Scottish Railway Preservation Society reveals expansion plans for Bo'ness heritage line and relaunch of its Britain-wide tours after five-year gap

The Scotsman

Scottish Railway Preservation Society reveals expansion plans for Bo'ness heritage line and relaunch of its Britain-wide tours after five-year gap SRPS to expand services including Fawlty Towers-themed excursions and fish and chip specials.

Transcript

00:00I'm Alistair Dalton, the Scotsman's Transport Correspondent at the Scottish Railway Preservation

00:06Society in Bowness. They run both the Bowness to Keneal railway line, a five mile heritage

00:14railway, but also they're about to relaunch their Britain-wide rail tours, which have

00:20been halted for much of the time since COVID. I'm here with Andrew Wells, the Chair of the

00:27Preservation Society. Andrew, thanks so much for inviting us here. Thanks Alistair. Tell

00:31me about rail tours. You've hardly operated any since COVID, but you're about to restart

00:38them. No, that's right. We're really excited about it. I mean, if you look, we are the

00:42longest serving operator of rail tours in the UK. We've been operating rail tours for

00:4855 years, and now after the COVID environment, getting our carriages that you can see behind

00:53us here up to the required health and safety standards to run back out on the mainline

00:58is really exciting for us. And we were thinking it's a really good programme we've got ahead

01:01of us. So these upgrades that are needed, what's required there? So two forms of upgrade.

01:07One is structural integrity. So a lot of work effectively rebuilding what are carriages

01:12that are over 70 years old, making sure that they are safe and secure and fit for purpose

01:17on the mainline to run at a hundred miles an hour. And then secondly, central door locking.

01:22So that is fitting them with locks that make sure that people can't inadvertently open

01:27carriages while they're on the move so that they are kept safe as well. I think this is

01:32going to cost a lot of money, take several years. So you you're getting some help from

01:36another company to initially with some of the carriages. No, that's right. So we've

01:40partnered with Locomotive Services Limited and the Royal Scott Trust down in Crewe. They're

01:45a fantastic group of people who we are working with. They are going to be the operators of

01:52our tours. They're also bringing in some of their great traction, their steam locomotives

01:57and their diesel locomotives to help use on the tours. So we're really pleased to be working

02:03with them. They're based down in Crewe and have a fantastic track record at running rail

02:08tours. And here in Bowness, you also run the railway, the heritage railway here. And I

02:13think you're looking to diversify, widen the base by perhaps bringing in some new characters

02:20with a deal with another company. That's right. I mean, we've run Days Out with Thomas here

02:25with Mattel and also Santa specials for many years. They are the highlight of our calendar

02:31for many families. But next year, we're also partnering with Fox and Edwards who've worked

02:35with other heritage railways around the country. They are bringing Paddington to us, they're

02:43bringing Bluey to us and Peter Rabbit and the likes. So people will be able to see those

02:47characters on running days during the season in 2025. And also on the line, I think you're

02:52trying to increase the amount of trains you can run. You've got some changes at one of

02:58the interim stations. Yes, so Burke Hill is a real jewel on our railway. It's used a lot

03:05for filming actually, because it is a real sort of prototypical countryside halt. The

03:11station building itself came originally from Montefeith, further up in Scotland, and was

03:18also used at the Glasgow Garden Festival. So many people will have experienced that

03:23station there. We are upgrading the facilities, we've just opened a new footbridge. We have

03:31two platforms there that we're looking to commission. There are countryside walks around

03:36the station, which are really important. We're also building a signal box there. The

03:41signal box will cost about £75,000. We've got about £50,000 already, so we're looking

03:47for that last push to fund that. Once we've built that, that will enable us to run more

03:52trains up and down the line. And to widen the appeal further, I think you have plans

03:58to extend the Fawlty Towers trains and also something with fish and chips. Yes, that's

04:03right. So over the course of this year, we've run dining trains with a Fawlty Towers experience

04:08up and down the line. We're actually taking that out on the main line in 2025, which is

04:13really exciting for us. We're looking forward to people having that sort of comedy experience

04:18while on the train running around the Fourth Circle. And then fish and chip trains, we

04:23did a trial in October where we provided people with fish and chips on the train and they

04:27really enjoyed it. Great. Thanks so much, Andrew. And you can read more about transport,

04:34not just railways, but everything else we cover at scotsman.com.

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