4003 Lode Star

Perhaps Tyseley could exchange their Jubilee for 'Lode Star'. That way the NRM would still have an express loco , although with one less cylinder, & Tyseley would have another potentially restorable GWR loco for main line use.

Bob.

 

I can think of at least one 57xx which is now effectively a museum exhibit having been worn out in service with no plans to overhaul it (and it is arguably the most iconic of it's class). I think quite a few more could be de-accessioned without hazarding the ability to tell the story, whether they could be replaced with tanks or freight locos to re-adjust the balance is another matter.

I don't think there is actually anything to learn from a loco kept in ex Swindon condition. I can't think of any benefit anyway

 

If it's an exchange needed than a large freight tank would be my suggestion, they already have a Castle and King. Just think of all the iconic GWR tanks they don't have. 42xx,45xx,5101,57xx 14xx, 56xx and many more.They barely scratch the surce of over a century of the GWR

 

I refer you back to my post #31...

I know a lot of people struggle to get their heads around the philosophy of conservation. It is not an easy thing to explain. But I am fortunate in that my work has given me the chance to spend time with amazing historians and archaeologists, who can extract so much information about the past just by looking at an object - no supporting documentation, just the object itself. The can look at a lump of stone and tell you how it was carved just from the pattern of marks which the tools have left on the surface, or date a textile just according to the type of stitching that was used. It is an incredible thing to watch. If only you could see it for yourselves, you would understand why I think Lode Star is so precious, so important! Because if you "restore" an object, as soon as you start changing it and messing about with it, you destroy historical information. And again - having spent a career in this field, I have had the chance to observe how often people have come to curse the well-intentioned "restorations" of previous generations, because they have got some detail wrong, or inadvertently destroyed something important.

It is not an easy thing to explain because it is not just a matter of bare facts. It is a feeling and an instinct that one develops over years of studying history and working in museums, an assessment based on dozens of individual experiences. The greatest challenge for any of us who work in conservation is to draw out the stories of a static exhibit, the knowledge we can gain from it, in such a way as help people get as excited about them as we do - without doing any further damage to the object itself.

 

Which one?

 

well then can you think of any information gained in the last decade (say)? I doubt there's anything extra to be learned after all it's years in preservation. I've already mentioned that it is a compromised restoration anyway, who's to say it does or doesn't accurately represent originality? I actually recall a story of a well- intentioned custodian at the old Swindon museum repainting items with paint bought from Woolworths.

 

If you conserve the parts, you lose the fastenings that hold the parts together ... Which might sound an arcane point, but the point is that it isn't just the parts that tell a story, but how they were assembled, or how in the past they were repaired.

Then there is the point about something being a tangible connection to the past. The best example I can think of is an aeroplane: the Lancaster in the Hendon Museum. It flew over 100 missions during the war and was preserved shortly afterwards. So everything about the aeroplane has that direct physical connection to the events being remembered, right down to the wear and tear on the pilots seat and controls. Restore it to flying condition and all that would go, and could never be recreated. You'd gain a flying Lancaster and lose the connection to the events that made it famous.

One last point for the "steam everything" brigade: there isn't the workshop capacity to do so, nor the work available if you did. So "steam loco X" is the flip side of "don't restore loco Y". Which loco should sit slowly deteriorating in a siding somewhere just so "Lode Star" can be seen running for ten years? Given the secure undercover storage of Lode Star, taking it to be restored and thereby inevitably condemning some other loco to an extended period deteriorating outside doesn't seem like in the best overall interest of the preserved locos we have.

Tom

 

The National Collection from a GW point of view is in any case completely unbalanced in that there are three closely related 4 cylinder express locos (4003, 4073, 6000) whilst there is not a single standard 2 outside cylinder type in the collection since 2818 was transferred out. The initial choices of what was kept is quite bizarre and unrepresentative.

 

As a trivial example, only the Star and the 94 will tell you how the works tended to install split cotters...

And then go and read the report on Tangmere's gudgeon pin problem to see why this sort of thing may be important to know...

 

I think you are rather missing the point. Research is never finished. There is never a point where we say ‘we know everything about this and there is nothing more to learn.’ This is why researchers often return to sites and objects years apart.

We don’t know what questions might be asked in the future that the loco might be able to answer. We don’t know what research developments might come about that allow us to revisit the loco with fresh eyes. We don’t know what documentary discoveries might occur in the future that might prompt a revisit.

If we scrape back the paint and find that it came from Woolworths, that is no bad thing because it helps to flesh out our understanding of how locos were conserved in the past.

This is one of these cases where if people are so desperate to see a Star in action, the logical argument is to argue for a from scratch new build ‘as you would like it to be’ (historically accurate for 19xx, updated with all the latest technology and knowledge to make it new and improved, etc etc) rather than ‘Trigger’s Brooming’ Lode Star.

 

Richard Gibbon once showed me the bogie on the Star with all the nuts and cotters perfectly aligned. That's Swindon engineering, he said. I'd prefer them all to be properly tightened, rather than looking pretty.

 

I would guess 5775 most likely.

Chris

 

Brilliant idea.

 

7760.

 

That was also where my money was heading.....

 

Looking at the time of your post, great minds think alike or at least cannot sleep at night as bizarrely I was deep in thought about a replica Dean Single Wheeler in the dark hours over the weekend. I have seen no mention of the project since the GWS raised it as an idea moving forward, I do note from their accounts that it does already have a dedicated fund but no more detail is available. Does anyone have an idea what drawings are available, oh and it must avoid Churchwards later boiler fettling!

 

My recollection is that the chap leading the project passed away several years ago.
Ray.

 

That's a pity, shame they have been unable to find anyone else to lead, from the small circle of people I engage with on GWR matters there would seem to be a heck of a lot of support out there for such a project.

 

Given the very low probability of any surviving single-wheeler ever running again, it would be wonderful to have a new-build one ̶ but ̶ where would it run? The raison d'être of single-wheelers was to pull light-weight trains fast.

BTW, this Lode Star thread seems the wrong place to be discussing a new-build Dean Single.

 

The NRM probably also take into consideration, what other organisations have examples of those items.

Given a choice between an item that no one else has, and a type that several others have examples of, I'd probably opt for the unique item (By which I mean common types that have been reduced to a single example, not prototypes etc).