Steam Locomotive Restoration of the Decade 2010-2019

If it was diesels.... 45 015...

 

You are Stuart Reeder and I claim my prize!

Keith

 

80097?

For me it's probably 35018, because I love a Merchant Navy.

But to agree with a post above, I am constantly astounded at the effort and love that goes into every restoration, and to bring something back to life half a century after it was consigned to history is tremendous.

 

Happily I am not the person in question... nor Alf Roberts.

 

I accept the observation, and the scale of the work, but find the differences much harder to observe in many cases. Subjectively, I'd be more willing to nominate (30)506 than (31)263 in this category, based both on my understanding of the scale of work and of the time out of service.

 

Oi! What’s this (31) business all about? The loco is 263 ...

Tom

 

I think that both 75069 and 76017 both fall more or less into the "Restoration" category more than the "overhaul" category, after years of outside storage since previous tickets expired.

Richard.

 

If 75069 isn't a restoration then I'd certainly nominate it for overhaul of the decade! There are some very worthy nominations so far, and every restoration deserves enormous credit.

(Tin hat on) 35018 has performed well on the main line and I can understand why people are glad to see it restored. It will probably win the vote based on the locomotive's popularity. However when you have the resources of David Smith and Carnforth, then to me the restoration itself is nothing more than I would expect. So I would opt for one of those miraculous restorations by a small team with limited resources in a little shed somewhere, and since nobody has mentioned it yet I'll say 6989 Wightwick Hall at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre.

 

Since it returned to traffic in January 2010 am I allowed to nominate LMS 3F 47406? Granted the restoration was basically ‘done’ in the previous decade but the transformation from basically a ‘boiler on wheels’, and nearly all done by the owner and a few of his mates in their spare time, was quite an achievement.


(Edit: corrected previous text which somehow skipped a decade!)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Hardly nitpicking if it is factually accurate though Ralph?

 

Ralph. Find me a photo of a jubilee in the 1960s in BR late crest over an LMS inspired livery then.

Find me an MN in express blue when rebuilt in the late 50s.

Find me a crimson 8F in LMS or BR days.

And so on and so forth...

Being contrarian might be fun but it undermines the seriousness of research and work that other people have put into their restoration work.

 

That really is gorgeous.

 

That's quite some hovercraft!

 

Now if Stanier, Gresley or Bulleid had produced a UK version..................

 

Is everyone forgetting that it was actually inspired by Manorbier Castle?

 

The trouble is if you keep extending the meaning of a word it ends up not meaning anything at all. I submit that restoration should not apply to any process that could have happened in a railway factory during normal working life, which could include almost complete renewal (another complex word in this context) of any component, but crucially to my mind was starting with something running or at least fundamentally runnable.

 

As Lester notes Collett did, and is not praised for it...