Current and Proposed New-Builds

Watch it! You're getting on side with those Swindonites. Are you in their pay?

 

Rumbled at last! And I’d been doing so well for the last few years disguising my adoration for the cult of the copper cap. I confess - all that Maunsell and Wainwright nonsense I professed to believe in was just a cover ...

Tom

 

The Saint's Law: any conversation on Great Western projects must include a bitter aside about how much Maindy Hall will be missed amongst the plethora of other halls and how it should have been restored in its own right...

It is seriously wearying how often the opportunity for a bit of GWS bashing arises on this forum.

Noticeable too that we barely hear a peep out of people for decades where Maindy Hall is concerned and now it feels like the naysayers have risen up to protest its rebuilding after the deed is done. If people felt that strongly that Maindy Hall should have been restored, they should have dipped into their own pockets and done it. Since nobody did, and it's now proven useful for a new build, it's not worth debating. End of.

Perhaps we can get back to talking about new builds good and proper then?

***

On that note I must relate a recent visit to Doncaster. The DP2LT were in the foyer of the station. I looked over their materials, at their banner, talked with them. I am not convinced that building a working P2 is the right answer. It feels more that they would like a locomotive to be built to represent the town. The thought occurs that a static model of the streamlined no.2001, suitably erected in the right location, would be a nice draw and would probably get built quicker than a working P2 in that form.

Speaking with the people involved, it felt very much piecemeal and very much unlikely to succeed.

I wish them the best but there's just not the drive or understanding of what is necessary that other groups have in spades. More's the pity.

 

Look, its very simple.
If you rescue a copper-capped locomotive from Barry and don't restore it, you are a twit.
If you rescue a copper-capped locomotive from Barry and rebuild it as something other than as built, you are a twit.
If you buy a copper-capped locomotive someone else rescued and didn't restore, then start to restore it, you are a twit.
If you rescue a copper-capped locomotive from Barry and restore it, and do a thoroughly good job of it, you are a twit, because you ought to have rescued a Black 5 instead.
If you rescue a copper-capped locomotive from Barry and restore it and a Black 5, and do a thoroughly good job of both, you are still a twit, because you ought to have gone to Tommy Ward's and rescued a B17.

 

Should the DP2LT effort be better put to assisting one of the GWR projects then seeing as its misdirected apparently.

 

No - but I think there’s an element of needing to get real on how a project operates. Funding, skill sets, getting priorities right, long term plans and hard work. You don’t build steam locos on branded teddies and pens.

 

I just think "How much is all that copper and brass worth as scrap?"

 

Twit.

 

Now where have I heard that before...?

 

Does it matter where it comes from, ultimately, if it is correct?

 

I think I "liberated" this handwheel from a withdrawn Réseau Breton metre gauge loco on a visit in 1967. (For my friend's account of that visit with some of my pictures see http://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/trains/france01.htm)

It has just emerged from the bottom of a crate of stuff that has been gathering dust in my house for many years (though not all the time since 1967) so I really don't think I want it. Is it any use to any new-builder?

Edit: outside diameter about 120 mm. Square hole about 16 mm.

 

W Churchill ............ or was it Macmillan ?

 

Arf Arf

 

Some interesting news from the 3840 project:
"We are pleased to announce that we've had an early Christmas present thanks to one of our supporters, who has generously sponsored the cutting of the 22 plates that will form No. 3840's frame stretchers, bufferbeam and rubbing plate etc. The order has been placed for these with TATA Steel at Wednesfield."

Keith

 

A big 'thank you ever so much' to that anonymous supporter!

Noel

 

-Noel, Noel, Noel,
Order your boiler from Israel
(Newton & co.)

 

Sorry, that went over my head.Can someone lay it out for me? Thank!

Noel

 

Parody of the chorus of the Christmas carol The First Noel

And it's Israel Newton the boilermakers....

 

As I understand it this project already has a boiler available - the correct no4 pattern taken from a 52xx. It's in exBarry condition so obviously will need (probably significant) work but they don't need to be looking at something new.

While it doesn't mean that this particular project is therefore bound to succeed it does set it ahead of some others out there.

With respect to the original locos, it has been said that they were not a success. It is worth noting that they ran up milages of a million miles each (or close to it) in a comparatively short life so they were well used. They were a 'stop-gap' design that were disposed of once they had served their purpose. That doesn't make them a failure.

 

To be fair all those taper boiler copper capped jobs look the same to me - as long as you keep the same number you started with who cares how the bits get swapped round?

And someone should have saved a B17 - I'd have donated my half-a-crown pocket money.

But ~I have to confess a secret shame - am looking forward to seeing one of the big 72xx's in steam