive. There were a lot of questions to be answered including exactly what was required and how it should all be achieved. It took 3 years of preliminary research and work before the contract was finally signed with the chosen supplier TranSys - a joint venture between EDS (Electronic Data Systems) and Cubic as the main partners. Richard outlined the background experience of Cubic from the founding of the company in 1951 and its expansion into automatic ticketing systems in the 1970s to its present involvement with Oyster. Richard took early retirement from London Underground about two years ago but was soon asked to join Cubic to continue working on Oyster on the ‘other side of the table’ and ended up with only six weeks off. He has been working for Cubic ever since.

Richard began his PowerPoint presentation with a brief 4 minute video to give an overview of the Oyster system and provided some very up to date statistics on Oyster use today showing that it is one of the largest and most complex smartcard schemes in the world and is often held up as a fine example for others to look at and learn from and he has travelled widely to lecture on the London Oyster system. His talk was very well structured and covered the business reasons for the new system on the Underground – reducing fraud, ticket office queues and operating costs, and the buses – common tickets for deregulated services, replacing out of date equipment and cashless buses, and to look at more integrated travel. He went on to describe how the contract was structured financially as a PFI (private finance initiative) with no government money and what had to be achieved to deliver the required results ie an efficient and effective smartcard system with close to 100% availability. This includes providing and maintaining all the necessary equipment and operating a helpline for any problems.

Having set up the contract the system had to be introduced. The transition from the existing magnetic tickets to something that could cope with both that and the new smart cards had to managed without shutting anything down. The smart ticketing was phased in gradually, initially used only by employees to give an opportunity to see how well it worked, gain their confidence and knowledge and sort out any problems before rolling it out to the public starting with the simplest products first. Sales outlets for the smart cards were phased in to allow TfL (Transport for London) to control the supply and demand. The phasing in of each new product and system was carefully managed to ensure the least disruption of existing setups and staff and to make sure that lessons could be learned and any necessary changes made to later phases and to avoid any widespread and high profile problems. There were political issues and one of the major players was the London Mayor Ken Livingstone who was very supportive and continues to be.

Having gone through the project from its inception to the present day, Richard went on to talk about the future plans for expansion onto the national rail network – a complex issue not least because of all the companies that are involved and the short franchises that some of them have which makes longer term investment more difficult; Barclaycard Oyster – an exclusive contract with Barclays bank for them to provide a combined card offering Oyster and cashless transactions without pin or signature, which does not seem to have been as successful so far as the bank might have hoped; the inclusion of mobile phones and other items as a means to use the system – early trials have been successful in proving that the concept works; and ITSO – Integrated Transport Smartcard Organisation. The Department for Transport is sponsoring ITSO for national UK schemes and the hope is that Oyster and ITSO can converge although ITSO uses a slightly different system and technology and is not perhaps so much aimed at a concentrated mass transit system. This work is still at an early stage of research and trial.

So far Oyster has proved very popular as it is simple and easy to use. Children under 18 can get a Child Oystercard with photo ID and travel free on the buses. This helps to keep them off the Underground and increases bus usage. The whole Oyster package has all been impressively delivered on time and on budget. Staff appear to have been included and as less are required in the booking office, the hope is that more will be available at the ticket gates to work directly with the travelling public.

After the break there was a lively and very interesting question and answer session with queries about the ticket gates, problems with correct charging of fares, how to find out what has been debited off your Oyster card, and more details of the technology itself and how it works, to name just a few. There were also a couple of political questions which were particularly timely as the London Mayoral election is due to take place shortly – the results will have been announced by the time this report is published – and the outcome may well influence the future of Oyster.

A very interesting and informative lecture on a slightly different subject. Richard is an excellent speaker – one of those who can hold the attention of the audience without consulting notes and whose presentation would have been just as good even without the added colour of the PowerPoint presentation.

Tuesday 18th March
The Rebirth of the Welsh Highland Railway
Robin Higgs OBE

In his introduction Robin gave an outline of the background and history of the WHR, the origins of his own involvement with the line and followed this up with slides going northward from Porthmadog up the old route to Dinas – it never actually reached right into Caernarfon – and then returning back down the line showing the restoration work in progress.

