Current and Proposed New-Builds

Thanks Ruddingtonrsh56, l too am concerned how the 47xx would look. I believe the current Project thinking is to mount a No.7 two inches lower to avoid the excessive height of the original. This is probably with a view to retaining mainline aspirations. I am not sure if the cladding would retain the look of the production series which is l think what most people want to see. I think the No.1 option would also be clad to retain this form .

 

They wouldn’t build it if it didn’t look the same. If it is lower they might as well just build one of the other long ones but there’s lots of them already. South Devon had frames of one they could use and there’s one in Swindon museum just been given to them so just restore that. It needs to be the tight height

 

Nobody has seen a 47xx for fifty six years, so anybody walking up to a new build one would not be aware of any differences to the original build.

Bob.

 

[QUOTE="ruddingtonrsh56, post: 2569363, As a crew member I would take a rocker and hopper or better injectors over features correct to the initial design which are less convenient or reliable, or just make my job difficult in any way).[/QUOTE]

I was with you for so much of that post until you got to the make it easy for me crew comment.

"Come drive my Aston Martin DB5, it's just like driving a golf."

"Come drive my-insert new build loco- it drives just like a hunslet austerity."

 

Just out of interest, was the number 1 boiler the same type put on La France etc?

 

The Standard One was used on Saints, 28s, Stars, the Frenchmen, Halls and Granges. There were a great many variations over the decades, but they were all basically interchangeable.

 

Were using GW pattern injectors. However since moving to the west shed, and a change in personnel that has now changed and gone back to the LMS version that the originals had.

 

Photos exist so a quick google search would reveal any obvious discrepancies like a significantly slimmer boiler. Also, by that logic why bother about any authenticity for any new build? Why not just take the boiler from a Cardean, put it on the chassis of an LNER O3 and couple it to the tender from a Brighton K Mogul? (Yes, that's hyperbole). But the point of building a brand new loco of an old design is to recreate something that has been lost. If we start cutting corners and making sacrifices in major aesthetical elements just for convenience's sake, it rather defeats the point of building the thing in the first place IMHO.

I was with you for so much of that post until you got to the make it easy for me crew comment.

"Come drive my Aston Martin DB5, it's just like driving a golf."

"Come drive my-insert new build loco- it drives just like a hunslet austerity."[/QUOTE]

Are you a crew member? Do you have experience? Have you had to crawl under the cab of a loco through the narrow gap between the loco and tender, lie on the floor and get soaking wet as you rake out the ashpan because the loco you're crewing that day doesn't have a hopper ashpan and the inspection pit is not available? If you have and you would take that over a modification to ease the preparation or operation of a loco then that's fair enough. But as a fireman I can tell you that an awkward, unpleasant, difficult preparation experience does negatively effect the enjoyment and value I get out of a day on the footplate, and if I stop enjoying it enough, I'm going to hang up my shovel. I've come close to doing it after several successive days with awful prep experiences. Rocking grates, hopper ashpans, reliable injectors, all of these are significant, important factors.

Also have you ever worked a Hunslet Austerity before because I would not call it one of the easier locos I have ever worked, and if I was privileged to spend a day on the GWS 47xx once completed and it felt just like a Hunslet Austerity I would be bitterly disappointed.

 

Interesting. What were the reasonings behind the initial change and then the reversal?

 

Yes I have experienced many quirks of many locos. That is part of the joy of operating different locomotives. I would hate it if someone made it easy by homogenising all footplates.

I dont spend as much time on the footplate as I used to as a full time boilersmith I have quite a good trade in fixing things bad fireman have broken.

I think I'm currently fixing my 3rd austerity in as many years if you count the help I put into the one with a tender.

All I was trying to point out is that new builds should be built warts and all with as many contraptions and oddities as they had originally. Otherwise no footplate crew gets to experience what those lost classes were truly like.

 

Basically, GWR injectors work while LMS injectors are ... erm, a bit on the temperamental side. Usually at least one is playing up, but when both decide to sulk you can have a trying time.

 

The initial 47xx loco was built with a No1 boiler so if the GWS did the same it would be entirely authentic. If the loco is to spend it's days on heritage railways then what would be the point in spending a small fortune building a new boiler that will probably never be needed from a performance point of view.

I agree with the rest of your post.

Keith

 

You seem to be arguing for a strange hybrid: visually authentic, but all mod-cons for crews. Since one reason for constructing new locomotives is to understand about how they functioned (in a kind of experimental archaeology approach) then I'd say adding labour-saving devices deprives you of knowledge of a significant part of how different locos varied.

