gwsr projects - P&O & 8F?

With the news of 2807 about to be steam tested for the 1st time,

got me wondering when P&O and the 8F will be completed?, as I believe both are at an advanced stage.

Also Owsden Hall is under restoration there, but this is a way bit of isnt it?

Will have a good home fleet with 2807, P&O and the 8F joining the others!

 

LMS (& WD) 8F 8274 is coming on well. I wasn't aware about the out of frames steam test but it won't be long now before 8274 is working by the way progress is being made. 35006 (which is easier to type then "Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company!) is also coming on well and for years the 2807 restoration team and the 35006 restoration team have wondered which of their charges would steam first and, at this late stage, I'm not going to tempt providence by guessing which! No 6984, "Owsden Hall" is progressing well quietly and confidently at Toddington. The tender has been finished for quite a while and the frames are more than just a rolling chassis now. The boiler is also being fettled. I intend to visit Toddington for our 2807 AGM later this month so I'll try and get an update.

 

Work has re-begun on 35006's boiler as it was moved from the old location for them to find a new location. Will definately be good to see this loco in steam.

 

The 8f's boiler went back into the frames on friday (NRM 4F 4027's took its place on the blocks). By sunday pieces were already being refitted like back head cladding, firehole doors and the like. Valve gear is starting to re-appear and will be assebled over the coming weeks. Schedule is for most bits to be on by the new year - might possibly be able to be on display for our post christmas cracker gala, but cant say for definate.

 

The Glos/Warwicks looks like it is building quite an impressive collection of motive power. I have yet to pay a visit, but (like some others on this forum!) being a fan of Bulleid pacifics, I guess the urge to have a ride on what looks like a very attractive line will grow to the level of irresistiblity when 35006 steams.

One query regarding the extension. I've only ever seen "Laverton" written, but never spoken. It is pronounced "LAY-verton" or is the "Lav" bit pronounced as in "lavender"?

Just curious.

 

I guess it doesn't really matter how its pronounced as Laverton Halt is some distance from Laverton village! I'm from that part of the World originally and it was always "Laverton" as in Lavatory, to me.

35006 will be a very impressive loco for the Glos Warks Rly. I remember it arriving in 1983. MNs did (rarely) run over the line (To and from Stratford upon Avon) in BR days on specials.

 

''Well the 8f's boiler recently had a out of frames steam test so shouldn't be to much longer. Also IIRC there is a plan to have it ready for the GWR 175 gala (turned out as a GWR 8f)''

A GWR 8f? what were they like then?

Good to see both the 8F and P&O nearing the finish line along with 2807.

 

The KWVR's 8F was one of the ones turned out from Swindon works during the Second World War. Mainly detail differences on things like the reverser and top feeds I think.

Regards,

Dan

 

And here was me thinking that we would see a GWR Green 8F. If 'only' a red 8F can create upteen pages of posts just think how much a green one could do. Next steps will be a garter blue one, then S.R green and then everyone will be happy.

 

The Green 8F

Too late. They told me at Toddington this May that this was just undercoat, but I don't believe it! What with that and an LMS maroon Hall.......

 

I think it should either run in its LMS condition or in Turkish railways livery, compleat with air pump (or WD livery if not) which is more pertinent to the engines history that fitting it into peoples obsession with late 60's condition BR locos. Something it was never part of.

 

Were the GWR built 8fs painted in GWR livery?

 

No, they were allocated and carried LMS numbers and livery

 

Hopefully they will have the balls to turn it out in whatever livery they want.
The more outrageous, the more they will be noticed.
Besides,it never carried BR black so,to any purists/pedants it would be as wrong to put it into that livery as it was to paint 8624 in red.

 

Were they not GWR stock upto nationalisation then ?, true the railways were under WD control but would it still not technically be a Great Western asset at the end of the day ?.

 

I understand that the plan is to restore 8274 as built in LMS Black, which I'm sure will look good. As imported_48624 states, this particular loco never carried BR black livery (no 8F ever carried LMS maroon livery either until recently but he who pays the piper etc....). In Turkish Railways service 8274 (its Turkish number escapes me) was also black. In WD service it might have been in a khaki livery at one time. Anyone care to shed some light on this?

 

Pete, Many thanks, I had stupidly forgotten to look up the information on the Glos Warks Rly Web Page!

A snippet is below:

"With the start of WWII the War Department ordered a large number of 8Fs but, with the fall of France they were no longer needed. This loco was built in 1940 as WD 348 but then found itself working in the UK as LMS No 8274 until 1941. It then undertook the risky journey to neutral Turkey to become No 45160 on the TCDD where it worked into the 1980s. It was repatriated to the UK in 1989 and worked briefly on the Swanage Railway before being withdrawn for overhaul and moved to Toddington."

So indeed this 8F was built (by a contractor - North British I think - rather than by the LMS) at the behest of the War Dept and actually carried LMS livery for a very short time. In many ways this makes the loco's survival much more interesting and, like its current maroon counterpart, which was built at Ashford by the Southern Rly also for wartime use, gives it an interesting place in British steam locomotive history. I think that such artifacts (what a word to use to describe the nearest mechanical creation to an animal!) are of interest to many more people than steam enthusiasts if they have a story to tell like this.