Flying Scotsman

I was talking about a PLC spending its money, not the actual overhaul of 4472, which, like many of us, I think was a disgrace. No PLC is answerable to the general public about where its money goes.
Of course, copies of a Company's accounts are available from Companies House, at a cost.

 

I think 'who did what' at Southall might keep a number of people happy in discussing and throwing things around, but the important thing now is this:-
The locomotive is publicly owned and therefore its custodians are accountable to us for the money we are spending on it. The publication of the report is welcome and a good start to ensure transparency. Not being an engineer I won't comment on the technical veracity of the findings or recommendations for future main-line service. With a background in IT systems development and management in both the public, private and third sectors, the recommendations around control, governance have many parallels.

The NRM are clearly not equipped to take-on work of the kind needed to overhaul an old, complex, high powered machine to main-line standards. Unless they believe that this is their core business and can maintain sufficient, continuous, work to ensure that these skills can be retained, developed and utilised, they must cease this activity forthwith and concentrate instead on creating an internal organisation that can commission, manage and control external specialist third parties. Operating and maintaining the locomotive between overhauls is a bit of a grey area. I see no reason why a main-line support crew and basic engineering skills needed to prepare, conduct work required to present the locomotive to an acceptance body for FTR, support the TOC during main-line operations and disposal duties, cannot be retained 'in-house' and shared with other locomotives operating from York.

 

Nonsense! Keeping an eye on and sometimes curtailing the activities of private citizens or PLCs is essential in any democracy.

 

So are you now suggesting that something improper happened, as if not what are you suggesting, a PLC acts for its shareholders who have the right to challenge decisions - to suggest that any tom dick or harry can otherwise flys in the face of company principles and if anything is completely outside a 'democracy'?

The lengths that people are dwelling on the Southall issue and trying to find a scapegoat instead of reviewing current issues moving forward is truely staggering and suggests other motives!

 

Nah, I think the perennial desire to seek scapegoats and someone to blame is just an aspect of the fundamental human desire to play politics (with a small P) , and after 55 or so years on this planet I'm starting to believe that, as fundamental human drives go, politicking comes somewhere below food but above sex...

 

My comment is wholly general in nature and is not directly related to this thread or any other. The notion that individuals or companies are laws unto themselves is wrong legally and in my view morally and ethically.

 

And equally for the record my comments were not aimed at you, more a general frustration.

 

Is Mr Kennington involved with 70000 ?, I know he has been with Bittern, but I can't recall him being linked with Britannia, in the same way 5029 is a JH loco, but he has no involvement with that.

 

Your business IS open to public scrutiny. As we live in a democracy the laws are made by Parliament which is a public institution. The laws are mainly enforced by the Police, another public institution. Also, however, if I a member of the public, took a dislike to an activity that your or your business were engaged in, I could seek an injuction in to stop you. Yes, I call that democracy.

 

I think you are NEARLY right,
if you do not like it then tough,if it is against the law then that is a different matter, If you took out an injunction just because you did not like it without good cause you could be held to account and made to pay compensation / reparation if the owner / operator of said business suffered loss.

The melter

 

Only certain aspects are open to scrutiny. If i decide to waste money on overpriced suppliers or workmen that that is purely a matter for me.

 

