Flying Scotsman

It is to be hoped that the work will be completed. However, with a career bean counter at the helm I am very much less than 100% certain. All in all the whole saga has been a great advertisment for the capacity of the public sector to manage a project - well perhaps not. When the locomotive was in private hands at least it did re-appear to run again. True more work might have been done on occasion but at least the overhauls did not turn out to deliver a large bill with no end result of any merit to show for it. The whole project looks like it has been one great "train wreck" (okay, locomotive wreck then).
The best way forward would be for an individual (if one could be found) to come to an agreement with the Science Museum to take the problem off their hands. It should be removed from York and put into the hands of the company best qualified to complete the job. As to where, I am not sure but Crewe seems to do quite well with 60009.

 

It is very hard not to go all keyboard warrior on the subject of 4472. There's an underlying passion and emotional level which this locomotive has which very few in the whole heritage railway industry has, and on such a scale with so many people. Trying to be objective about 4472 when the heart nearly always rules the head where she is concerned, is extremely difficult.

It is also very hard to stomach some of the recent posts in this thread. There's even two posts trying to imply that the NRM have siphoned off funds from Scotsman's overhaul. This is, frankly, appalling behaviour and completely without foundation.

The thing which has saddened and disappointed me throughout the last decade, has been the behaviour of a very vocal few in the preservation scene, whose only aim it appears is to make 4472 is stuffed and mounted for all eternity.

For whose benefit do Steam Railway leak or otherwise report on the conclusion of a document we haven't even been able to read in full yet?

Why has it been - speaking from the outside, looking in - their sole aim over the last decade to leak, sensationalise, castigate, interrogate, and otherwise undermine the very institution which remains a very important part of the overall movement?

What possible benefit would helping 4472 to never steam again, bring to the heritage railway industry?

I personally say stuff the report, whatever the final advice given is. Don't pull the plug. Don't set a time scale. Do the maths, make a plan, and get her finished. I'll throw in whatever pounds and pennies I can muster. Anyone else who cares about the locomotive, and its wider context and provenance in preservation should do the same.

We're not talking about a locomotive so far away from steaming that's insurmountable. There are Barry wrecks out there which have steamed in the last year, that spent longer in a scrapyard than they did in actual service. This particular locomotive has a boiler which is virtually new, and a plethora of components which have been overhauled or replaced. It's not a locomotive so far away from steaming that it is mission impossible.

4472 is not just about the engine. It's about a legacy. An apple green engine which has brought joy and happiness to hundreds of thousands - if not millions of people - the world over in its preservation era career. A locomotive which has been badly looked after for a good number of years, and the hens coming home to roost as a result with its current owners. Yes, the NRM have made mistakes. They have, however, and unlike anyone associated with the locomotive prior to their purchase of it, admitted their mistakes and made sure to give the whole picture, however bad, when all the facts are known.

I say shame on those who know what they did, or failed to do, in previous ownerships of 4472, and have contributed either directly or indirectly to the situation we have now in the NRM's hands.

To think that future generations may not experience 4472 in steam is unthinkable. It's preposterous. It's frankly nuts. The draw of this locomotive and the good it can do in the NRM's ownership once in steam, for railway preservation in general, is reason enough to finish the overhaul and get it running again.

If the report comes out and says it needs X amount of money to be completed, let's find that X amount of money, whatever it is, and get it finished. Throw in whatever pounds and pennies you have. I have done over the years, and will continue to.

I can't implore the NRM enough. Ignore the naysayers and the doom mongers. Get it finished, get it out there on the mainline, preserved railways, and get it back into everyday service as a talisman for railway preservation. You will not find its ability to draw a crowd of railway enthusiasts and the general public lacking, that I am sure of.

One thing is clear to me. In the NRM's hands, we have a much more transparent ownership of 4472 than we have had in the forty plus years of private ownership before that.

If any questions pertaining to finances should be brought up, it's this: why do the two official documentaries of 4472 whilst in Tony Marchington's ownership, (Flying Scotsman: a day/year in the life) state a total overhaul cost of £2.25 million, when the railway magazines and members of the overhaul team (Roland Kennington, who spoke on camera for those documentaries) have only been quoting £1 million in the many articles decrying the NRM's current overhaul?

 

Overhaul cost for Southall is continuously quoted at £1 million in the railway press and in this very thread (but as I stated in my previous post, the documentaries made about 4472 during Tony Marchington's ownership quote a much higher figure of £2.25 million), and since the locomotive was completed in 1999, and withdrawn by the NRM with many, many problems in 2005, with only six years on the mainline, and very limited mileage in comparison to other locomotive groups charges, I would question your statement there. Very big bill: very little to show for it, and a public body inheriting a locomotive with many varied problems.

 

I hate to go slightly of the rails here, but this must be the longest running thread now! 200 pages. Shows how much passion Flying Scotsman invokes....

 

Still got some way to go to catch up to Today's Pint.

 

So, when was the middle cylinder taken out?

 

Or, more seriously, the Tornado thread at 351 pages...

Tom

 

I think I should say that my previous post wasn't actually slating the NRM, but more that it would be nice to know that someone was on top of everything, and getting the job done..Personally, and I would say this is true of quite a few locomotive owners/preservation societies/workshops etc that a good 90% of the gossip, rumors etc about locomotives and whats happening are entirely born out of a lack of communication to the public about whats actually going on.

