Near misses

The Victorians would have just got on and done it. Even in the sixties, there was still a can do attitude to such things in many places. (How times have changed!)

 

Well there clearly wasn't as thry said no thanks.

Why anyone realistically thought that the offer would be accepted is hard to fathom. Do you want a steam engine that has no connection with you apart from the name and obtw you have to pay for transport and housing. A gift of the nameplates might have been a better offer.

 

One of the NBR Atlantics was put aside just before the start of the war in 1939. Unfortunately the war need for scrap saw it cut up. Now that would have been a loco to see running nowadays...

 

Really? Like the recent gifting of the T3? Swap {T3} for {A4} and see how many organisations would reach for their wallet. Although could you imagine the uproar if the NRM gifted a loco that went out of the country...

You do have a point when you look at it in the context of those times. A Rail museum of the 1960's would be more interested in local engines so as to tell local steam history. The NRM tells British steam history and vice versa would also be true in regards to other countries.

I still think such an iconic loco as an A4 would be a huge draw card anywhere today.


Now for some serious W.I.B.N...

60012 Commonwealth of Australia survives and makes it's way down under. In the late 70's 4079 Pendennis Castle also comes to Australia - time trials on the longest straight stretch of railway in the world anyone? ( Ok, so the A4 might win over the 297 miles but I bet the castle would get him off the line!). Fast forward to 1988 and Flying Scotsman comes to the party with 3801....

Yeah, I know, such engine gatherings happen in the UK on most days that end in a 'Y' and W.I.B.N. will be the 'roon' of us all, or give us hairy palms, or send us blind...

 

Really? While the two locos that came over recently pulled big crowds here do they pull the punters in in their host museums?

 

I don't know. It would be hard to quantify without a survey of some sort.

Gut instinct from me is, yes. As someone who qualifies in the 'enthusiast that lives in a different country' demographic I would make the effort of a trip and an entrance fee to see a museum with an A4 for sure if there was one. E.g. put two museums side by side, both have similar offerings but one has an example of one of the fastest steam locos in the world - which one will get more people in? I think they would pay for their floor space.

 

Well we are all different but the Canadian museum gets around 50k visitors and the US one claims 75k. Who knows how many go to see the A4s and wouldn't go of they weren't there. I'd wager not many go just to see the A4s.

 

Australia had no need for foreign loco as it has plenty of fine Locos of its own, just got back from seeing some of them

 

Only too true. Unfortunately these days if you try to do something and it goes wrong you get shot at by those who can't or won't do it. Far safer to stand back and do nothing.

 

Not sure quite what relevance that has to the desire or otherwise of the Kiwis more than fifty years ago to pay to transport 160 tons of metal half way round the world?

Tom

 

Because the world was so perfect back then. I feel sorry for people who weren't alive in the 1950s because they will never know what perfection is.

 

It still surprises me that more of the Lambton tanks were not saved. They would have been ideal power for many lines.

 

Back in the early sixties, I remember a visit to Middleton by two people from the Bluebell. They said that they were on their way to the north east as they had heard that there were some 0-6-2 tanks there that might be suitable for their railway. History says that they didn't succeed in their quest.

 

I've always thought it a shame non of the superheated Caledonian 4-4-0s were saved, they lasted reasonably late, I think.

 

I've always wondered why there wasn't more saved from the Longmoor Military Railway, anyone have any ideas why?

 

Indeed we do have some fine locos.
But you should have seen the fuss in 1988/89 when 4472 was here...........

 

We took the offer of the nameplate although it took sometime to get it out of the UK as it was at our High Commission in London for Years. It now is bolted to the wall at the old New Zealand Railways Headquarters in Wellington. So if you ever get to Wellington Station you can see it. We weren't quite as backward in the 1960 as you suggest. We had retired our teams of bullocks hauling wagons some years previously. I recall various locomotives being transported by truck from distances in excess of 100 miles to our museum at Ferrymead in Christchurch.