Heritage Line Loco Power Requirements

I'd agree with you. "might not" would probably have been a better choice of words when I mentioned Talyllyn, and Welsh Pony's rebuild hasn't been without it's critics either. Mentioning 'Trigger's Broom' related subjects round here can always relied upon to raise a few hackles.... and long may that continue!

 

While I agree that building a new boiler may often be the right choice, is the manufacturing capability to do so available (in the UK)? I'm thinking in particular of the problem 'Unknown Warrior' has run into, with LNWR Heritage having decided to stop contract boiler construction. Other than LNWR Heritage, how many places in the UK have the capability to build an entire boiler at the moment? I have this vague memory they were about the only ones who could/would do an entire boiler. (I'm aware the capability could be built up elsewhere, if there is enough demand.)

Noel

 

I had been going to observe that the picture would look different viewed over 20 years. Reality is though not many are looking over that timescale, and to do so requires financial stability.

You mention the banks, and I think that there is a generally untapped funding opportunity here, but only for lines with proven financial stability and governance.

I was putting the byzantine ownership structures into the "not possible to acquire" category of my thinking. I think that as time goes on those structures will unravel and I can think of half a dozen examples of this happening in the last few years. My view is that if you have the money, you can have the power to pull the trains. Doesnt make it easy or quick, but it is achievable. What is more the unraveling process will make more locomotives "available", and that will likely decrease the demand for a batch of new builds.

 

The Patriot boiler situation is a major glitch, no escaping that. The heritage market for new large rivetted loco boilers is still a comparatively new thing, but it won't stay that way if many of our preserved fleet are to continue working over the long term.

If the history of the heritage movement has shown us anything, it's that there are a very resourceful and practically minded bunch of people out there. If there's a need, a supply will be developed.

 

Adam Dalgleish on Teeside is currently building two new boilers, I believe, one for an S160 and the second for an NG16 Garratt. Both have steel fireboxes but I suspect these will become more prevalent as the availability of arsenical copper declines and its price rises. I don't think there is an inherent problem in building copper fireboxes, other than that welding is more challenging.

I'm not sure that there is a large surplus of motive power out there - the NYMR hasn't been able to source anything this year and it normally presents a lucrative offer to loco owners. Demand seems to be outstripping supply although not by much even though there are more participants in both the boiler and locomotive overhaul contracting sector than there were a few years ago.

 

If you refer to the ex-NYMR 2-8-0, then it is not a new boiler, albeit there is substantial new platework. You can follow it on face book. Both these locos and (AFAIK) the NG16s had steel boxes ab initio, so I don't think this illustrates a trend.

 

You are probably right about the S160 boiler, but a substantial proportion is new - I don't think it would be a big technical leap forward to make it all-new. I was not suggesting that these two boilers are the start of a trend for steel fireboxes, but I do think a trend will develop, albeit slowly, as we are generally, cautious folk in the UK! I think the change will eventually be forced upon us, though.

 

The SVR and South Devon both seem to be able to build substantial parts of, if not a complete full size loco boiler. The RPSI is also planning to build a spare boiler for the NCC Jeep with a view to using it for a new build loco further down the line. I'm not sure how much of the new boiler they are intending to build themselves but they basically renewed No4's firebox at the last overhaul.

Keith

 

I pretty sure the South Devon have said if someone came to them asking to build a complete loco, they could do it. It's not all that bad at moment!

 

Unless I'm mistaken, Bridgnorth boiler shop will be building the boiler for 82045.

 

An example of the surgery on 2253's boiler (from Friends of 2253 facebook site). Over in Alaska, the 557 boys http://557.alaskarails.org/ are doing it in traditional US fashion with the boiler in situ on the frames.

 

The boiler discussion is really interesting. It appears to me, that if you can make a new firebox, inner and outer, it stands to reason you can manufacture a whole boiler, the firebox being the more complex engineering task, whereas the barrel etc is by comparison anyway, the straight forward bit. Edit, Pun intended

I think it can be done, as LNWR have shown.

Ideally, someone/s gets hold of a nice old few hundred ton old press, (there must be one lying around somewhere in the uk) and a large oven, or fabricate an oven, and various railways pitch money in to a pot to meet the cost of manufacturing dies and blanks for xyz back/throat plate, tube plate, whatever.

Think of it as a kind of socialized lottery, many railways meeting the cost together, to allow a fully capable manufacturing resource to be built up. Then, I suppose there has to be some kind of scheme to determine a schedule of who gets what first...thats where it would all start to come apart I dare say.

 

someone mentioned the residual life left in Barry locos, which has mostly been used up at this stage and someone else mentioned locos that have been pretty intensively renewed either in preservation or in BR days (I'm thinking Maunsell Mogul here as an example.)

I think the time will come when a batch of standard 3s is feasible, the only people who will cry about the old favourites consigned to the showroom will be the likes of us, the public wont care, many of them wouldn't actually notice a diesel on their train never mind a "replica" .

I would like to see a bit more reality in people, recognising this. How many of those laid aside locos need new fireboxes or frames etc and probably wont ever get to the top of that list.?

 

Reality? I still don't understand how replacing a complete firebox, or a complete boiler or whatever is more expensive/difficult than building an entirely new loco.

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

 

Meee-ow! Now I enjoy a good polemic assasination as much as the next man, but..... C'mon Martin... the whole point of a discussion is to bandy our individual positions/hobby-horses, chew the fat and come to some sort of concensus... or not.

The day we're all too frightened of saying something because it 'might upset someone' is the day we might as well throw the towel in. Somebody tell me I'm wrong!

 

Come on gents. Let's step back a bit and breathe a little...take a deep breath...

RE a batch production of 3MTs. If it was going to happen it would have happened at the start of the project when ordering individual items is less expensive when ordered together.

I am not convinced you will ever get consensus between all the groups in the railway world to get a batch production of locomotives - in standard gauge at any rate, the narrow gauge world in many ways leading the batch production method with the locomotives and carriages they have built.

 

i didn't say that. My point really is that if you have a queue of locos, those which are the easisest fix will always leapfrog those with expensive problems and those that are not suitable for the traffic on offer, ie too big or too small. Sooner or later the whole queue will need a bigf spend and then the batch of standard 3s will look more attractive

 

Now just get it accurate. My "opening gambit" was not to accuse others of having a guilty conscience but to say I could not go along with the indignation at Reading General's comments. My comments about guilty consciences came when the OTT level of indignation continued.

PH

 

I suspect that there is the tendency for the easier to overhaul locos to jump the queue, but not always the case. A particular case that springs to mind is P class 27 on the Bluebell. Having been dismantled in the 1970s, found to be too difficult for the limited resources at the time, and left pretty much spread around Sheffield Park in the open ever since, it is now the subject of an extensive rebuild (including new frames, cylinders and almost certainly a boiler). I'm sure that there are cheaper locos awaiting their turn there, but the team who have taken it on should be applauded for rescuing poor old 27. "Welsh Pony" on the FR is another case in point. Strictly speaking it could be argued that neither loco is actually needed from an operational point of view (a nice bit of WIBN in action!), although work will be found for them I'm sure.

I'm also sure that both locos are now receiving the attention they are getting because they belong to railways with sufficient scope (space, volunteers, experience, ability to raise funds, etc) to enable it to happen, without distracting too much from the main business of running the train service.

Getting back on thread (!) the advantage of new builds, or indeed massive rebuilds (as in the case of 27) is that it produces locos which can realistically be expected to run for many years before needing such rebuilding, and that might actually help some of the older and more historic locos receive the attention they need, and so enable them to keep running.

Steve B