P2 Locomotive Company and related matters

Such as?

 

Yes, thank you!

 

Excellent. It was a temporary renumber/rebrand before 60163 went in her for winter overhaul a few years back, emerging in BR Dark Green. That was around the time of the teething troubles with the stays and foundation ring I recall.

 

I wonder what the vote would have been if before starting Tornado there had been an "A1 or P2 vote" or was there one anyway?

 

Personally speaking - I think the A1 would have still won (if there was a vote) on account of its loss being more raw with the group of people around at the start of the project.

 

True but then again Gresley has a very strong following which may have swung any vote but it's all academic as we're going to have both before too long.

 

There was never a vote but it there was it would probably be for a P2 rather than another Blue Peter with big wheels.

 

I don't disagree with that. Many of the original trust also wanted to see a P2 and I suspect a few of them would have preferred a P2. As you say, academic now - and I'm glad the two engines have been built this way round as it meant that Tornado could work well out of the box and provide the raw data which allowed the creation of an improved P2 design in the first place.

It was always intended from the beginning that a Peppercorn A1 should be built and I think it's dangerous to start talking down Tornado herself as being a "Blue Peter with big wheels" as I do not believe - and I know a number of people in the trust would agree - that a P2 would have been possible at that time in the same way an A1 was. Tornado has been the trail blazer and we should forever be grateful for that locomotive and the team which built her as they have pushed a number of boundaries and made railway preservation in general, whether positively or negatively, question the accepted method of doing things.

I would hope in years to come that we do not see 60163 neglected in favour of 2007 by anyone in preservation. She was the first, she has been a great success, and we should not talk down that success.

 

Regardless of how the decision was reached, doing the A1 first and the P2 second strikes me as sensible. Building a big mainline engine from scratch is complex enough (for example, solving the financial picture, which was far from the least of the team's achievements). Choosing as your first a attempt a design with known complexities in valve gear and underframe may have been a step too far. Worth considering as well that the state of the art of computer modelling evolves at a rapid pace: the design simulation that was done on the chassis may well have simply not been possible (or at least, affordable...) in the mid 1990s.

Tom

 

I wasn't talking down Tornado, I just think that's how a lot of people would have seen it had there been a P2 option at the time. Tom is right though, Tornado was looked at as an impossible dream when the project was conceived, a P2 would have been even more so.

 

Only being able to paint it in one livery would be a peculiar reason for choosing a particular new build project.

Number 2007 has never carried Apple Green, so that would be a totally inauthentic livery. It has to be undercoat or nothing for me

Seriously, why would anyone want anything else? Well, for me the whole point of building 2007 is an exercise in what might have been. A Gresley P2 with the wrinkles ironed out, and therefore little or no excuse for Thompson to rebuild it. If there really had been a class survivor it would have carried several liveries other than Apple Green. As an exercise in what might have been, why should we believe that is acceptable for mechanical changes, but not liveries?

It may well be the case that the trust decide that 2007 will only ever be presented in Apple Green, but for me that would be a wasted opportunity. If I hang around long enough I would love to see 2007 portrayed in the other liveries it might have carried in its fictitious working life, and if there are others who are reluctant to photograph the loco because of slavish adherence to notional historical accuracy, to me that would be a price worth paying.

Furthermore, as SACM has pointed out, we even have a good idea of the BR number the loco would have carried.

Or we can resign ourselves to Apple Green, year in year out, ad infinitum. I know which way my vote would go.

Dave

 

I'm curious, why would you be bothered about people not photographing it?

 

I'm really not that bothered at all. That's basically what I said, or meant to say. I apologise if I expressed myself badly.

I have largely kept out of the livery debate, but I would place myself in the middle ground between the extremes of "it can only be painted in a livery it carried pre- 1968" and "it's my loco and I'll do what I like". I strongly prefer the livery to have some authenticity though, which the 8F didn't IMO. Reading these debates I have gained an impression that those who have a special interest in photography are more passionately purist. Again, apologies if I am mistaken.

In my opinion the P2 should be seen as a special case. The trust are building a locomotive which might have survived into BR ownership, even though the other class members didn't. I personally don't agree with the view that it can only be painted Apple Green and that's that. It's just my own opinion, and I recognise that other opinions are held, and respect that. I would love to see it in other liveries, but if it only ever appears in Apple Green it will still be amazing.

Dave

 

If you want to change the policy of the trust I suggest you join and then you can have your say.

 

Bear in mind that I'm a founder member of the P2 - but I am curious as to the evidence for that statement. The evidence I've seen shows that though the P2 design can be fixed and turned into something amazing, the P2s as built and that worked on the LNER were going to end up marginalised, scrapped, or rebuilt. BR ownership with mikados was increasingly unlikely and probably impossible once the major crank axle failures were brought to Thompson's attention, sadly.

 

I think if Gresley had remained CME the design weaknesses would have been sorted out, but you can't invent a history I'm pleased it will be built as what I would call a 12in to the foot model of the original

John ( another P2 Founder)

 

If someone (Gresley, Bulleid, Thompson, whoever) had managed to identify exactly the real weaknesses in the original P2s and put them right without the more drastic rebuilding into pacifics, then they would have survived as 2-8-2s at least into the early years of BR and probably as long as the pacifics did. The Trust is building that might-have-been, with only two really significant exceptions: the original shape of the front end rather than the A4 shape, and the additional gubbins for main line operation in the 21st century.

 

No it isn't, it's building a duplicate of the original design, same as Tornado it's just the livery option is limited to Apple Green. If you go down the what if route the Stirling Single in BR livery could be justified.

As I've said whatever the view on here it will be Apple Green, same advice if you want to try and change that join the trust.

 

There is no evidence whatsoever. I couldn't have made it clearer that I was expressing an opinion. I hope to see it in Apple Green, but I would also love to see it in alternative liveries. The (fictional) back story to that would be that, against all the odds, it survived into BR ownership. If it never happens, then so be it.

Dave

 

I respectfully disagree John. There is no evidence that Gresley was interested in sorting out their problems at all, hence why they continued to have strangely high fuel consumption, many ad hoc repairs and a number of crank axle failures that went virtually ignored. The six P2s were made as close to identical as they could be (walschaerts plus streamlining) and he didn't consider them worthy of development to the extent that his planned bigger engines were all 4-8-2s and one 4-8-4 was planned...with 6ft 8in wheels.

So the P2 became an evolutional dead end for Gresley, but was used for Thompson for his standard mixed traffic Pacific design (A2/3 is very similar to the A2/2 in many respects) later culminating in Peppercorn's A1, such is the design evolution of the later Thompson and Peppercorn Pacifics.

However I am absolutely with you: I am very pleased it is actually being built and no doubt (having looked at the work going into it) it'll sort the problems of the originals and then some. I suspect Shap should be quaking...

Lots of what ifs in terms of preventing the rebuilding I am afraid. Thompson after having ES Cox's report was pretty clear in what he wanted to do and had the A2/2 compared to the 5 remaining P2s for a year before gaining authorisation for the rest. However that's for another thread...

In short I'd like to think we all agree seeing one will be superb.