Large Prairies

I would like to know where you get your info from, because your clearly living in a dream world!

 

Seeing as I'm directly involved with one locomotive group, have an involvement with a second and volunteer on three different railways I have gained a significant amount of knowledge about locomotive management and railways as a whole.

I don't know it all and have a lot more to learn, but your last post especially was far from the truth.

 

I don't think you're focusing on the subject in hand mate. As has been said, you don't seem to appreciate the wonders of preservation. If everyone thought like you, no locomotives whatsoever would be running. The world would be such a dull place if it was like that. Showing a bit of consideration of people's hard work wouldn't go too far either.

 

Its ok mate... don't worry!
No need to get your knickers in a twist tho!!
Wow, and your a cleaner...... I'm sure you've gained great amounts of locomotive knowledge from that

 

Nice, you can't win an argument with facts so decide to get personal, real sensible post there...

Everybody has to start somewhere, and I'm doing it as many people before me have. However I'm only a cleaner as I haven't solely concentrated on my footplate duties. I have got involved in projects away from the physical operation of the locomotives and so have seen what goes on in the background thus I have gained some understanding on the requirements of operating a railway and the situation with locomotive management.

Going back to your posting, the need for engines wont end, where one line has an excess another will have a shortage. Hence 5199 has been Bluebell and Churnet Valley in the past 2 years.

Instead of ignoring what has gone in the past and concentrating what goes on within your own little world, maybe you could tell us of where your experiences and ideas have come from, as I am not the only one to disagree with your viewpoint ?

 

Well said LLan Cleaner!!

If this forum is to be filled with rubbish of the sort recently posted here trying to post obscure/obtuse personal viewpoints in almost unintelligible english it will (again) descend to the point where it is not worth participating in.

 

right well, for a start, i dunno where 5199 came from, don't really care tbh, but where ever it was, it wouldn't have left unless it was needed, which is my point. It wouldn't of been of any benefit to its home base, so they send it out on hire. Now lets say another large prarie is overhauled and hired out, this engine isn't gunna have anywhere to go, well, anywhere that is going to get the best vallue for money from it. Also the owners of say 5199 won't get as good a return on their initial investment. Kinda hard to explain it on here but it defo makes sence, and if you can't see that then your an idiot. A preserved railway needs to make money to survive, and by running needlessly large numbers of engines, then the amount of money they will make is less, and therefor less money will go into other vital areas of the railway, i.e carriages, stations and so on...!

 

What are you on about?

 

Your argument might make sense if there was a general surplus of engines, but in reality there isn't and a number of lines have been struggling. What's more, as locos get older and require more expensive and prolonged work it seems quite likely that he pool of available enguines will shrink. It's quite possible that engines like 4115 will become more attractive as time goes by because their fireboxes, in particular, may well have gone to Barry with a fair bit of life left in them. There is an argument that says our heritage railways have been existing for the last 40 years on the wasted boiler life left in prematurely discarded engines and only now are we beginning to see engines reaching the point where their boilers and fireboxes are truly life expired.

As for running more engines than are needed, I don't see many, if any, that do that. Most need over the course of the year around twice the number needed on a peak day to allow for maintenance, failures etc. and I don't see many lines flusher than that, and quite a few with rather less. If there was another large prairie available for hire I don't think it would have the slightest dificulty finding a taker, in fact I think there would be room for a few. There are lines like the Gwilli, for example, that are on the brink of stepping up to longer runs where something more designed for the purpose than an Austerity could easily find employment. Three others that spring to Mid are the Mid Norfolk, Wensleydale and Weardale, none of which currently have a significant steam presence.

 

5199 came from Llangollen. She went on hire to cover for a shortage of locos at the Bluebell for 12 months as Llangollen had enough to cover their services. After completion of this contract she then went to the Churnet Valley who too were short of locomotives. Bluebell at first were short but have now managed to recover with the steaming of 34059 and the E4. However in the meantime the East Lancs and Valley have struggled and have resorted to hiring in engines. Whenever one line recovers another starts to struggle.

The 5199 Project would love a second Prairie as they could find work for it all year long, as they are fairly economical and powerful engines. 4160 and 5164 find continuous work as did 4141 when she was in ticket. I'm sorry but your arguments are flawed. They may make sense theoretically, but what works on paper doesn't always work in reality, and this I feel is one of them times.

 

With 4115 the movement is at something of a crossroads where either :

a. In time the loco is made operational as another 41xx tank - a type for which there is plenty of scope for use, possibly increasing in the future.
or

b. It is dismantled to provide a few key parts for a new build/rebuild project of a type of loco curently unrepresented & attractive but of limited heritage railway use.

