Swanage

Leveraging my occasional interest in puffing Poirots, some evidence of which is to be found at reference 1, last week to Marylebone Station to hear all about connecting the Swanage Railway (to be found at reference 2) back into the main line at Wareham, thus reversing, in some small way, the Beeching ax-work of more than half a century ago.

The gathering took place in the board room of Chiltern Railways, inside the main entrance to the station, rather in the way that my first office in the civil service (shared, you should understand) was inside the main entrance to Somerset House. Entrances which involved large arches, high enough for the grandest carriage. Offices which reminded me very much of the civil service of my youth, with the addition of industrials and their lockers, a breed not well represented in many of the offices in which I worked.

Just beyond the main entrance, and connected to it by a grand canopy, was the back entrance to a once very grand hotel, still grand enough that a pair of flunkeys swept open the double doors as I approached. Sadly, we did not have time to investigate the bar, probably at the front of this rather large building, far too far away.

The talk was given by an enthusiastic member of the Southwest Trains team, on secondment to the Wareham Project. An ex-army chap who knew how to talk to this sort of audience, nearly all as old or older than I was, mostly ex railwaymen. And to my surprise, a sprinkle of ladies.

All in all, a very odd business, this connecting a bit of heritage railway, run more or less as a club for older men, back into the main line railway, run as a business, a business festooned with all kinds of rules and regulations. A business, quite rightly, driven by process, process which usually gets us from one place to another in comfort and safety. A process which said club had to sign up for, I dare say with mixed feelings.

Entirely appropriately, the link was to be implemented by elderly diesel units, in evolutionary line between the puffing Poirots of Swanage Railway and the electric locomotives of the main line.

I learned in the margins that the puffing Poirots can eat up a lot of money, with refurbishing the boiler of a larger one running to getting on for half a million pounds - a significant drain on the purses of the faithful.

As it happened, the day after I happened to be at the railing at the station end of the platform 2 at Waterloo Station, and what should I find on the railing but a flat box, maybe half a metre square, containing an illuminated electrical display of what appeared to be the the lines, points and signals for platforms 1 to 9. A fascinating display, all the more so for being more or less unintelligible, certainly at first. One had to work the thing out. The numbers given to the trains moving across the display, for example, bore no relation to the serial numbers on the trains themselves.

I think it would be a really good wheeze if they were to put a big version of the display up in place of one of the giant advertisement screens, where the giant train indicator board used to be. Then all us wannabee train drivers could amuse ourselves by trying to work it all out while waiting for our trains. While underneath there could be a desk manned by enthusiastic volunteers who could explain it all to the interested. Perhaps I ought to write to Southwest Trains?

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=puffing+poirot.

Reference 2: http://www.swanagerailway.co.uk/.