On Saturday 9 April the Scottish Area group were focusing on Heritage Railways, starting with a presentation at Edinburgh Waverley led by Mark Smith, Vice Chairman of the Heritage Railway Association (HRA) and a Director of the West Somerset Railway. While Mark focused on managing safety on heritage railways his fascinating talk, illustrated by slides, covered a whole range of heritage railway activity.
In his talk Mark emphasised the scope of British heritage rail activity. There are 117 working railways and museums, 18,000 volunteers and 2,000 employees with an annual value to tourism of £360 million. HRA members vary from small railways, which are just starting, to established businesses. Mark explained the role of HRA, for example in providing guidance on safety management systems.
A whole range of safety subjects were discussed including trackside safety, corrosion on heritage vehicles, personal protective equipment and education. Innovative schemes for relatively low cost conversions of level crossings on heritage railways were also explained. The group were impressed not only by the safety issues faced, and initiatives being taken, but also more generally by the breadth of activity covered on heritage railways covering safety and operations through forms of engineering to marketing and HR.
The group then moved to the Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway of the Scottish Railway Preservation Society (SRPS), where staff provided a comprehensive tour of the site including visits to the maintenance and repair sheds, signal box and museum. Although the site is currently a well-established heritage railway it was fascinating to learn that this was not the original Bo’ness station site and that the facilities have in effect been constructed or reconstructed from scratch. The signal box at Bo’ness is fully operational with lower quadrant signals and it was explained that it is hoped in due course to open another box at Birkhill at the other end of the station.
The day concluded with an excellent run on the train from Bo’ness to Manuel junction where there is a connection for stock movements with Network Rail’s Edinburgh to Glasgow Queen Street main line, and where the Bo’ness railway trains run round before returning to Bo’ness.
Thanks are due to Mark Smith for his excellent talk, to Chris Owen for organising the whole day and to all the SRPS staff for their kind and knowledgeable hospitality and assistance.