The history started with a horse drawn tramway in 1864, progressing in 1872 to the combining of 8 small narrow-gauge railways, then from Dinas to Rhyd-ddu which was mostly slate traffic. In 1901 there was an attempt to take over the tramway company, threatened with liquidation at the time, and talk even in those early days of an overhead electric railway. The First World War had a dramatic effect on the railway with the decline of the slate industry but by June 1923 the WHR opened between Dinas and Porthmadog carrying approximately 50,000 passengers in its first year. However, by 1927 the company was in receivership with one Colonel Stephens having the roles of both receiver and manager. Services ceased in 1933 and the company remained in receivership until 1999 – is this a record for length of time a company has been in receivership? Relatively early in this period the Ffestiniog Railway gained a 99 year lease but later gave this up because there were just too many difficulties at the time. It was around 1946 when Robin was youth-hostelling in Wales that he first came across the remains of the railway although he had no particular interest in trains or railways at the time. However, by 1961 he started an involvement that has continued ever since to try and do something about re-opening the railway. The Official Receiver was, of course, not particularly interested in anything unless there was a suitable financial aspect and various proposals from different sources came under discussion over a period of years none of which proved successful.

With local authority re-organisation the Gwynedd County Council (GCC) came into being and proposed turning the track bed into a cycleway. By 1983 none of the bids and planning applications for restoration had been successful for a variety of reasons and there were also concerns from the various interested parties about the risks of perhaps having to take on the debts of the original company the full extent of which were unknown. It was around this time that a group was formed to try and restore the integrity of the whole line rather than just a small part of it and a scheme was drawn up to try and trace all the original company shares and reconstruct the company through the courts and put in a much better financial bid to the official receiver than that offered by any other interested party at the time. Although they were successful in gaining a large proportion of the original shares, the plan to rebuild the company failed but it was accepted that the order for the railway could be transferred to another company and the WHR was set up. After years of enquiry including the Inspector’s recommendation that the railway should not be rebuilt, John Prescott became involved and was “minded to approve the application” – subject to sorting out terms with the Snowdonia National Park. This approval was granted just before the Welsh Assembly came into being which had no procedures in place at its inception for this sort of development, so the race was on to finalise plans before the Assembly was fully constituted to avoid further bureaucratic delays. It is unlikely that the extent of all the efforts made and hurdles to be overcome or the money generously donated by private benefactors to pay for the enquiries and legal issues will ever be fully known. However, Robin showed us a beautifully bound copy of a limited edition privately printed book giving details of all the enquiries between 1991 and 2000. With the legal and planning problems finally resolved, the WHR could at last begin turning the dream into reality and start the work of restoring the line and running it as a fully operational railway.

Robin showed an excellent selection of slides working his way up the route from Porthmadog before any work had been done, showing the beautiful scenery and the very variable conditions both of the track bed and other infrastructure en route. Although some was in reasonable condition, other parts were completely overgrown and almost indistinguishable and there were a number of tunnels and bridges requiring varying levels of attention – from very little work to complete replacement. In some places tracks and footpaths had to be diverted to allow for restoration of the line and there were a lot of problems both technical and diplomatic to be overcome.

Coming back down the line again Robin showed us the progress as it was made and the work done to provide solutions to all the difficulties that they faced. With Wales to say the least being rather wet at times, drainage was particularly important which provided scope for ingenious solutions where there was little space to install the necessary drainage channels. Sometimes the only answer was to experiment until they found out what worked best. Wherever possible the WHR have used local contractors and suppliers, and they have reused the original materials as far as possible, although all the iron sleepers and rails have come from India and Poland. Technical problems have had to be overcome such as how to run 12 car sets where platforms are on an incline and current regulations limit how steep this can be but the land is steeper? Many of the original buildings had characteristic yellow brick corners with stone infill and wherever possible these have been restored but realistically not everything can be salvaged. One point that Robin made was the need to deepen all the bridge arches to allow the Garrett locomotives to pass through, and the extent of works required to stabilise embankments and cuttings. Other problems that have increased expenditure include the amount of signage required and that it has to be dual language ie Welsh and English.

