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.
SRPS to expand services including Fawlty Towers-themed excursions and fish and chip specials.
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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.