Trains Illustrated Magazine, Issue 43

BEING critical about railway preservationists is always to run the risk of violent abuse from armchair preservationists who are usually none too fussy about reading very carefully before penning their vitriolic missives. But certain subjects ought to be broached in the public interest. The simple question is, 'would you like to live next to a preserved railway/steam centre/whatever?' Certainly it would test most people's loyalty to the cause of railway preservation. Would you like to listen to boiler riveting late at night, locomotives being prepared on shed early in the morning, shunting late on Saturday night/early on a Sunday morning? Would you like cars parked along the narrow lane leading to your home on summer weekends when you would hope to enjoy your garden? Would you be enthused at the sight of a derelict locomotive/coach being shunted past your dining room window when you were entertaining visitors? These are some of the activities associated with railway preservation. Such is the public interest in our movement that preservationists appear to receive very little adverse comment on some of their extraordinary undertakings, However, goodwill can be easily exhausted and because railway preservation - has not only been successful, but has transformed the prospects of shopkeepers and the like in previously sleepy small towns, there is a feeling that 'might is right'. It was disturbing to hear from one official of a restored railway recently that local inhabitants who attempted to complain about heavy transport movements in their town (of which they are deservedly proud) would be told in words of one syllable 'which side their bread was buttered'. This doesn't sound like good neighbourliness. Noise, disturbance, car traffic, perhaps, but muscle flexing will not and should not be tolerated. Railway preservation has been the pursuit of the ordinary man, out to provide entertainment and enjoyment for others... in the public good. Don't spoil it!