7027 Thornbury Castle

Would these supposed spare parts be in any better condition than those that would be replaced? 5043, 7027 and maybe 5080 were originally purchased as spares for 7029. A complete running locomotive is worth much more than a tired collection of spare parts.

 

According to SR (and it reflects what I had heard previously) actually 5043 and 5080 were intended to be spare parts for 7027 & 7029.

 

I was under the impression at the time that 7027 was the one bought for spare parts!

 

You are of course correct that people who are willing to donate for the restoration of 7027 may not be willing to donate to some other cause. We can all choose (insofar as we can afford to donate for anything). I am only suggesting that overhauling two locos would seem better value than restoring one, if the money is available.

If the 4709 project really is fully funded from somewhere, as has been claimed, it will probably proceed using the Castle boiler, despite all the reasons why that is a bad idea. Even if that does not happen, I see little prospect of enough money being found both to buy 4709 back and to restore it, when there are so many other appeals for funding in railway preservation and elsewhere.

Anyway we are all speculating. Time will tell.

 

It seems plausible that the parts of one Castle from Barry were little better or worse than those of another, hence the decisions over a period to restore all of them instead of stripping any of them for parts. Maybe none of the already restored Castles would get much benefit by taking parts from Thornbury, although those parts that have already been worked on at the GCR may be better than worn-out parts on other Castles.

Of course it is, but you need a lot of money to turn the parts into the complete loco. That is why Thornbury is where it is.

 

I humbly submit that Thornbury is in its current predicament because an opportunity arose, behind closed doors, and the locomotive was sold without the wider industry being aware, or able to put in an alternative.

Having read the SR article for this month, I quite agree with Tom's assertion that there seems to be something of a media campaign to present Thornbury as a no hoper - reading that it was "missing wheel splashers" and yet being able to see on this very thread that new ones exist and have been painted up, is a bit laughable.

 

Yes indeed. You need to put dummy elements in the flues. Seems rather crazy but it has been done, and does get some useful steaming.

While I seem to have done so inadvertently, I didn’t mean to suggest having any flues with nothing in them and meant what was in them to be an active superheater element.

 

Good grief! Missing wheel splashers is hardly a major hurdle. As you say, a laughable attempt to dismiss 7027 as a no hoper.

 

Get it down to the ESR, they would have her in steam by Christmas.

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I heard it was missing a whistle and lamp irons too though, that with missing splashers......definitely a no hoper .

As I said further up the page, I really hope this can be resolved and Thornbury be saved complete.

It would be great to see her stay at the GCR, but equally were she to be offered on the wider market again it would be lovely to see her go to a line with less home based motive power as some sort of a flagship loco.

Chris

 

All these expressions of hope for 7027 depend on the 4709 people being persuaded to relinquish it. I have said all along that I believe they would do so if offered enough dosh. Maybe the chance to recover some of respect that they have lost through this affair would influence them to demand a bit less than they might otherwise, but it's still not going to be cheap.

 

I don't disagree with anything you've said, I'm just taking a shot at the argument that keeps coming back around that 7027 is some sort of unicorn because of the specific configuration.

It could continue indefinitely on the basis of replacing the worn out major parts as they need it, but then eventually you've just built 70/80/90% of a new boiler anyway? It just seems at odds to me, that if the boiler is special enough to warrant not separating it from this particular loco, then it should also be important enough that you wouldn't want to discard a lot of original material, along the lines of the broken bits of Lion or the V2's cylinder block. How would the argument go if one of the other Castle's had taken the boiler back when the loco was bought for spares?

Like I said I think there are several good reasons for not redistributing 7027's parts, I just don't think that's a particularly strong one.

 

Well today on the unofficial GWS Facebook page JJP and the Didcot CEO have exchanged pleasantries so all may not be lost.

 

Interesting to note from the GWS Annual Report for the year ending 31st Jan 2022 that the 4709 fund had just £80k carried forward. That is barely enough to fund 25% of the purchase of 7027 if the figure bandied around is to be believed. In addition there has since been expenditure on cylinders and other parts of 4709. It seems unlikely on past form that there has been a rush to subscribe to this fund so either there is some "gas lighting" being done here or a wealthy individual has stepped in to impose their will on the project.

 

It is therefore perfectly logical to plunder her for parts. After all 4709 is pretty much done, only needing a coat of paint, a chassis, cylinders and a boiler

 

Dream on....

They have yet to do anything on this scale!

 

There has now been 104 pages of wibble about this single loco so now let’s look at it from a different perspective. Let’s say that the GWS has a change of heart and Thornbury is restored and it works shunting around at Didcot with the occasional hire to heritage railways for ten years. Then what? Ignoring the one in the national collection there are six Castles preserved, all needing a full overhaul every ten years. If we assume a highly optimistic cost of £500k per overhaul, that’s £3m every ten years not including running costs and any nasties that may crop up in the meantime. The Duchess worked the Bristol Belmond because Clan Line has been stopped for unexpected and very expensive repairs, it happens. If that figure multiplied by all the other preserved locomotive that are now or have run the cost is not sustainable. That is well illustrated by the number of engines at Didcot that haven’t steamed for many years, decades in some cases.
Do we want another Castle? Yes, Do we need another Castle? No.

 

That does seem rather pre-meditated on the idea that a loco is only worth saving if it is going to constantly be in steam/moving towards being in steam. There is, I would submit, more to preservation than that.

 

Do we need any steam locos? I’d say no. Do we want any steam locos? I’d say yes. The question becomes how much do we want 7027? And how much do we want 4709 for that matter?