Robin touched on the good working relationship with the Ffestiniog Railway and the excellent work being done on locomotives and rolling stock at Boston Lodge. The WHR have a large space at their Dinas yard which is good for displays and open days, and they have plenty of workshops and engine sheds and the potential to further develop land owned by the company. As far as laying the line goes, the contractors clear the line and prepare the formation, repairing and then ballasting. The volunteers follow – including Robin at times - laying the track and the ballast is then topped up as necessary. This process was well illustrated with a number of very good slides showing work in progress and the equipment used by contractors and volunteers for the different stages including equipment specially adapted to suit the conditions on the line. One perk of the job for volunteers appeared to be the chance to ride up and down the line between working to help bed the track and ballast in place to prepare it for passenger services. Sensitive negotiations with the Snowdonia National Park have resulted in the WHR being allowed to have a station within the park boundaries at Snowdon Ranger. Sadly the original station house is now a private dwelling, but who knows, perhaps one day it will come up for sale with the possibility of becoming part of the railway again. You cannot have everything and at least there is a station there again with a working railway running through.

Funding is a perennial problem and the WHR have done a remarkable job in raising the necessary money to keep the project – or should it be described as the dream as in the promotional literature – on track, several millions to date. The enthusiasm, ingenuity and sheer hard work involved in the success of the WHR to date is quite amazing and they are now on the last ‘leg’ and hope to be finished by the end of May with the official opening planned for Easter 2009.

The question and answer session raised some interesting issues like the signalling systems in use – as simple as possible, and the crossing with the Cambrian Railway and how this would be managed – in this case by Network Rail. Also raised was the funding and where had it all come from. Robin was able to explain that substantial amounts had come from the European Regional Development Fund, the Welsh Assembly, Welsh Development Authority, the equivalent financial value of the volunteer work over the years, and public appeal to name just a few. There is a lot more to do and more money is always required to improve the rolling stock, infrastructure, provide more stations and restore locomotives. Locomotives will be serviced both at Boston Lodge on the Ffestioniog and at Dinas on the WHR. As to the extent of services, it is hoped that these will run most of the year but as time goes on, services can be extended if there is sufficient demand. The restored railway will be a welcome tourist attraction as well as providing a service for local people and this is part of the business case for going ahead with the project.

Robin’s enthusiasm for and extensive knowledge of the WHR is extraordinary and listening to his talk and seeing the illustrations are a real encouragement to go and visit if you have not already done so, not just once but regularly to see the continuing propress. This was a well structured and very interesting talk – probably time now to plan another trip to this part of Wales!

Tuesday 22nd January
Iarnrod Eireann
Railway Developments in Ireland
Oliver Doyle

Oliver outlined his lecture as where Irish Railways are today, how they got there and future plans. He has been in railways all his life starting work at 5am on the Monday morning after leaving school, working his way up through a number of different roles to his present position as Manager Operations.

From a very early start with Dublin as the first capital city to have a railway, opened in December 1834, Irish Railways developed to its peak mileage in the 1920s. As in other places different companies chose a range of different gauges, but eventually a compromise was reached with a rather unusual 5’3” becoming the standard.

Current major development and an increasing population throughout the country especially in and around Dublin, and also a serious derailment just over 10 years ago due to the poor condition of the lines because of no major maintenance for a long time, has produced pressure for change and improvement. IE is publicly owned and approached the Minister for money for investment to improve both lines and rolling stock. As a result there has already been and continues to be a lot of work going on in Ireland to maintain and improve the network and provide much better services for passengers. Trams have also been recently re-introduced in the Dublin area using 4’8½” gauge track.

Working from two main bases in Dublin, these developments on the railway have the South and South West being served from Dublin Heuston and the North served by Connolly. Track conditions were initially so poor that substantial sections of the line had to be closed completely while they were replaced and upgraded with a bus replacement service for passengers. A lot of passenger traffic was lost over this period but there was no sensible alternative. Mid-sections were completed first, with the programme of relaying and improving the lines being extended over the rest of the network throughout the country with a substantial amount of work already finished. Some sections had not been replaced or upgraded for so long that parts such as Rosslare to Waterford still had 1905 rail in place. Following on from work on the lines, major works to stations and signalling systems were begun and it became clear that the rail layout was too complex and required simplification and Dick Fearn, CEO of IE, decided that timetabling would be better managed using mainly railcars to provide the services.

