6201, her new lease of life.

There’s a nice little reminder on the sides of 60163 John

 

I am surprised that 6201 continued to operate as long as she did. I travelled on a number of trips with her some years ago with Past Time Rail and when she was also hired by Steam Dreams to work their excursions in the South.
Talking to the support group who brought the sales trolley through the train on these trips it was quite clear that things were not great back then with many people involved with the loco really unhappy with the dire management situation. It was very sad to see how unhappy they all were. It is clear something needs to change soon or 6201 will end up locked away as a static exhibit for the viewing pleasure of one person only as I can't see anyone being keen to donate any funds to the loco with the current situation.

Sent from my XQ-BT52 using Tapatalk

 

Unless and until there's a plan to do some something constructive with her, why should West Coast give her shed space?
Edit: I meant "something", not "some".

 

There might be a legal contract involving that.

 

I guess the difference is that the bus was owned by the farmer 6201 is owned by a group is it not?
The bus situation whilst disappointing, if you own something as an individual you can do what you want with it. Think of all the froth on here and elsewhere regarding No 9 and the museum.

 

What has happened though over the last few 10 year boiler tickets, I'm assuming the organisers got hire and steaming fees, unless of course your hiring in people to do the stuff that the support crew would do, routine maintaince , inspections, in which case thats your overhaul fund spent, what do you do then? it seems to be a case of mismanagement of the loco.

 

How many locomotives pay for their overhauls on just steaming fees, though?

 

6201 is not owned by an individual though is it?

 

That what I said owned by a group is it not?

 

Mainline mix, or heritage only? With years of some pretty impressive schedules behind its tender, I'd imagine 35028 must score highly in that regard.

 

NELPG seem to do pretty well in maintaining their fleet through hire fee income although they never say no to donations and grants.

 

Supposedly. Apologies if I’m taking my frustrations out on you @Gladiator 5076 I really shouldn’t, it’s just a rather frustrating situation.

 

The Treasurer can best answer that but I'm certain steaming fees alone didn't cover the last overhaul by any means. Don't forget there are a lot of maintenance costs, consumables, coal and an intermediate overhaul to pay for during a 10 year main Line stint.
35028 also has a fairly simple life, it only works out of London, almost exclusively Victoria with the depot only a couple of miles down the line and most of the work is a four hour jaunt round the surrey Hills. Component wear is going to be a lot more of a problem when you are thrashing long distances over Shap and Ais Gill.

 

I'd like to hope that most people will make a distinction between the engine and its owning group. I don't know anything about Mr Mojonnier other than what has been posted on here, but whatever anyone's feelings towards him, as far as 6201 is concerned I would have thought that for most people, the response to the likely long term absence of the loco form the main line would be one of sadness. It would be most useful to have another 8P in operation, especially given that the NRM has said it is highly unlikely that Mallard or Duchess of Hamilton will steam again in the foreseeable future, 60009 has been retired almost certainly for good and 6023 will probably never venture onto the main line. Yes, we will have 71000, 6024 and 60532 hopefully back in action before too long, but I have no doubt that if Lizzie was in good nick, there would be plenty of work available for such a powerful,air braked and hitherto popular engine.

 

Rather reinforces my suspicion that it's £/bum/hr ratio is likely better, and the maintenance burden lighter than if it were routinely hammering up to northern summits on long turns. Add to which the Pullmans 35028 regularly handles command premium fares .... moreso, if posh nosh is improving the margins.

Admittedly, commercial operation comes with it's own considerations. Over and above 25mph heritage line operation, I'm guessing routine mainline FTR requirements for reliable 75mph running are more involved and whilst I mightn't know the precise ins and outs of a 10year exam, the noticeably rapid overhauls certainly aren't going to come in cheaper than a less frenetic in-house volunteer job.

 

Question is - whose margins?

 

Aside from track access? Loco presumably is hired to operator, who supplies crew (?) and support (?). Without sight of a loco owners' contract, which I 'd obviously not expect to see, impossible to say, though if it were costing owners or operators a packet, would it still be happening?

 

All fair questions. But I suspect the value of the Belmond traffic is certainty of income more than additional steaming fees themselves. I strongly suspect Belmond make the profits from the premium that their operation charges, not those providing services to them.

 

It’s certainly not normal for an operator to provide support, the support crew is the responsibility of the loco owner, in the case of West Coast that could of course be the same. The TOC will supply the footplate crew and guard.
Support crew are another expense for the loco owner. There will be the cost of the PTS course and the refresher every three years along with the Rail Workers Medical Assessment. The frequency of the latter depends on age. The policy on who meets these costs will vary between loco owners, I’m not obliged to pay the cost of my annual medical but I choose to do so as a donation.

 

Increasingly I'm less convinced that is the case. Even with significant volunteer input into an overhaul, large quantise of actual cash will have to be spent. New castings, tyres, tubes, specialist metal working techniques such as building up and re-machining worn components etc. all require real money. Depending on the arrangement with "home base", rent may also have to be paid for shed space. If stored outside, the condition of things like platework and cladding tend to deteriorate if not constantly attended to, meaning more cost when eventually it is restored.

With that in mind, an out-of-traffic loco is leaching money out of its owning group; the objective in cash term must be to get it back into traffic and earning as soon as is reasonably practicable.

Most loco-owning groups are capital-poor, and therefore there is a strong tendency to progress projects "only as fast as funds allow". But I think in the long run, doing a project slowly ends up costing more than doing it more quickly. (Of course, sometimes the alternative to "doing it slowly" is "not doing it at all" - in which case it is the only option, just not necessarily the cheapest one).

Tom