Next New Build to be completed

We had a thread listing new build projects. How about opinions on which new build will be the next to be finished?
Knowledgeable guesstimates most welcome, but idle speculation not excluded!!
This is mainly for SG, but NG projects can also be covered.

 

My guess would be the L&B's 'Lyn' new build - due to be finished at the end of this year.

 

Corris' No.11? Their new-build Falcon 0-4-2ST.

 

For standard gauge steam, my guess would be in a rough order, getting rougher as we go down the list:

Saint Class No 2999
NER/LNER Class O/G5 No 1759
Grange No 6880
Patriot 45551
County No 1014
Class 3MT No 82045
LBSCR H2 No 32424
BR 2MT No 84030
GER F5 No 67218
GWR No 4709
BR Class 6 No 72010
P2 Prince of Wales (I reserve the right to put this further up the list by the time I've typed it out!)
LNWR George The Fifth No 2013
B17 No 61662 Manchester United
B17 Spirit of Sandringham
Doncaster P2 No 2001
GCR/LNER D7 No 567
Class 3MT No 70021
LNER D14 Claud Hamilton (Don't know much about progress, if any, on this one.)

MSWJR 2-6-0 No 16 at the Swindon & Cricklade (Two hopes and one of them's Bob)

Please feel free to insert Tyseley's 2-2-2 Bloomer anywhere in the list.

I'm sure there are others but these are the ones I'm aware of, or in the case of 3 of them, a member of the supporting group.

 

Although a Corris Life member (and L&B, FR, & WLLR!) I can find little on projected completion timeline for the Falcon (No. 10, BTW). I was under the impression there was still a deal of cash to be raised for it? Do you have an estimated completion date, Neil?

 

No.10, my mistake (as usual). My guess was that with the boiler built and fundraising seeming to be ready and substantial that it would be near completition. Purely my guess rather than an informed opinion.

 

I'd have assumed Beachy Head would be a bit further up the list there... Not there yet, but seems that the chassis is nearly ready, then it's just overhauling the boiler (which is pretty decent anyway), tender tank and fittings. Obviously a bit more complicated than that! I'd have said maybe third on the list?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

As my wife insists on commenting whenever I drive - 'its not a race is it ?'

They will be ready when they are ready !!

The good news is that several are moving inextricably towards completion.

 

Indeed, this was not meant to provoke a "race", but to get information. For those of us of a more senior condition - we want to know how many of the new builds we might live to see!!

 

I'd like to see both of these finished asap!
So if readers feel the same, please go to: http://762club.com/762sponsorship.php scroll down to choose your item!
and to: http://www.corris.co.uk/information.php?info_id=30 scroll down to the sponsorship options

I've sponsored several items on both - the more the merrier

 

Absolutely so! If there were rather fewer newbuilds on at any given time we might see some in operation rather sooner.

PH

 

Do you really think so - my take on this is people only give to projects they are in to, IF there are fewer projects the 'pot' of available funds could actually decrease as there are no projects people would like to fund and they will spend their money elsewhere. If you think that the amount of money available is going to suddenly increase if half the new build projects disappear, you will be sadly disappointed.

 

"Absolutely so! If there were rather fewer newbuilds on at any given time we might see some in operation rather sooner."

I respectfully disagree, In a communist world that would be the case, but your argument falls down when it is applied to the real world where people are free to spend their cash any way they like.

Fewer projects would mean less money entering the preservation world, not more money spent on your favorite project.

 

To some extent, yes, but some of us would like to (and indeed do) support several projects but feel able to donate only so much cash. If some of the projects that we are supporting didn't exist, some other projects would be getting more.

 

Do I really think so? Yes. Romanticism has to be tempered somewhat for anything to be achieved. Far too many of the projects are over-romantic.

No-one said anything about the total amount of money increasing if half the projects disappear. It may well reduce. However there is absolutely no guarantee that even a "pruned" list will achieve all its aims. One commendably honest group had to discard much of the work already done as unsatisfactory. Good luck to them but let us hope there are not others who are less forthcoming about problems.

PH

 

What you said was that if there was less projects, some of the remaining ones would complete sooner, I have a different opinion as I can't see that the funds to the remaining ones would increase significantly to enable things to speed towards completion. . . . We've seen the same arguments many years ago with regards to the restoration of the Barry locos with some saying way back when that the remaining ones should be cut up, if we had believed such nayslayers, the preservation movement would be much poorer.

 

Are new build projects just competing with each other for time and resources though? Or even necessarily competing with each other? If you consider a kit of parts project like 2999, what sort of percentage of the work is different to the work that would have been required if they were restoring Maindy Hall? Surely to an extent restoring a Barry wreck is restoring a Barry wreck, whether or not 10% of the components have been changed, or even if they are combining parts from two or three locos into a single one. Its surely a rather different game to a "all new" build project? Then you have to consider how projects may need different resources at different stages even if money is almost always a constant.

 

Aha! the "Vulcan" conundrum argument. If the Vulcan to the Skies project wasn't asking for peoples' money, those people would put money into hangar accommodation for the Vulcan, Shackleton, Hastings, Canberra, Meteor and other beautiful airframes currently outside in the elements at Newark Air Museum, to take an example nearer to me. No they wouldn't. Newark is campaigning for funds for such a hangar and, having a flying Vulcan has probably raised more interest in their own example, which they keep electrically "live".

There is one new build steam project for which a definite operational date is crucial but I guess it is the only one on my list that is. The sooner the better for all of them and, if 2015 is anything like 2014 was for progress in many of them, then we shall be rewarded sooner than later.

 

You could say that these new build projects help provide more resources in the long run. Just think how many engineering firms and other railways that have benefited from the various contracts these projects provide, or the experience gained from manufacturing complex new items like crank axles. Not to mention new facilities such as the A1 trusts workshop that will prove invaluable long after the loco is finished. I know of one railway where a new build project allowed them to keep skilled workshop staff employed when the railway was short of money.

People tend to obsess over the shiny lump of metal with an animal sticker on you get at the end, but actually it is the whole process that benefits the movement. If it takes 20 years for a project to come to fruition that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Tim