Just to try to get this back on track a bit, I do not think scapegoats are the issue here.
From my point of view the NRM bought it "as is" so to speak, fair enough it was in the end their choice but the movement and the mags were very loud and veracious in there encouragment of the purchase, at that point they did not care who's money was spent or on condition they just wanted it in public ownership because they deemed public ownership to be a "safe " place for it, we all know if individuals do something as simple as laying a path the public bodies can easily spend 5 times the money and do exactly the same job, why are we surprised when this philosphy transcends to a museum artifact, just look at how much they say they need just to display the Staffordshire hoard.
I do wonder who the scapegoats would have been if they had not have bought it,
My biggest area of dissapointment is the situation that seems to exist where the persons or organisations responsible for some of the "fixes" that are now the cause for concern have not seemingly voluntered the information of " what they did and why" after all they must know because they did it. If it belongs to the nation and they are a part of that nation and this movement then they have a moral duty to assist with information if they can, perhaps they have and were dismissed, but did they, they have had plenty of oportunity to make things known if they were not happy with them at the time or give advice in private ( perhaps they did) or in public, but then again perhaps the gravy train stopped calling at their particular station and without money going their way they cease to be part of "The Nation" unless some magazine is paying them to be. I think that for some of us this game is a passion and to others it is just a cash cow, and normal information will only be passed over on a "Consultancy" basis and they then reserve the right to sit tight with their bowl of informative cherries spitting the pips out as and when they think it will pay a dividend.

The Melter

 

Just how is it scapegoating?

The Southall overhaul cost £2.25 million or £1 million, whichever source you prefer. Two independent reports have stated outright that decisions made by past owners in past restorations are directly to blame for some of the problems the NRM are now facing.

On the face of it, fitting a 250lb, heavier boiler, larger cylinders and different steam passages with absolutely no changes to the superstructure of the locomotive to deal with this increased power output looks absolutely incompetent from an engineering standpoint. A locomotive, already tired, made worse by pushing it way beyond the limits of its physical being.

That's before we get into the often reported problems of welded up mudhole doors, cut tender handbrake, and a plethora of other dubious "fixes" which I'm afraid when added to the decision to turn 4472 into a much more powerful locomotive, are up for scrutiny.

It's not scapegoating, it's looking at two independent reports and knowing what had to be fixed in the course of the current overhaul, all of which points to deficiencies at Southall when they overhauled 4472.

The Melter is bang on with this post here:

Although I think disappointed is too lenient. Livid, would be the word I would use. There are people who were clearly aware of problems with 4472, and one individual in particular who must have known all of the details of the overhaul, and at no point in time has any information been forthcoming to help the NRM.

For shame.

No, if any organisation has been scapegoated, it's been the NRM, and if any one thing has been scapegoated, it's been Flying Scotsman herself, for the failures of her past ownership and choices made that have come back to haunt the locomotive under its new owners.

 

About time sac martin spoke up nice one FISH7373 81C

 

That's a good post. My only criticisms of it are the use of the word 'Southall' to pin the blame on. I don't think it was 'Southall' as such, more certain individuals, who it would be folly to name. I also doubt that the owners had much engineering knowledge of what was happening and the consequences of decisions taken; they only signed the cheques. If you don't know about a subject, you tend to leave it to those who purport to know and only start to ask questions when things go wrong,

 

That's a fair post Steve. However people tend to describe the Marchington overhaul as the Southall one purely because it's the location from which it was carried out. I know I do. Perhaps as you say, it is unfair to describe as a Southall problem. Happy to change my own descriptive term for that overhaul: perhaps it should be described as the last Kennington overhaul (he was, after all, in charge of it, no?)

 

I agree. To be honest I couldn't be bothered to write a post that includes all the caveats and exceptions that would be required to be wholly correct.

 

Not quite, company accounts are open to public scrutiny; we would know that you were wasting your money but would be unable to do much about it (with some exceptions Melter ).

 

Can we just get some facts correct here.
The A4 boiler was fitted in 1978 and restricted to 220 psi until this was upgraded to 250 psi at the Southall overhaul. Some A3s ran with A4 boilers fitted in BR days, but,again, at 220 psi. The cylinder bore size is the result of continual reboring. It was the combination of the rise in boiler pressure to 250 psi and the large cylinder bores, raising the tractive effort, that probably did the resultant structural damage. Quite honestly, the tractive effort when the boiler pressure was at 220 psi, with 20" cylinder bores, would have been quite high.
No mudhole doors were welded up. It was the access cover on the bottom of the boiler that was welded up.