Current and Proposed New-Builds

I am sure their are tonnes of cheaper and more effective ways of advertising a railway.
But this is my thought, would you rather stare at a website/read a flyer from a magazine stand or travel behind an engine from said railway?

 

Funny you should mention that, I kept thinking about post I had written a couple of months ago about a GWR 455 Metrotank, I don't know how the S&D boys would feel about it, having a Westerner on Midland metals but I see potential of sending something like to your quaint railway.

Well, this bit will just be rattling on as a do, base it at Didcot, number 3570 and have it in a beautiful GWR livery.

With the idea of using it a Didcot for regular and enthusiast days, as well as sending it to other railways; Midsomer Norton, Bluebell, KESR, Keighley, EOR, GCR, EBAR, Tanfield etc.

I would even dual-brake it so it could visit The Isle Of Wight!

 

If you count up the number of in ticket tank engines, the number being actively overhauled and the number on display/in store then I submit there's an adequate supply of tank engines. Its the ingredients/resources required to convert in store to in ticket that are scarce.

Nevertheless there's little doubt that new build/recreations have the ability to attract resources that are apparently unavailable for overhauls. Perhaps there should be proposals to grab boilers and motion from undistinguished and unloved end of headshunt industrials of which duplicates exist to produce external replicas of extinct types. Wouldn't go down well with the purists though.

 

The GCR 567 project already has a cylinder block which I think has come from an industrial. The website doesn't say so explicitly but it does say that "Close examination of (some industrials at Ruddington) has determined that the cylinder block, pistons, connecting rods and coupling rods are amongst the components that are identical or very similar to those on No.567.

 

The bogie wheels match the O4 pony wheels.
One of the LNER newbuild shared the costs of a pattern for a driving wheel with the N2 owners.
IIRC, the cylinder block being the same was the reason the build got under way, even down to having a victorian lubricator pattern that was not widely used after the turn of the century

 

The cylinder block is off an unspecified RS&H industrial loco according to one of the Groups newsletters from a few years back. The connecting rods are off an Austerity tank loco and, from memory, I think the coupling rods come from the same loco type.

 

I wonder whether that kind of "bitsa" technique will prove costly in the long run? It certainly doesn't seem to have done the Patriot group many favours, and the cost of castings is coming down due to advances in pattern making etc - I can see that in time you may well prefer to have certain components that you are confident of the provenance of, rather than what looks like a bargain which you then have to spend ages proving is what you think it is.

Doesn't;t apply to everything of course, but cylinders, frame, wheels, axles, motion parts - I'd want confidence in those. Plus of course, they would be very costly to replace if you felt the need deep into the construction of the loco - look how much disassembly and reassembly has gone on elsewhere ...

Tom

 

Well keep buying those Euro Lottery tickets.

 

Not a bad idea imo. I remember an article along these lines in Railway magazine about 20 years ago.

 

IIRC the 567 project cylinder block is an unused spare one from somewhere, so presumably they have faith in that. We don't hear of connecting rods being items prone to failure either and I'm sure they will be NDT tested before being fitted. If Austerity coupling rods are being used , especially on a four-coupled engine, that's where I'd have the most concerns - how will they remove the gradient joint?

 

Mine's already spoken for. Only one ever so slight detail remains ......

 

You may well be right, and certainly not sensible for anything with main line ambitions. I was thinking on the lines of the NRM Iron Duke which I believe has a lot of Austerity tank in it. And in the long term everything needs refurbishing anyway.

If, say, it was Austerity based I would think keeping the Austerity wheels and conn rods would be a hell of a compromise and new parts would go for a better replica. But a complete set of internal Stephensons, cylinders and a reasonable boiler might be quite a saving. And then of course its one thing getting the finance and enthusiasm together to create the thing, and maybe another to keep it running indefinitely... If it does one ticket and then goes back on the end of the headshunt what in the long term is the point?

 

What happens when you want to build Taw and Lew then? Do you think the funds will not be forthcoming? There again, Lyd has already "brought back a class from extinction".....but then Exe and Yeo seem to be coming along and generating sustaining interest

 

Hello Ross, GCR 567 will use connecting rods that have been sourced from Austerity 0-6-0 type locomotive. The Austerity rod is geometrically almost identical to 567's original rods, tthough slightly more robust. 567's coupling rods will be machined from new forgings as they are 8' 7" between centres.

 

Seems sensible.
I was suffering from brain fade in my post, what I intended to say was that coupling rods and thus wheel spacing from an austerity might be too much of a compromise on a recreation, but the between frames motion and connecting rods might be OK.
I've never seen a cost breakdown for a new build. It would be interesting (to me at least) to understand what the big ticket items are.

 

From what I've seen, my guess would be machining.

 

I’m back…again. Seems the T1 Trust here in America is doing well.

 

Bimey! Assuming that's the boiler pressure vessel, then that is a big achievement.

I wonder what the costs are like? Designing (and insuring the design) of a boiler is a base cost no matter what the size. Assumimg you have the capacity, it's the number of operations, (eg a weld) that will be the major determination of production cost, not the size of the bits being welded.

Likewise, they have two sets of wheels and motion to make, but assuming (a dangerous thing) they are the same, then it should be much less than double as all design, set-up etc can be done in one go.

 

I think it's just the cladding as yet, the idea being to give a sense of the scale and look of the finished article and win over potential donors.

 

I see. They had cut the tube plates (and they are huge) And I had seen a video them doing something that involved getting bits of metal hot and beating it over a former.