Bluebell Motive Power

Thanks for clarification. Beat me to it!

Paul H

 

I think you're maybe being a little over simplistic. I was looking at this sort of thing in some old documents the other week. As I understood the docs each locomotive had a value in the renewals account, and when it needed to be replaced then that was how much money was available for the new ones. So if you wanted to do a one to one replacement for cheap and nasty 0-6-0s with more sophisticated but more expensive 2-6-0s that was classified as an improvement, and money for the improvement had to be found from a different budget and (at least in the case of the line I was looking at) also had to be approved by a different committee. So if there wasn't much money in the improvements budget then getting the sophisticated 2-6-0s would mean cancelling something else.

 

You were away for a while there Paul with computer probs., but it really is good to see you back and on top form!! (I've just "liked" your Mudguard - that is a snorter!!)

Cheers,

Alan

 

This is the classic dilemma. Do you give the operator exactly what is asked for or what, in your opinion, should be asked for. To be simplistic, do you do a Hawksworth or a Bulleid. IMHO Ivatt got this much more nearly right than the other two did. Evidently the finances were available.

A comparison would be if today an overwhelmingly powerful but reactionary transport manager demanded commercial vehicles with modernised styling but the mechanical arrangements of the nineteen twenties or thirties.

PH

 

Thanks,

Paul

 

The Ivatt 2MTs were merely an updated versions of the Midland 2Fs with some improvements, but basically the same obsolete technology of the early 20th century; no wonder that their demise was on the statute very soon after they were built. The fancy rocking grate, etc. counted for nothing when they were all scrapped, might as well have had the 2Fs in the first place., same job done, half the price = happy operator and accountant.

Cheers,

Alan

 

But unhappy people who had to drive fire and maintain the things. If steam was to have a future (I am sure that it never really did but that is even more thread drift) it had to be made less unpleasant to operate. The alternative was that the staff would go off and get jobs on the nearest production line. There is a well known story of an ultra cantankerous driver who became a normal happy individual when he exchanged his Webb for an Ivatt.

The reactionaries castigated by me before would have built more Webb/Johnson/McIntosh stuff with a bit of re-styling but causing just as many maintenance problems to an evaporating workforce. Ivatt tried to do better than this but the post war world intervened.

(More apologies for thread drift)

PH

 

Of course Paul, but we now know, with our backward looking spyglass, that by the mid fifties, it was game over for the steam loco, one reason being that the vast majority didn't want to work on a dirty, hot, lump of metal no matter when it was designed, they were all unpleasant and this fact had been realised by the operators; no wonder loco men deserted the railways when offered a clean, well paid alternative; a bucket seat and screw reverse is no competition to that production line at Dagenham, Longbridge, etc.

The workforce was still there in the forties doing what they had always done, whether on a "Super D" or in a Southern EMU, but the Second World changed everything, particularly attitudes; Ivatt himself knew this, because as the 2MTs were rolling out of Crewe, 10000 & 10001 were being built; designed and promoted by, yep. Henry George Ivatt himself.

To sum up, the Ivatt 2MTs are really fine locomotives and it would be nice to have a small fleet for today's operators, but really, those simple Midland 2Fs would be far cheaper to have and run today. The good news is that today's railway operators are queuing up to drive such relics of a bygone age, whether built in 1895 or 1955 and I maintain what I said upthread, the Midland 2F fits the criteria for your optimum preservation locomotive to the rivet, you should be championing a replica, or should I say replicas as they align perfectly with all that you have prescribed over the years. I actually agree with you Paul, but you are wrong, we can only play trains with what we have, so who's next with that Bulleid Pacific?

Cheers,

Alan

 

Sounds like excellent news for the saturated 0-6-0 tender locomotive owner!

 

Of course, there are a few of them around still - even on the Bluebell. The quintessential British steam locomotive, built in the thousands, as sophisticated as a teapot, as cheap as chips to run - what more do you want? apart from a Bulleid Pacific.

Cheers,

Alan

 

Do we have to specify original or rebuilt?............... either way, I'll have another one! But would also be more than happy with a few more Gresley V2's

 

Just too many of these and, unsurprisingly, they seem to be needing more and more maintenance as they age.

PH

 

Don't we all.

 

Of course one doesn't know what else the money might have been used for. Naturally money spent on one thing isn't spent on another.

I was going through GWR records at the National Archives trying to find out background to certain decisions, but it seems the evidence is lost. All you get in the minutes is a statement like "Under circumstances reported the committee approved the construction of ten engines of the 'Castle' class in substitution for twenty five 0-6-0T engines authorised by minute no 6 of 27th April 1933, the cost not to exceed the sum of £62,000 already voted". The circumstances themselves are arguably the interesting bit, and that seems to be gone.

 

I believe that in BR days, the expected life of a steel firebox was around 10 years - but in those days locos of this size went through a heavy general overhaul every 18 months or so and were far more intensively used. It isn't surprising, therefore, that many of the Bulleids in preservation are needing a lot of firebox work, but hopefully it will stand them in good stead for a while. Some of the more intensively worked ones may, unsurprisingly, need attention more often though. 34027 and 34101 have both had very extensive boiler work, so it will be interesting to see how long their fireboxes last before needing renewal.

 

I wouldn't say that Clan Line is intensively used, though! And what has it had done in previous overhauls? Clearly firebox life can be affected by a number of factors - On the Moors, WD 3672 ran for almost 120,000 miles on a single steel firebox and afaik it isn't due to receive a replacement in the course of its next overhaul. In contrast, both Lambton 29 and 80135 went through a steel firebox in the course of a single 10yr ticket, as did 80002 on the KWVR - which all goes to show that it isn't possible to draw conclusions from small samples!

 

Not restricted to Bulleids though: replacing substantial components comes with the territory of running old machinery. For "Bulleid firebox" you could also say "P class cylinders" or "Dukedog frames" or "Terrier wheel sets" or "[insert engine here] tender tank", all of which have previously been done, or need to be done, on our engines. I don't think it is especially realistic to assume that Bulleid's are uniquely bad, or expensive, in that respect. Just look at how substantial the work has been on the spare O1 boiler this time round.

Tom

 

The examples you quote are rather older though.

Paul

 

Is that true though? Most of the very small number of operational non- or semi-mainline very large engines - A4s, 9Fs, MNs - are owned by private individuals or groups and hired to lines which might otherwise struggle for adequate motive power, and are not maintained by those host railways. Off the top of my head the only exceptions I can think of are Lord Nelson on the MHR and Black Prince on the NNR.

Where the NNR is concerned however I take your point, in that arguably the bulk of that line's fleet is bigger than is strictly necessary on a short line running fairly short trains.