7027 Thornbury Castle

It is trackside magazine, issue 13, you can buy a back copy if you go on their website

 

So was this an advert, article, or what exactly?

 

All I'm doing is reporting what was said in this thread. I don't generally read the printed press. I think the point is that it was publicly known or at least rumoured that the locomotive was up for sale.
I'm sure its largely irrelevant anyway. Whilst I'm sure the GCR was quite happy to subsidise someone else's restoration by providing facilities, they'd be crazy to divert their own funds when they have far higher priority uses for the money.

 

I believe a donor came forward and put up a third of the asking price for 7027 to secure the boiler for 4709. I dont believe to date there has been anything like that kind of commitment for restoring as a castle.

 

https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2023/03/future-clear-for-steam-locomotive-7027-thornbury-castle.html

So game over for 7027 and a green light for the Frankenstein Factory to do a half-arsed job creating a new loco.

 

For the those with ideas and no money it looks though it is all over. They had their chance it seems. Good news for the 4709 Group despite the vitriol they have received.

 

Whatever makes people happy I suppose. Shame we will not get to see Thornbury restored or a real 47xx.

 

Whilst it is still sad that "Thornbury" is not to be restored, I think the 4709/GWS are to be thanked for pausing the sale to allow alternatives to be fully investigated. That no viable scheme evolved is indicative that a one off "new build", albeit not fully authentic, is better supported than another "Castle".
The market has spoken and I now wish the 4709 group every success.

 

The important thing now is to ensure that the frames and all the associated parts are conserved (not as a pile of scrap metal exposed to the elements) in some way, preferably as an educational exhibit. That way there's always the possibility of reviving them one day if an opportunity arises.

 

Indeed, the phrase I have heard to describe the process was 'like nailing jelly to a wall'.

Anyway what's happened has happened, its given a lot of people the opportunity to be very proud of themselves and say we told you so, and life will continue.

Who knows what the long term implications will be, I suspect that by the time the class god knows what emerges this will all have been forgotten anyway.

 

I suggest that will be dependent on how the remains of 7027 are used, or otherwise, and whether or not the Night Owl finally emerges, incorrect boiler or no.

But it's definitely going to stick in the craw of a few of us, for sure, for some years to come. I was expecting this announcement to be frank, but it still rankles with me.

Time to move on and let them get on with it.

 

I can't "like" this, but it captures my reaction well.

 

i hope that the membership of the GWS now start to question the running of their organisation, I personally, think its a bad decision, for the GWS, One that has every potential to come back and bite them very hard, especially if there has been miss use of the company funds to purchase the engine to start with, Didcot like every other museum has rising costs, and are reliant on good will , people coming through the gate, to pay the rent on the site, Any adverse decision that makes people think," i don't want to support this organisation" could have a drastic effect, as the site is only leased from Network rail, and what if one day, they can't afford the lease, what then,

 

Well (non-GWS member and non-supporter of this decision here), I think 'what then?' would be that we'd long passed the cross-over point where turning an entire organisation's face to the wall because of what some people (potentially by that stage no longer with us) had done to one engine, and letting it collapse because of that, started to reflect rather more badly on the people withholding potential support than it did on Didcot.

It would make such people, willing to let Didcot go the wall because of such a thing, look petty, spiteful, mean-minded and small.

But maybe that's just me.

 

Agreed, I do genuinely wonder how this is going to affect fund raising for future projects based at Didcot.
I also think that should 4709 steam there’s always going to be that someone who wherever it appears will be willing to point out ‘well it’s not a real 47xx is it?’

 

.... and they'd be right, of course - but does it matter. I really do think folks need to get a grip. Nothing has been destroyed, and long as nothing is we'll be no worse off than when the previous owner decided to stop funding its restoration. Little, apart from a short burst of effort, had been done to it for years and with the withdrawal of funds it was highly unlikely anything much more would. So we're no worse off than we were before that false dawn and there's still nothing to stop a new boiler being constructed one day and this one returned to 7027. At least in the meantime we'll have had the chance to see something that looks like 4709 running sooner than it might otherwise have done. For those of us in the twilight of life that seems to me to represent a positive outcome!

 

How would it though? If you are annoying people enough that they aren’t prepared to give up time and money for you, then you must have done something drastically wrong to upset them.

I really wouldn’t want to see the GWS go to the wall, but as I’ve said above this is really going to make some people think twice about making a contribution to them.

 

I can't see it having that adverse an effect, the GWS hierarchy seem pretty strongly behind it and one would expect them to have a pretty good idea what their grass roots (at least on site) think?

The one thing that just seems odd is that I am old enough to remember all the fuss that has happened within the GWS over the years regarding painting locomotives in the liveries they were originally built in (which IIRC is why 5051 has rarely been Earl Bathurst) and more recently the uproar about painting stuff in BR liveries, but dismantle a castle and it seems to have been received with barely a shrug from the membership (or in fact on here when compared with the uproar re 48518).