More specifically, on preparing a loco without a pit: there are times on any railway when space over a pit comes at a premium. However, if you are routinely having to do that, I would question the degree to which the driver can carry out a proper visual inspection of the locomotive as part of the preparation duties. So perhaps the answer is not to look at labour-saving devices for firemen, but consider the provision of pits and ensure that there is sufficient capacity for the anticipated level of traffic on the railway?

As for injectors: they vary, get used to it. I think had I been a fireman in the 1950s and someone gave me an 80xxx tank having cut my teeth on knackered seventy year old Stroudley D tanks and Marsh "wankers", I'd have probably bitten their arm off to get on it - comfortable, labour saving, everything just works, steam to spare for most duties. But having fired, and in many cases driven, everything from a 20 ton 0-4-0T industrial to a 150 ton pacific, the days I remember fondly are when you get one of the older, smaller, less user friendly locos and nonetheless manage to just sing along sweetly; that is far more reward than a day on a Standard when everything is just easy. In days past, there was no real type-specific competence and steam crews were expected to be able to cope with whatever they were presented with: the ability to work somewhere were that is still a requirement is to me one of the significant enjoyments from volunteering.

Tom

 

It's a long time since I was fireman (on the SVR) but at that time the engines were as they arrived from BR service, and mod cons had not then been added. Lighting up, and coughing with the smoke until the blower was available; breathing ash and dust at disposal, crawling about underneath and banging your head occasionally down the pit were not the most enjoyable part of the experience, but it's how it was and part of the recreation of the past; it was what engine crews had done for 130-odd years. To a volunteer doing the job once in a while, it was, as it were, part of the fun. I don't preclude these amenities being added, but if offered a choice of engines (it never happened!) the choice would not be based on the rocker, hopper or self-cleaning smokebox, or even whether it was a good steamer. It was all part of the challenge, and something, rather perversely, to be enjoyed.

 

But my point was that, while the original 47xx ran with a No.1 boiler for a short period of time, for the majority of their working life Night Owls had the No.7 boiler. I have not yet found a photo of 4700 with the smaller boiler. Therefore, to me, as to probably most others, a Night Owl is one with a No.7 boiler. If you were looking to build a new one to recreate what it was like when we had more of them, as that is what the majority of people will think of a Night Owl being, that is the look and condition it makes logical sense to build one with the No.7 boiler.

If you are looking to build a new loco for use on preserved lines, you wouldn't choose a 47xx. There are plenty of other extinct classes which make far more sense to build if you were building them with the express aim of having a new loco for preserved railway operation.
If you are looking to build a new loco to fill a Night-Owl shaped hole, the perfect choice is a Night Owl. If that is your primary reasoning, then the consideration of 'is it mainly going to run on preserved railways' is not as important in the decision making process of the design as 'What sort of a Night Owl do we wish to recreate'. As the larger boiler is, arguably, the 'quintissential' Night Owl, that is the one, to me at least, it would make sense to build.

I'm not arguing anything of the sort. My point was in reference to using bits of an 8F which was unlikely ever to run again in its own right to go towards the new County, which, while they may not be perfect matches, aesthetically are a good enough match and functionally do the job. If enthusiasts take locos like 3803 or Turkish 8F 8274 and add little mod cons like rocking grates and hopper ashpans, which make the locomotives easier to run and maintain, and that's accepted, I don't see a massive difference between that and taking a not 100% authentic component and putting it in a new build because it smooths out the process a little and otherwise that component would be left to rust away to nothing. Subsequent debate drew that point out of its intended context.

 

Didcot would be better building a smaller tank engine for its lines than one of these. Like the old style panniers or 040s with the brass domes. The older engines are better for visitors to look at too

 

If the object of the exercise is to have a suitable 8 coupled locomotive for running on preserved lines then you'd restore one of the unrestored 28s. If the object is to have an ecample of the 47, Churchward's last design, then there's no point in building it with the stopgap boiler.
My guess would be that the boiler was delayed because the drawing office were trying to work out a compromise design that could be used on a Star chassis without having to create new flanging blocks. History tells us Collett bit the bullet and shelled out for the new blocks.

 

One could argue that 4115, and, to a lesser extent, the 8F would be more useful locos for heritage railway use than either 4709 or the 'County".
Ray.

 

And if the object is merely to be able to tick a locomotive with number 4709 off in your spotters book?....

I can't help but feel with some of these GW new builds that that is a factor. But if there are enough people who want to then fine by me, you can't just go around reallocating people's enthusiasm and money to another project.