With all this development going on, seven major re-signalling projects to date and costs starting to spiral with the private companies involved, it was suggested that IE should carry out the works themselves. The company had never been privatised and the expertise was there as it had not been lost or fragmented through privatisation. It was at this point that Oliver became project leader. Developments include improving and upgrading lines, signalling, platforms, stations, level crossings and one of the issues Oliver highlighted was the simplification of many very complicated junctions and crossovers. Limerick junction with its eccentric access into the station was an excellent example of over complication. This, together with computerisation of the signalling systems has reduced the very high number of signal boxes and the associated high staffing levels and made the system much more efficient. There are now very few mechanical signals left. Signalling has been simplified to be controlled from just 16 boxes now but unlike in the rest of the UK, level crossings are controlled separately as they are all midsection crossings. The level crossing situation too has been simplified to be controlled from just two centres with approximately 98 in each. All crossings are being converted to 4 barriers with CCTV monitoring with safety and efficiency being the prime consideration and a tailor-made electronic system is in place with the potential to extend as necessary.

Although a lot of the lines are single outside of the city, passing loops have been improved and replaced and where necessary turnouts into sidings have also been put in or upgraded. Out in the countryside a lot of work has had to be done to widen embankments and improve culverts and to layer and stabilise the structure because of the nature of the underlying ground. Our speaker on railway earthworks from September 2007 would have particularly appreciated what has had to be done in this area. Innovation has been necessary where the landscape or surrounding buildings have constrained accessibility or what can be done, for example with particularly difficult or tight curves, and some of the stations have had to be seriously remodelled and improved with platforms being moved to avoid them. In Dublin especially there has had to be a lot of station remodelling to cope with increased traffic and additional expansion.

Oliver also spoke about the traffic on the network and although passenger numbers are continuing to increase, generally freight is reducing and some detail was given, for example about cement traffic using aging wagons with limited speed, the demise of sugar beet traffic, but timber traffic still being viable with the customer being responsible for loading at one end and unloading at the other – a very useful and straightforward arrangement for the railway. The freight locos are all General Motors and have proved to be very reliable although there are some changes and upgrades taking place. While talking about freight, Oliver mentioned that the peat fired power stations operate far more freight than IE shifting the peat fuel on their own services!

Lessons have been learned where some things were not completely successful but in general huge improvements have been made to the whole infrastructure and the programme continues into the foreseeable future with more park and ride, improved speed and frequency of services for passengers and continuing improvements to run down facilities and depots. The vast programme of renewal, refurbishment and development will result in a system that is more flexible, cheaper to run and maintain and providing better services for customers. Politics and planning have to be taken into account and the best use made of what is available. An interesting example was given in that the railway can develop railway owned land for railway purposes without planning permission but permission is still needed for a station building. The railway still owns some land in Dublin and new lines and platforms for a new station are being installed to cope with increased demand for capacity. If permission is not immediately granted for a new station building then it would be possible to use a cabin of some sort as ticket office and to provide necessary accommodation so the new station will still be possible and Mr Doyle illustrated how this will be linked in to the rest of the network.

There are now three liveries for the rolling stock – grey/green for the international Belfast services, green for the Cork trains with the rest a standard orange. The reliable trains on the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) service are going to the Czech Republic for refurbishment, there are two fleets of DMUs from Japan and the Dublin to Belfast Enterprise sets – similar to the cross channel sets - are built by de Dietrich in Alsace-Loraine. New railcars are under construction, the design being a joint effort between IE engineers and CAF and should be more comfortable, practical and capable of much higher speeds with the infrastructure improvements. There will be eights sets and three spare vehicles of the new intercity trains liveried grey/green with yellow doors. For some there will be the sadness of very little loco-hauled traffic in future as most of it will be railcars.

The question and answer session brought further detailed information about the Railway Inspectorate in Ireland and how there are still links between Ireland and the UK. It is independent in Ireland but still follows what have already proved to be good procedures in the UK – why re-invent something that works. It also brought up the possible disadvantages of mainly single track lines and the importance of keeping the services running on time which is where the reliability of the railcars and their speed of turnaround becomes important. Most lines are unlikely to be doubled because of the sheer expense of doing so not least because of sourcing sufficient quantities of sleepers in short bursts to fit the unusual 5’3” gauge. Further re-instatement of old lines may be possible in the future as most of the infrastructure and land is still owned – just buried under the bushes. If the government want the line re-opened or IE can make a sound economic argument for re-opening then the Minister for Finance will provide the funding and IE will go ahead. The request to extend the DART services to Dublin airport has been turned down so far because of possible plans for a metro service under the city centre which would go out to the airport and possibly further into ‘commuterland’.