Obviously, people just want to be getting on with the job in hand, but a good hearty monthly update from the NRM would do wonders for their public image - even if it says "Not much to report this month but we painted the buffers" or "we might have found more problems"

From a personal perspective, I hope 4472 works again, she was the first main line steam locomotive I ever saw "on the big railway" and sparked a lifetime interest!

 

Couple of photos taken by Mike Hutton during the week of its 90th Birthday, maybe it will be ready for the 100th?

4472/60103 Flying Scotsman - Railway-Photography's Photos | SmugMug
4472/60103 Flying Scotsman - Railway-Photography's Photos | SmugMug

Neil

 

One other thing, the current head of NRM will be leaving once his 12 month tenure is up, so it won't be his problem, but i can see the treasury's hand on the tiller, nothing will be spent till april, when the new financial year starts, then how much will be availible to the NRM? I think that there will have to be another public appeal for funding if this engine is to return in steam in the next 12 months, that is why i think the engine will go on static display until funds can be obtained to complete the overhaul , infact it might be better to stop take stock, andd for York to come up with a costed plan, and raise the funds to enable an outside contractor, such as Carnforth or Bury to finish the loco away from York so could a repaint before going on static be a waste of time? or save time if the work can be done without damaging new paintwork?

 

Ok, though as asked before, is the middle cyclinder block actually removed at the moment? I don't believe it is. Or did you mean put the piston back in?

At least tell us what you include in the larger figure - you must have some sort of breakdown in mind.

Buy the A4s? :wacko:

 

I might be mis-remembering here - but wasn't there supposed to be money in an escrow account to fund the repatriation of both locos as part of the conditions of bringing them over in the first place? In which case the repatriation is already funded. Or am I remembering something else - the conditions on the T3 going to Canada, maybe?

Tom

 

The groupthink on this thread about the interim director of the NRM is fascinating to watch. Much of the debate appears to flow from the premise that he is operating under instruction from the Treasury; some posters have even suggested he is working directly for the Treasury.

In fact he does not work for the Treasury (he has in the past - but he's worked for lots of organisations in the past; so what?). He has been seconded from the DCMS - and as anyone who knows much about how British government operates will be able to tell you, far from doing its bidding, most departments are in constant tension with the Treasury.

 

My apologies, I meant put it back together; end covers, slide bars, valves, the piston, drain cocks etc.

Neil

 

If a proper feasibility study had been done at the beginning it may well have concluded the loco was beyond economic repair. Thankfully that was not done and a great deal of repair work has been undertaken which will stand the loco in good stead for an eventual return to steam whether in the short term or further into the future. In either event provided the loco continues to be well cared for there remains hope this will happen sooner or later.

 

Had a proper study been done the NRM might have very well has pulled out, then Hoskins would have got it and ended up joining the vast list of bancrupted owners, imagine if he had got it, it could have ended up being been repaired at Southall by the same people that made such a poor job of 6100, and could have returned to the mainline with all the faults still present.

 

Surely we should await publication of the structural review of the locomotive's current state before getting in a lather over what the NRM should or shouldn't do as to the future of 4472 as without those facts any speculation is just froth.

 

In the mean time, some of the stuff popping up in here is amusing to read :tongue:.

 

It's a story that crops up time and again in this game - in the absence of official news, rumour and speculation will happily fill the gap! I'm as guilty of it as anyone, but this is all starting to get a bit much.

 

It will not be either the first or the last engine not to get the best out of a "ticket" so to speak. The Southall overhaul did produce a very powerful locomotive - too powerful for it's own long term good. If the idea of the work done was to address the view frequently expressed amongst the enthusiast community that the locomotive was a poor and disappointing performer then at a certain level it worked. However for the improvement to be realized over the long term the frame structure of the locomotive needed some improvement work; for example the later A4 design of hornstay. End result in conjunction with the finances becoming very difficult was the locomotive as purchased by thr NRM.

As to the view that the locomotive never steaming again is unthinkable, you are seeing things from an enthusiast's point of view. For someone meerly interested in balancing the books it is more than thinkable. Sat in the museum, in a nice coat of paint the museum need never be concerned about the costs of looking after the engine ever again. In another way too it would benefit the NRM by always being on display.

I do not understand why you believe that ownership by a public body will lead to greater transparency that will prove beneficial to the locomotive. Look at Number 9, in the hands of an individual owner for all it's preserved life. As interested people we get to know when it is due for overhaul and where it is to go for the work to be done. Sometimes you can catch a glimpse, sometimes not. You learn when the job is nearly done and then about any test running. Then the machine is back at work, and so the wheel goes round. Further look at the example of Carnforth. An engine is ready when it is just that and any information about what goes on in getting it to that stage is well smoke screened. The NRM perhaps should have been transparent because of the unique position it holds. It made some attempt to make use of the website but perhaps the less said about that performance the better. In fact the information posted told very little about what was really going on. (On the subject of little going on did you ever visit the museum and see work going on apace with the engine? Or indeed anything going on at all? I dropped in quite a few times to see little or nothing - the work seemed almost abandoned.)