What would you do?

We have a Barclay in our possession which without a doubt has seen better days! This particular loco happened to be the last working steamer in Fife, so a few years ago, the team assumed this would be the best contender for restoration. How wrong they were! We just expected a little nip-tuck and a re-tube but it turns out the smokebox has snuffed it and plenty of wasted stays!

So it's been sat in bits in our yard for a number of years and no decision being made on it's future. Question is, what would you do?

In an ideal world where money grew on trees I'd have it restored, but I have no idea how much of a cost this would be, either by boiler repair or a whole new boiler!

Guessing the other options would either be a cosmetic restoration or scrap (last resort).

Opinions?

(I'll have a couple of pictures of the boiler tomorrow).

 

Find out the likely costs and then make a decision. It's all too easy to talk yourself out of a project by assuming that costs will be higher than they actually are. If you then find it's unaffordable, conserve it till it is affordable.

 

Even if the cost, in effort and cash, of restoration to working order can be found sooner or later, will it be justified by the use that anyone will get out of the restored loco? I suspect not.

If you go for a cosmetic restoration, where will you display the loco, who will come to see it, and is that worthwhile? Again I suspect not.

If you sell it for scrap, what will it fetch, what could you do with the money, and what could you achieve with the time that you won't spend working on it?

 

smokebox is just sheet steel in the main and replacing stays is commonplace, so if the rest oe the firebox and boiler is fairly OK, not a huge project

 

Can't you come to agreement with a perserve railway. Where they help pay for the restoration and then receive free running days from the owning group.

 

Replacing stays may be commonplace but it is still relatively skilled work, just like riveting. You can easily make a mess of a firebox if you aren't careful. As its a Barclay, I'd be wary of the front strake of the barrel.

 

It seems to me that as the last working steam loco in Fife it has some historic value which justifies at least conserving the loco

 

i would say to start with cosmetically restore it, and if you can find support start raising funds are their any railway centres in fife? or preserved railways that may offer it a home should you be able to raise funds? if you cant, then you have to do what you decide is best, either release it to another group who can restore it, of sell it but if you sell it to the scrap man, its gone , and you can never ever get it back, or even visit it, can you live with that?

 

Yes,Barclay smokeboxes are part of the front ring of the boiler barrel.

 

Yes it's stored here at the Fife heritage Railway. We are only a small setup and we do not have the facilities/skills for boiler repair. What concerns me is that the board are looking for funding on our other projects and expansion, so this Barclay is at the back of everyone's mind. I'm concerned on how much time is left before it's no longer salvageable! Time to start buying lottery tickets!

 

It needs to get under cover, bare minimum to reduce damage from the elements. How much for some tarps if it can't be stored undercover?

The "release to a group" seems like a logical idea. A loan for restore and run, and return, seems best. The question is where. We're not exactly short of Barclays in railway preservation.

As much as being the last working steam locomotive in Fife is nice, what else makes it worthy of preservation? What's its story? Does it have any other unique selling points?

 

Here's some pictures of thee boiler in its current state. I took a look inside at the stays and they don't actually seem in terrible condition, although I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination! Can see that the smokebox is in terrible condition also.

 

Looks like a steel box but it could be deceptive. It has suffered at the front right of the foundation ring, though. Lying on its side on the ground isn't going to be doing it any good. It can rot away quite quickly in such conditions. How long has it been like that? It needs lifting off the ground and placing on something that is not going to hold water. That front strake of the barrel/smokebox is shot, as well. You might get away with cutting it off at the tubeplate and a D patch but it would probably be better to fit a whole new section.
It's all routine wotk these days (and always has been in reality) but it isn't going to be a cheap job.

 

Having been involved in a couple of these jobs;

1 you will need lots of time, skills, big heavy workshop equipment (or access to it) and most of all, money.

2 ignore the armchair boiler makers, your boiler survey company will call the shots so you need to speak to them in order to determine the extent of work. You will need to get the boiler into a position and condition where it can be inspected. This is the first expense.

3 everything that you take apart will reveal the need for more work and money. It's not only the boiler.

4 anybody who offered you help will probably vanish when it starts raining or there is a need to break sweat.

5 after two years you will wonder why you started the job

6 when you get near completion more people will offer to help

7 if you get it working you have to find something to do with it that can earn some money as in ten years time you will need another pot of money, labour, accommodation etc. to take it apart again. This is really a question you need to ask yourself between 1 and 2.

8 did I mention that you will need lots of money?

9 don't let me put you off but it is 2016 and if nobody's had a go at the job by now there is probably a good reason. A nice cosmetic job will be easier on the nerves and.....the money!