Oliver is an extremely knowledgeable speaker on all aspects of IE and pays regular visits to the UK on business and to talk to the IRRS (Irish Railway Record Society). Highly recommended for an entertaining evening, this was a hugely interesting and informative lecture with excellent illustrations.

Tuesday 18th December 2007
Inter-Society Quiz
with the LCGB, Dorking and the Mid-Hants, Guildford Branch.
Quizmaster Alan Norris

This was the thirteenth annual intersociety quiz between Surrey branch of the RCTS, the LCGB (Locomotive Club of Great Britain) Dorking branch and the MHR (Mid Hants Railway) Guildford branch. The three societies take it in turns to host the event and this year it was the turn of the Surrey branch of the RCTS with our quizmaster Alan Norris (also a member of the branch committee). Our team comprised Ian Baxter, Andy Davies, David Goddard and Roger Hawes. This was an interesting evening, different from our usual indoor meetings, with a fascinating range of digitally projected pictures to go with the questions for all to enjoy and a small prize for the person in the audience who had the best score. This was a very informal and friendly contest and was won by our Chairman Peter Bosomworth as being the only person who was prepared to own up to their score – in this case a pretty good one which might be why everyone else decided to keep quiet! My own score was very low so I resorted to drawing the quizmaster and members of the competing teams instead in between the questions that I could answer – not that anyone would probably recognize themselves from the resulting pictures!

It turned out to be a very closely fought contest eventually decided on a tie-breaker, answered so impressively quickly that no-one else stood a chance of beating him to it, by RCTS member David Goddard. The final scores were: LCGB – 41, MHR – 49, RCTS - 50. This keeps up the branch record of never coming third and having the highest number of firsts over the thirteen years that the quiz has been running.

Unfortunately, attendance was very poor for what is a light-hearted and quite fun evening in the run-up to Christmas and now that we have better facilities for showing pictures, this makes it more interesting for the audience. RCTS will go on the trophy shield again this year but better support for the team would be welcome.

To end on a lighter note there were plenty of mince pies and lebkuchen to go with the tea and coffee for those who did attend. And, finally, for anyone who would like to know the answer to the photographic question on the poster advertising the meeting – it was taken at Edinburgh Waverley in November 2007.

Tuesday 27th November 2007
The Railways of Argentina
Professor Paddy Farrell

Professor Farrell was born and brought up in the Buenos Aires area until 1960 when his family returned to the UK and he went on to study electrical engineering at university with more engineering qualifications to follow over the years. Although he has never returned to live in Argentina he has regularly visited and always retained an interest in the country and a fascination with the railways in particular.

The Professor gave a concise and comprehensive background on the geographical, political, social and economic history of the country from the division of South America between the colonial powers of Spain and Portugal to present day statistics concerning the economy – approximately two thirds of which is agricultural and one third comprises manufactured goods such as cars, small aircraft etc. Of the population of 38.4 million people around one third of them live in the Buenos Aires area and of the rest, most live along the old land route to Peru which again is related to the historical division of South America and the restrictions on access to the Atlantic coastline of Argentina as set out in a papal edict and policed by both the Spaniards and the Portuguese. It lasted for about 200 years until Argentina gained its independence from Spain. The impetus for independence came largely from second and third generation Spaniards who had settled there and who were fed up with the Spaniards extracting commodities rather than developing the country. This set the building of the railways into its historical context with the first railway celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. Railway development was heavily linked to the nature of the land with the Andes providing a barrier to the West, the Southern Atlantic to the East, high altitude semi-desert to the North and the Patagonian desert to the far South. However, there were large areas of the pampas for agriculture and the first railways were built to transport livestock to the river and coastal ports. Although the railways were built mostly on the plains where there were no steep gradients, there were engineering and construction problems when it came to the wide rivers. The first railway opened in 1857 from Buenos Aires to Floresta as a 10km stretch of 5’6” gauge line constructed by William Bragg although the politics of the day meant a late start. This was funded by local British businessmen to enhance the opportunities to transport, distribute and export their goods so it was very much a pragmatic decision. It was soon extended to Chivilcoy in the fertile farmlands and then on to Rosario and Cordova with further lines and extensions added over the years. Buenos Aires was not itself a very good port so the railway to the deep water river port of Rosario was a very important part of the growing network as this could take large ocean going vessels.

