Current and Proposed New-Builds

How about an Immingham? Those and the Fish Engines seem to have been the most successful of Robinson's 4-6-0s. Must be something lucky about North East Lincolnshire.

 

If we have moved onto the GC, how about an A5 4-6-2 tank then?

 

An excellent analysis

 

An excellent summing up of the practices of many, probably most, of the pre-Grouping companies, but practices would vary at least slightly from one to another. The LNWR and L&YR charged new locomotives to either the Capital Account or Revenue Account, and as said, Capital locomotives were new machines in all senses and were in addition to the existing stock. These engines would be numbered in a consecutive block, usually in chronological order. Engines charged to Revenue would indeed be replacements of an existing locomotive, so did not increase the number of engines the railway owned, but were not necessarily of a similar type or for similar traffic. They would take the number but not always name of the displaced loco, though, so the numbers would be scattered over the spectrum anywhere between 1 and 9999, making it very difficult to link and engine to its classmates simply by seeing the number carried, to the confusion of enthusiasts in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Others, of course, the Midland, GWR, etc., tended to number the engines built to all accounts in a single series, as the LMS did post-Grouping.

 

You know what.... I was so worried about the Paddington Pitchforks being sharpened that I clean forgot about that one!

 

(Deleted - duplicate!)

 

There's also the point on numbering that if a new locomotive took the place of an old one in the capital series and took the number, the original one may or may not have been disposed of at the same time. If the old one was kept (on the basis that it still had useful economic work to do) it would require a new number, hence the presence of "duplicate" lists. Different companies had different ways of doing that: on the LBSCR for example, eventually 600 was added to the running number of the duplicated loco (hence "Stepney" going from 55 to 655 in the early years of the twentieth century). The LSWR started by adding bars beneath or above numbers (hence 155 being on the capital stock and 155 being an old loco that had been duplicated). That turned out not to be very practical in the grime of an engine shed, so afterwards duplicated locos tended too have a "0" prefix.

There was at least a couple of instances on the LSWR where a loco was duplicated but then bought back into capital stock, but with its number by now taken elsewhere. As an example, one of the Beattie 0-6-0 goods was numbered 277; became 0277 when duplicated but then came back into capital stock during World War 1 and took the number 277-A - in the capital series, not a duplicate number.

It's an interesting field for anyone with the wherewithal to be able to study both the accounts and the engineering workshop books.

(For anyone really interested in how it worked on the Southern companies, I wrote this up some years ago: https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/southern-railway-loco-numbering.212375/)

Tom

 

"We'll give him a fair trial, then a fine hanging!"

 

Despite the previous comment from myself I'm finding myself drawn to an A2/2.....it's those wing deflector plates

 

Just make the smoke deflectors - much cheaper!

 

Moderator....quick...it's contagious!!

 

The LMS added 20000 to engines transferred to the duplicate list.

 

They had more engines!

Tom

 

The B&NCR added an 'A' suffix. The GSR just painted 'em grey and ran 'em into the ground (nobody's telling me all those choice 19th century antiques had any residual book value!)

 

I'm not disputing any of that, in fact it rather goes to prove my point, I'm also not condemning the practice or saying that it is wrong to do so, I'm merely saying that the resultant locomotive, along with others of it's ilk are in no way NEW BUILDS, they are re-designed re-builds, or conversions, or built from parts and should be recognised as such, and the term NEW BUILD should be used for the likes of Tornado, P2, F5 and similar.

 

I have wondered about this but have not got a clue as to where one would look to establish the reason for treating something as a rebuild v. new, either insight as to the issues within a railway finance department or prevailing tax rules at the relevant time. It seems unlikely that there was no provision in the tax rules for capital investment to be made out of pre-tax income, similar to today's capital allowances (but it is possible of course that 100% could not be offset Day 1 and the benefit accrued through the periodic deprecation charge to agreed schedules). Of course, to be worried about tax treatment rather implies that the railway was in a tax paying position which may not always have been the case. An alternative reason may have been gaming the internal system: the railways' budgeting processes may have been stricter on capex and applications needed greater scrutiny etc.

 

In the strictest sense, this makes perfect sense to me, but are there perhaps tax considerations attached to new build/rebuild projects we should be mindful of?

 

That is something that I can't possibly comment on.

 

Then BR gave them completely new numbers in the 58xxx series.

 

It's not quite as simple as that. At the one end of the spectrum is Tornado, where virtually everything is new build (maybe 100% - I'm no sure) At the other is 2999, which contains a lot of 4942. Importantly, however., there are also a number of "in betweens" such as the Patriot, which is re-using an LMS Fowler tender, or 32424 Beachy Head, which has the regulator handle from the original engine, some genuine LB&SCR tender axleboxes and, most importantly, an ex-LNER Ivatt Atlantic boiler. The frames, cab, wheels, valve gear, cylinders and most of the tender will be new built. The County and 47xx projects likewise are recycling bits from other engines but cannot be regarded as straightforward conversions like 4942 to 2999 or 78059 to 84030.