Brighton Atlantic: 32424 Beachy Head

To deal with this properly would take the thread far away from the topic of a new-build locomotive. NP tends to be far too lococentric anyway. as do enthusiasts as a whole. It is wrong to kid ourselves that these replica projects are driven by educational motives. Sorry but no. They.with a few exceptions, are driven by WIBN.

As for "the public" that is a convenient shorthand for a group of individuals. A coach holiday group will tend to have a large proportion who would not be there if the holiday company had not brought them.These are mixed with individuals with a varying degree of knowledge, including active volunteers taking advantage of a cheap means of visiting a line in another part of the country. I have met all sorts and they need to be dealt with as individuals, not as "the public". They just have to be be treated hospitably. You will soon find our if there are some who know a bit more. Family groups are no different.

Lastly , please not "the movement". It sounds like religion or politics.

PH

 

I realise most of us are merely heathens worshipping false gods and having not yet achieved true spiritual enlightenment, but it would still be nice if now and again the missionaries allowed us to worship in peace without being endlessly reminded of the error of our ways ...

Tom

 

Whats wrong with the odd bit of WIBN?

 

You will never achieve Nirvana that way.

 

It is normally "odd"

 

Without it, it is doubtful if any lines or stations would have been reopened or many locos and coaches saved.

 

On that basis, I get the logic of the Craven. Of course, there'll need to be much explaination of circumstances surrounding the departure of a gentleman, whose name will be unknown to the overwhelming majority of visitors. As mentioned in another post earlier..... a significant portion of our purpose is to inform.

Although a tad earlier than your timeframe, one interesting survival is a Bury 2-2-2 Great Southern & Western No.36, preserved at Glanmire Rd in Cork. Piccie herewith from the jolly interesting EireTrains website:
http://www.eiretrains.com/Photo_Gal...ions.html#GlanmireRoad_20090924_018_CC_JA.jpg

Forgive me if I'm still hankering after a Billinton K!

 

And nowt wrong with that. Variety is the spice of life and it's not wrong, just different.

We all have our own vices Paul; it's only you who would have us believe there is one singular way to approach things.

Maybe I am just that bit more service minded than you Paul; but I don't think of the public as a group of individuals. I think of them as individual humans with the capacity and potential for wanting to know more and be interested by it. Quite rightly it is up to the individual to decide if they are interested, and it is up to us to present our movement in the best possible manner. Not just for our finances, but I do believe in education where history is concerned, and many railways do a very good job of that and some don't.

Our father, who art in Doncaster, Gresley be thy name. Thy Thompson come, rebuilds will be done, in steam, as it is in Swindon...forgive us this day our daily Midland, as we forgive those who prefer Ivatt...or the Southern region...and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from signal passed at danger...amen...

In seriousness though, what is railway preservation if not a movement? I'm not religious in the slightest way (having given up catholicism rather publicly many, many years ago) but we are a collective and movement is simply a broad term to show we're all doing a very similar thing in a multitude of ways. It is, I believe, to our collective good that we do our best to sell the best of our movement.

(Which on a side note I hope I did on Channel 4 in July - and you will see if I did in November. I am passionate about railways and our heritage railways and believe we truly are better together).

 

I missed this - Paul, I am wrong on occasion. Probably moreso. But I rather think I take it with a good grace and always look to do better next time.

 

Question - what happened to the other spare boiler? Cut up?

 

Thinking of WIBNs beyond locomotives, perhaps one of the most persistent ones is the one that goes "WIBN if we could make loads of money running a commuter service on this line that was closed because it wasn't getting enough traffic"

 

I can see the similarities, both religion and and railway preservation tending to split apart for no good reason. As the poem put it "the two and seventy jarring sects." Was Omar Khayyam anticipating preserved railways?

PH

 

I heard that John Chester Craven was, by all accounts, a bit of a crazy!

 

Worth reading Hamilton Ellis' "Twenty Locomotive Men"

PH

 

Not so crazy he never worked after the LBSCR. Descriptions of his character tend to use words like 'formidable' and on one occasion, 'frightening'. A late interview of Sir William Stanier (was it Knock or Hamilton-Ellis?) ticked both those boxes too!

Craven's expertise as a consulting engineer was valued by many undertakings. His "specific loco for specific duties" dictum wasn't completely a million miles away from HNG's practice, though a more Churchwardian approach to assembling different classes from a more standardised range of components certainly wouldn't have gone amiss.

 

We're living our respective dreams and there's nothing wrong with that no matter what the doom mongers may think.

 

So nothing to stop someone building 37006 after all then!

 

Only us, never you?

Unlike Cassandra, we hear you and acknowledge that your points may have merit, in their place. And, if it should happen that you are indeed wholly right and others wholly wrong, can I remind you of the boy who cried wolf?

 

Nothing, in it's place. But we're serious players making important decisions to keep railways operating safely and profitably. Enthusiasts are welcome to have speculative discussions, but can't they take them elsewhere? You'd think in these days of so-called 'social media' there'd be some kind of internet discussion forum for that kind of thing.

Oh. Hang on a moment...

 

The 3MT hijacking and thread tidying were sorted out for yet another handbagging session? And for the record, I liked Garak's take on the moral of the boy who cried wolf (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf ....if you really feel the need to know what the hell I'm rambling about this time)

Just to try and crowbar things back on topic, even though my No.1 LBSC missing link remains the K, I still like "Beachy Head"....... so there!