The system developed with three different gauges – 5’6”, 4’8½” and metre gauge which are all still in existence today and which creates some difficulties with compatibility. Professor Farrell showed a number of maps to illustrate the growth and extent of the railway lines and the changes over time, from the first phase of rapid growth financed locally, through times where there was more reliance on overseas capital – although still mainly British and on through periods of contradictory policies, road competition, two World Wars, nationalisation, over-manning and the subsequent deficits and decay. The historical maps were an excellent illustration of the progress and later decline from around 6530 miles in the late 1880s, 22,600 miles by the end of the second period (1887 to 1916 approx), 27,100 miles in 1946 with the total at the time of nationalisation having dropped to approximately 26,700 miles. The British war debt owed to Argentina for grain and beef was offset by handing over the British ownership (around 70% at the time) of the railways directly to the Argentine government with very little money changing hands. This seems to have been a good deal for the British but perhaps not so good for Argentina as the railways were by now quite rundown and in need of substantial maintenance and upgrading, although the Argentineans were pleased to have ownership. By 1990 the mileage had dropped to about 21,250 miles. In 1999 America Latina Logistica (ALL) started to develop freight services on two of the gauges which is beginning to have some success, and there are proposals to run high speed lines in some parts of the network. The total mileage peaked in the late 1940s and current mileages are an estimate. The suburban services around Buenos Aires are heavily used but long distance services and freight – apart from the ALL services mentioned already – tend to be rather intermittent. This is not helped by the unreliability of the lines because of their poor condition. Although there are plans for future development and investment, no serious economic case has yet been made which means that they are likely to stay just as plans for the foreseeable future.

Following on from the historical background and growth and decline of the railways in Argentina, the Professor went on to give further details about the Buenos Aires area itself in the built up areas, including the stations and surrounding buildings and the infrastructure, the plans that never came to anything and the many changes over the years even in his own lifetime and how the three different gauges all came in to the city with adjacent stations in the central area. There were some benefits to being so far away from the UK in the earlier years as railway development was not constrained by the same rules, regulations and standards, which allowed for some experimentation and innovation. There was experimentation with engineering patents, steam turbine locos, early oil-burning locos - to avoid the use of expensive imported coal as there was little suitable high grade steam coal available locally, and articulated carriages to name just a few. Diesel electrics were first used on suburban services between 1929 and 1934 with further development of electrification and an early use of pulse counting modulation. There was also local manufacture of rolling stock and diesel locos. Dante Porta (1922-2003) was an important locomotive engineer and his work led to great improvements in performance and efficiency of the steam engines of his day – again reducing coal use so of direct economic significance. Sadly this did not have as much of an impact as it might have due to the political climate of the time and the departure of steam from the railway scene. There were some interesting photographs to illustrate his modified locos, some of which have now been restored on the Southern Railway.

The final part of the lecture brought together all the lines and mentioned the ‘odds and ends’, small unconnected lines serving just relatively local areas and not linked in to the rest of the network, including the Railway at the end of the World in Tierra del Fuego which was originally a convict railway but is now mainly kept going by the tourist trade from visiting ships. Another small line described was the railway on the Falkland Islands, the Camber Military Railway (1915 to 1927) from Camber depot near Port Stanley to the strategically sited Royal Marine base with its wireless transmitter three miles away. Brief details were forthcoming of a number of small lines to the Eastern seaboard, still a mix of gauges, used to transport freight for shipping out by sea, and for oil, coal, sheep etc both ways. The old line to Chile is not in very good condition and has not been restored, although the tourist train still runs up from Salta nearly to the border – also known as The Train to the Clouds. The rest of this line going all the way into Chile has not been used for many years. The final line mentioned was the short piece serving the Iguazu falls and there were some splendid photographs to show the magnificent scenery. Again this is used mainly for tourists.

The evening ended with an interesting and lively question and answer session. Professor Farrell gave a clear and well structured talk with some well-organised and excellent illustrations and maps using an overhead projector. Although this may be a less up to date method of projection, in this case it worked very well. With the advantage of being brought up bilingual, in the course of his research he has been able to easily access information in Spanish as well as in English. Altogether an excellent and very interesting lecture with a wealth of information provided. It is no surprise to learn that Professor Farrell has been asked to put together a book on his extensive experience and research into the Railways of Argentina.