 

It was elevated from the ground until this summer when it needed to be moved and it's ended up being grounded. Understood it wouldn't be a cheap job but what really doesn't help is that we don't have big enough facilities for boiler repair.

As above we don't have the skills or facilities for boiler repair, although we have just put another Barclay together. The guys we have here are old tug and pit engineers, all knowing their way around Barclays and any form of diesel. This was our most recent project (3 year job).

 

If i were in your situation, i would look at what you can do cheaply , to start and to get interest in the engine, first, thing has to be to get the boiler upright and on blocks to enable you to clean it up needle gun it, so it can be assessed properly then protect it with a coat of protective paint, if an engine is left abandoned, people wont want to help out, you need to actually start work on it, if you can do things like remetaling bearings in house, then whats stopping you from doing the axles, etc, overhauling the bottom end need not be expensive as long as you find nothing really bad, and once people see work being done, you should attract extra help, and hopefully money, as regards the boiler, an experienced boilersmith should be able to give you a fair idea of its condition before the boiler inspector looks at it, and you will need it clean before any inspection anyway.

 

For my sins, I've done a certain amount of boiler work... these days, I mainly sit in an ivory tower drawing pictures (with the odd dimension) of bits of boilers and adding extra zeros to the numbers on quotes.

It's impossible to tell from a few grainy pictures of the outside of a boiler what state it's in, and even stood next to it one can only see so much with all the tubes still in.

Best case is that the firebox is good, stays and crownstays are good, front tubeplate/barrel is good, and you get away with welding a D patch in the bottom of the smokebox, and putting a set of tubes in it. A set of tubes will probably be £2K, plus labour to remove the old set and fit new etc. A non-pressure side smokebox patch won't be a lot of money. If you've got to get contractors to tube it, flat off mating faces and pads, fit new studs, hydraulic and steam test it for you, you'd probably be looking at £5-8k all up. If you can do a lot of the time consuming but not very technical stuff yourselves, it could well cost you less.

At the opposite extreme, if the firebox is thin to the point of scrapping, it's got cracks in the backhead, and throatplate, needs a front barrel ring and front tube-plate etc, you could easily spend the wrong side of £50k with contractors fixing it (Although you would then probably get 30 years out of the boiler with little more then sets of tubes every ten years).

A probable mid-range would be it wanting a barrel ring, front tube-plate, set of crown stays, and some odd bits of building up on the box. You'd probably be looking at £20-25k with contractors all up in that case.

If it's not likely to get worked on any time soon, I would strongly suggest storing it the right way up off the ground to try and minimize deterioration (I've seen some strange and nasty sights where boilers have been left in bad places for long periods).

I wouldn't needle gun it (it will take forever to do well, and give you white finger as a bonus), get it shot blasted and sprayed (my local firm for mobile shot blasting this sort of things would probably want about £400 for the whole operation, which IMHO is money well spent, unless you really don't value your time or sanity).

You really need either a boiler inspector or a competent boiler-maker armed with a thickness meter to give it the once over, then you can start asking round for budget quotes based on what that throws up, and see how frightened you feel.

All this ignores the rest of the loco of course, when this should actually be a major consideration. It's no good just budgeting for doing the boiler if the bottom end is falling to bits and the cylinders are cracked.

Key questions are probably going to include:

1) General state of the bottom end. Is it all sloppy and horrible, or will most of it go again with minimal work

2) Cylinders - are the bores/valve faces good. Do they have wear or scores that will need machining out. Are the castings cracked?

3) Tyres - how much is left of them, and do they need (and will they stand) turning?

4) Are the frames true and square? It's not uncommon to find industrial locos where nasty things have happened to the frames, which has then had considerable and unfortunate knock-on effect on the running gear and motion (and round all which you will have to work if you want it to run well when it goes back together).

5) How complete is this engine. One with no backhead fittings, injectors, safety valves, bearing basses etc will cost considerably more to fix than one that is totally complete.

Some of this is somewhat subjective, depending on what you need the engine to do when it's done - an engine running over a couple of hundred yards on the flat can afford to clank more from the motion than one doing 10 mile round trips with a 1 in 40 bank in the middle.

Related to 5) above - if you decide at least for now, it's a bridge too far to return it to steam, I would suggest loosely reassembling all the big bits, and storing all the little bits in one section of a locked container should be a priority. Someone will thank you for it one day. The world of preservation is littered with examples of engines taken to bits by people with the best of intentions, where expensive and critical bits have subsequently gone missing (not least as over time the people involved move on), and the subsequent return to traffic 20 years later ends up costing half as much again because of all the extra things that have to be made or bought!

 

I think estwdjhn's advice is excellent, and should be used as a guide for many stalled or startup projects.


Keith