92219

Exactly!

 

TenWeeler does not seem to realise that todays railway is very different to that 20 years ago.
As many of you know I am a mainline steam driver for DBSchenker, not just steam but day to day freight work over the south of England.
I would not like to drive a 9F on the mainline.
There are now one heck of alot of diamond crossovers with the inside check raised around 4 - 5 cms.
Can you imagime what would happen if the wide flangeless wheel of a 9F hit one of those at 30/40 mph or higher!
Probably damaged track with the great possibility of a derailed train.
Sorry, but I do not think its likely to happen that a 9F returns to the mainline.
Unless its short distance or someone takes a very close look at any proposed route.

 

If there's enough demand, and an owner willing why not take a 9F on the mainline.. in europe ?
After all it wouldn't be banned there.

 

I'd like to hear the sound of a 9F in the Alps...

Tenwheeler, I just thought I'd share with you something that I read today which reminded me of that 'price of tenders' few posts a while back - not having a go or anything, just noting another source that came to my attention. Flicking through a railway mag (so usual caveats applied) between trains in the 'box, I came upon an article that noted that William Cook Cast Products sponsored £200,000 for the manufacture of Tornado's new tender. I presume that that figure included everything from scratch, and possibly the costs of design and derogation paperwork.

 

Presumably the only reason they are not banned is that the relevant authorities have never considered the prospect since it is so unlikely? As soon as they did, no doubt they would come to the same conclusion as the authorities here, for the same reason. After all, I doubt most modern mainline P/Way in Europe is much different from that in the UK.

You might as well say "[insert name of favourite foreign kit] is not banned in this country - maybe therefore it could run". It's not banned simply because it hasn't been specifically considered, on the entirely reasonable grounds that it is't the job of the authorities to make decisions about every single loco that may or may not exist somewhere in the world in working order, in case someone proposed to bring it here.

Tom

 

I sometimes wonder whether foreign buyers would be interested in our duplicate "Barry wrecks", such as 9Fs or Bulleids. I sure Pendennis Castle's Australian former owners would jump at one, if only they had the money. Sadly though, I suspect the average foreign enthusiast is just as fickle and parochial as the average British enthusiast...only interested in engines from his own country.

 

To be fair, the authorities in Europe seem much more relaxed/realistic/lunatic (choose your preferred word) about what they'll let out onto the mainline, it's like BR was in the 80s. Later this year DB's replica of Der Adler (think Jenny Lind) is going to be doing some mainline runs!

 

Sometimes it's so hard to believe everything one reads.

Can you guarantee every penny of that was spent on the tender?

I was once a member of a group which quite often put out appeals for items they already had. (I'm not saying that Tornado indulged in similar creative accounting). It seems a lot to spend on such a basic design, without apparently even attempting to improve the brake gear, which must be about the most awful design allowed to operate on the network.

 

Hang on a minute. The design rules haven't changed in the last 20 years. Are you under the impression that 9F roller wheels are designed to ride over the check rails, because I can tell you they most certainly are not.

Like I said earlier, some people seem to get a mental block about these things. I'm not going to get drawn into a long argument about design rules and tolerances of P Way. Because if I do it will probably become very heated and someone might be too temped to say what they really think. But I do find it irritating to see people make pronouncements on the subject when they obviously in fact know very little, if anything, but just re-gurgitate garbage they've read before somewhere.

 

True but I hold up prarie 5521 as an example... 3 years in Poland... I even rode on it at nearly 60mph on the mainline to gdansk on its way home.

in short, the regulations and paperwork required for Europe (not the safety or the rules) are less onoerous making things more possible. There is still a good deal of common sense and assumed self responsibility in Europe, rather than risk aversion and risk mitigation. A 9f could run mainline Europe.. And it would not be considered a "big" engine... Actually fairly medium.

They have much more experience with 2-10-0's than we do...Poland had nearly 2000, Germany built nearly 8000 And they still have 3 cylinder 2-10-0's on the mainline.

They could even go high speed mainline with a 9f if they took responsibility for it... And sell the drivers role to someone who pays enough to do it.

 

As I said, I'm only sharing what I read, so no, I can't guarantee that is or isn't the case. Just 'putting it out there' - if you'd like the magazine issue and page number, I'm back in the 'box in mid-May.

 

Don't worry. I wasn't having a go at you either.

Somewhere I have notes on a lot of the costings of 60163. I don't remember everything, and that includes 200K for the tender. How the costs actually were, and how they are presented publicly could be different you know. This is quite normal. We are not all entitled to audit that particular organisations books. Who hasn't worked on a project where a little horse trading between subgroups takes place. The trouble is that once someone presents a figure from a high profile project it becomes a benchmark. Every time you build something like a tender you must examine the costs carefully. If you don't, there will be a lot of waste.

 

guard_jamie: I recall that the tender for "Tornado" was what one might call a "de-luxe" job, for instance much of the tank platework was fabricated from stainless steel sheet, which will give it a long life, but must have significantly increased the cost.

46118

 

I beg to differ. Very strongly in fact.

The issue that was raised was regarding 92212. My understanding is that they were simply told no. By whom exactly I don't know. None of my business, and I'm left to draw my own conclusions. And not having understood the background they had nothing to counter with, and anyway there was a very weak response for reasons we don't need to go into here. So in that sense yes it was regurgitated garbage. The issue wasn't even discussed until a late stage. 92212 was fitted with TPWS and almost ready to go before the subject was even mentioned.

 

Been there, done that in 2010 - no secondary door locks on the (as far as I could see) unbraked coaches because no doors - just a chain! Left Furth on one of about 10 lines, ICE etc. passing on others.

And, do you the strange thing - no one died! Yes, I know it is difficult to accept but it is true - no one tried to fling themselves from the vehicle because they were unrestrained by secondary door locks!

Europe is a lot more relaxed/realistic. I believe that German "Kreigsloks" (the basis of locos running on the mainline in many countries as well as Germany) have a flangeless centre wheel set. French locos run in Switzerland, and Swedish locos are allowed to run regularly on NS metals in the Netherlands. In the UK, any overseas locos (quite apart from being out of gauge!) would be "1st of type" and have the huge extra paperwork cost that the a! had to go through - but hey, some-one needs to find work for lots of civil servants and other paper pushes.

 

Same in Switzerland, except they've been known to use the real thing, not a replica! Quite impressive pulling into Zürich Hbf with a 150 year old 0-4-6T hauling 4 wheeled, hand braked only "wagons" fitted with bench seats. No safety equipment needed below a certain speed (50 km/h rings a bell).

 

Warning: Off topic...
Same in Italy, mind you I thought that the rear seat on the tender looked a tad close to the 25kV at around 7:30

3 ottobre 1839... - YouTube

 

suppose if we did really want a mainline 9f you could pay several thousand pounds to have one tested with./without a flange on the centre driver and then 'simulated' to suggest what it would/would not do... would settle the argument one way or the other

Or turn it into a 2-8-2/ but i dont see there being much enthusiasm for that...

 

I wonder if, following her upcoming overhaul if 92214 could be certified for Whitby-Battersby running? I think I read somewhere that her owners would like to put her on the EVL so, main line 9f in a few years? I suppose as with most of these rumours it could be a complete work of fiction.