Friday 19th October 2007
The Nationalisation Years
Gordon Pettitt, former General Manager of British Rail’s Southern Region

There is no lengthy branch meeting report this month as Surrey Branch hosted the Members’ Weekend and Officers’ Conference. As this was so close to our normal monthly evening meeting, all our branch members and visitors were invited to attend the Friday evening lecture at the Members’ Weekend and it was good to see quite a number of them were able to join us. The other reason for brevity, well our regular attendees may have noticed that for the first time since taking over as fixtures officer at Surrey, I was not scribbling down in my notebook. For once I sat back and simply enjoyed a very interesting talk. It was good to hear Gordon dispel some of the myths about that time, the biggest probably being those relating to Dr Beeching. One of the things rarely reported is that stations had already been closing quietly for some time and continued to do so long after Dr Beeching and Gordon provided the statistics to confirm this. The other particular point made was the very short periods in office of all the transport ministers of those years with the average time in office being less than two years. No wonder there was no coherent transport policy and the railways perhaps suffered more than they needed to as a result. Dr Beeching was a rarity among them in that he worked at creating a solid basis for the long term future of the railways. One can always criticise with hindsight but on the whole he did what was necessary at the time and it was good to hear from someone who had met him and admired him. There was, of course a lot more information on the politics, problems and changes facing the railways right up until privatisation. The lecture was followed by a lively and equally educational question and answer session.

I have heard Gordon Pettitt speak before and was not disappointed to listen to him again on a different subject. Suffice it to say, this was an excellent and enlightening lecture and it was good to sit back and enjoy it after a busy afternoon of visits.

Tuesday 25th September 2007
Railway Earthworks
Graham Birch

For the first meeting of the new season we were delighted to welcome Graham Birch BSc (Hons) C Eng MIMMM FGS, Earthworks Engineer – Southern Area for Network Rail. Graham’s original background is in geology and the talk started with a brief lesson on this subject to set the scene, as geology affects the railways. He highlighted the eons of slow development of the different rock types and the huge timescales involved, with the approximately 150 years of man-made cuttings and embankments – very young materials by comparison. A straight and level ground for laying rail would be ideal but is frequently not possible so there has to be a balance between cut and fill to create the cuttings and embankments we see today. There are a number of reasons for failures some of which might have been avoided if there had been a better understanding of the soils, underlying rocks, effects of water etc at the time of construction and subsequently.

He showed a selection of excellent powerpoint slides to illustrate his talk including examples of the type of problems that can occur – and need to be fixed – actual pictures of failures as well as diagrams. Among the problems are underlying instability, poor drainage, seasonal desiccation, rabbits, tree roots, weathering etc. Sometimes the reasons for engineered landscaping can be forgotten over the years as in the case of the Honiton cutting. The extensive drainage system had gradually become overgrown and clogged up as its importance was forgotten until the cutting failed because the water could no longer drain away properly.

Careful monitoring is a feature of the maintenance programmes which have two main aspects – regular planned programmes of major and minor works, and emergencies. Much progress has been made in investigating the links between average and actual rainfall and the seasonal differences between dry and wet soil and levels of rainfall. This now enables the engineering team to predict with reasonable accuracy when and where problems may arise so that they can be prepared and react more quickly to prevent or limit failure.

He touched on the sometimes contentious issue of trees and vegetation on cuttings and embankments – are they good or bad? At the moment the specification is to get rid of all woody vegetation for a number of very good reasons that have nothing much to do with the proverbial ‘leaves on the line’ issue.

After the break, Graham gave us a brief bonus presentation on the particular problems facing the coastal line between Folkestone and Dover. This included the history, geological background and past failures from the landslips caused by the underlying geological instabilities. The cracks and fissures and any movement in the landscape along the line are constantly monitored. Graham also showed some of the ingenious engineering solutions to try and prevent further failures.

The evening finished with a lively question and answer session. This raised a number of interesting issues including the future prospects for the CTRL – have we learned anything from past difficulties and what are the projections for how long the man-made cuttings and embankments on this line will last into the future? The answer was reassuring. We have learned an enormous amount about construction methods, avoiding problematic materials, and the importance of the underlying geology. Graham’s successors 150 years in the future should not have to face the problems from today’s new earthworks that today’s earthworks engineers have had to contend with from the past 150 years.

A well presented, very different and fascinating aspect of railways and their construction and maintenance.

July 2008