Flying Scotsman

That is interesting. Ties in somewhat with something that the late Roger Barker told me at the Great Gathering.

 

What, that the NRM left bits out?

Mr Riley seemed to suggest that the arrangement had been changed to do away with the shims - but maybe I read too much into his posts....?

 

The shims/buttons had been done away with and he and his team are restoring the arrangement. Fish7373 writes that he cannot recall this being done at Southall so maybe someone else should speak up. But my betting is that no one will.

 

It is clear that there are some who can not accept that 4472 was a dogs dinner when sold to the NRM, some loco owners at the time did hint that all was not well, but such was the hype around FlyingScotsman, that the voices of reason got drowned out , and its now that the truth about, what was done and how has now come to light. showing that those who said dont touch it with a bargepole were infact talking the truth. they must have had some very well informed sources,
What is important is that 60103 is back in the best possible state or repair with no " Fixes" that may come back to destroy peoples reputations.

 

I do not believe that there is anyone that is in any doubt that the locomotive was in poor condition when acquired by the NRM. So who, I wonder are the "some who can not accept"? There may well be those who are not convinced that all has been revealed and they are free to adopt that stance.

 

Just out of curiosity, has any other preserved machine worked as hard or done as many mainline miles since the end of BR?

 

I don't know the respective figures, but I'd have thought Clan Line has had a pretty extensive mainline existence, having operated on the mainline in 1974 – 1980; 1984 – 1991; 1994 – 2001; 2006 – 2015. Quite often in that time, the load has been pretty big as well.

Tom

 

45407 ?

 

Hi you have to remember the loco had a good run under southall and not to many failures in service, you will disagree with this, and after railfest it was stopped due to leaking tubes. remember the NRM had the loco in there work shop stripped down to the frames and there are photos on the NRM web site so is this not a overhaul of the loco martin1656 you say it was a dogs dinner but she run well in service, and a staff member moderator said LOOK FORWARDS NOT BACKWARDS martin1656 . FISH7373 81C

 

Its a pity that a past owner saw fit to desecrate a national icon just to increase the locos revenue earning capabilities.
Oh well, time to right the wrongs. Hopefully all is well with Flying Scotsman soon

 

i have a paper from the late 1940s on how Kings Cross Shed set the Gresley conjugated gear. it accords with Lplus's comments re buttons etc, after trammeling of the valves.

i would be happy to forward same to Ian Riley if thought of any use.

it would appear that certain parts have been 'butchered' from original so making the standard adjustment of the conjugated gear very difficult if not impossible.

cheers,
julian

 

And maybe it's best left that way. It's happened and now a locomotive engineer and his team are rectifying the matter. Pointing the finger of blame won't achieve anything.

 

I wholeheartedly agree. However, we are living in a society where there has to be blame for everything that is found to be wrong and finding who is to blame is becoming the norm. Even accidents are now incidents because there has to be blame.
Such a shame.

 

I do agree in part - especially about the fact that accidents are now incidents, but when it comes to it, the RAIB investigate incidents to find the reason for the incident. That may put "blame" on someone, but would you rather it was just hushed up? There's a narrow line between responsible investigation and witchhunting.

No one is going to be punished/sued/sacked/hung drawn and quartered for this but they might be a bit more careful in future. It may even be that the modified system worked well - it was just not as per drawings.

 

Surely they are all very good reasons why the NRM should have taken this thing into national ownership and got it sorted?

Now to the really important stuff, which way round will it be running on the ELR?

 

But at what cost? for instance what else with in the collection could have been returned to operating condition given the money spent? i'm not against the NRM owning it, but the hype that surrounded it , and given the amount of work it has needed to in effect undo the A3GT modifications i can not see how anyone can say 60103 was looked after properly , how many times did it fail to appear when booked for VSOE when in the last 6 months of its previous ownership? and then fail once it was an NRM engine , i understand that , much midnight oil was spent repairing it before each SSE , OK the NRM were not best placed to carry out was was a full overhaul, and had Ian Riley been contracted to overhaul it from the very start, the costs and delays might have been less, one day the full story will be told about 4472/ 60103, and why it bankrupted almost every owner who owned it. i guess that to some the prestige of saying, im involved with flying scotsman was more important than ensuring the golden goose was properly funded and looked after.

 

There is a changing of attitudes that comes from 'Just culture.' It has it's origins (I think) in aviation safety and is certainly spreading to other industries as 'the human element' is more clearly researched and understood. The rush to criminalise front line staff in all the transport industries should slow down...hopefully.

http://www.eurocontrol.int/articles/just-culture

 

Good. The tender should be harder to see by anyone walking through Summerseat tunnel.