The fact that nobody has yet taken this loco on or completed 4110, 4121, 4150 (now well underway) in no way means that there is no demand for these locos both now & in the future. The issues are money & the small (diminishing?) number of people prepared/able to take these projects on & see them to fruition.

The 51xx is a far more useful/practical heritage railway type than say a Bullied pacific and in years to come is likely to find use on quite a number of up & coming lines as well as the more established ones.

 

Nobody has been given the chance to take on 4115. 4110 and 4121 are both privately owned and it is up to the owners what is to be done with them. Just digressing a little, what about the 2 Jinties at the M.R.C, 47445 and 47564, will anything ever be done to them?

 

i think its the 5101 class to be pedantic as 5100 was originally 3100 and was of a different spec

.I do agree however these locos are ideal for many railways and the cost of making the bits required by the GWS is not high enough to justify losing an entire loco.Were they proposing to use the chassis and fitting a bigger bolier or different wheels to create a 3100/3101/8100 variant, that would be a different matter

 

Most lines are short of motive power, hence they are forced to use ex-industrials. Now, there is a place in preservation for industrials, but the railways that do industrials better are the ex-industrial lines like the Foxfield, or Middleton or Tanfield Railways. Whatever the nonsense said by some of the people on here that "the best engines are the ones without animals painted on the side" is just wishful thinking and a little insulting to the extremely dignified heraldic lion, a symbol of Britain. Generally those using industrials aspire to use mainline traction but are forced due to the circumstances to come up short.

 

A matter of opinion really... The fact is that many of these locomotives are perfectly capable of operating on some of the most demanding preserved lines (some of the first examples springing to mind including AB2183 on the ELR, Antwerp on the NYMR (shame about the allegedly NCB-bodged boiler hindering its performance), No.s 5 and 29 on the same line, Victor and Vulcan on the WSR (admittedly they probably wouldn't be up to taking today's loads at line speed) etc). On the other hand, I'd like to see a 51xx, or for that matter a black 5, west country or A4 attempting to work from Backworth in the 60s! My guess is they'd be far less successful than the industrials... Now fair enough Gresley never claimed the A4 to be a jack of all trades, but then, Hunslet never really intended the austerity to be working relatively light loads at 25mph for 12 miles at a time - now which has managed both tasks? These lines may or may not "aspire to use mainline traction" but to claim that they "are forced [...] to come up short" is surely equally as insulting to the extremely dignified designers and builders of these locomotives, not to mention the extremely dignified workers of industrial sites across the country - would you rather have a symbolic lion, or fuel in your house?



Oh, and sorry for the industrial based rant in a thread on 51xx tanks!

 

As we now have Pannier Tanks back on the Main Line and we have had a 14XX in the form of 1450 I wonder if it would be possible to get one or two of the Large Prairies Main Line approved. From memory 4144 (on the MET) and 6106 made very brief forays and were very popular. It's just a thought but it would be great to see one racing along at the head of a railtour. They would be ideal for shuttle services or shorter circular routes.

 

Your argument contains a few holes, I think! I don't think most people would consider the ELR to be a particularly demanding line, and Antwerp (and Ugly No. 62) struggled on the NYMR at a time when loads were typically a couple of coaches lighter than they are now. 5 and 29 are substantially bigger engines, but are still limited to 5-6 coaches. Victor and Vulcan weren't up to the job when they were on the WSR, let alone under today's conditions (and don't let us forget "Jennifer's disasterous outing!) WD 193 did a fair amount of work on the "bowling green" SVR, and at the time it was virtually a brand new engine (I think that when they first got it it only had about 20,000 miles "on the clock") but was hard work for the crews. On the other hand, a gentle 7 mile trundle along the South Devon was fine for Austerities, but they were quickly displaced when locos that were designed more for longer runs became available. At the end of the day it doesn't really matter what transfer is stuck on the rust-preventing layer, it's more a question of having locos that were designed to do a particular job without undue forcing. As soon as a loco is worked close to its limits on work it wasn't designed for, its maintenance costs will rocket.

 

Bowling green SVR ?? - the SVR may not have gradients to match the NYMR & Torbay line but is far from being a bowling green when compared to say the GCR or the GWSR hence the load restrictions on certain loco types.

Industrial locos are absolutely fine ...... in an industrial setting doing what they were designed to do.
Some types such as the austerity 0-6-0ST are of some use doing more than shunting.

Put one up against a Pannier though and there is absolutely no comparison.

 

A pannier, maybe. A jinty, on the other hand... Well, which loco was chosen for the war effort again?

 

Dean Goods?