Flying Scotsman

It will be on it's way to Bury.

 

Spot on according to a tweet from the NRM. I must be one of the relatively few to see the old girl move this decade!

 

Indded. The announcement has just been made: http://www.nrm.org.uk/AboutUs/PressOffice/PressReleases/2013/October/scotsman-update-Oct2013.aspx

 

Hmm...

So on 12 months, we've seen the discovery of the problem, its removal from Bury to York, 12 months investigative consulting " by the best industry experts" at considerable fee no doubt, critiscm of the so called "cottage industry" of engineering by those experts, only to see it return back to the cottage it hence came...

What have we gained, lost and wasted in the last 12 months.....?

Is public ownership of Scotsman really the best thing ???

"First Class Partnerships will continue to provide specialist engineering and project management advice to the museum."

I'm sure they will, Will there fees be made public ?

 

So where it says thta messers Riley and sons will "manage the operation" do you think that means that they will "hands on" operate it for the NRM.
if so that would seem a good arrangement to me.
they could sneak it out with a black five as a double header for test runs if they keep it black a while.

Do Rileys have any other colours? i do hope not.

The Melter

 

Twelve months almost to the day. Ian would have completed the work months ago little doubt about that. Bearing in mind how conversant his Company is, by now, with the locomotive was it ever going to end up anywhere else?

In the cold light of day the locomotive would be far better off in the hands of someone like John Cameron. Public ownership appears to be a good idea until you look more closely. A private owner can always sell if their finances become more difficult. If money becomes an issue in the public sector then the lowest cost option is taken. True some of the private owners of 4472 have been undermined by circumstances beyond their control but the engine has never been out of action for so long.

This whole saga, and the full story has not leaked out yet, illustrates the sad fact that the public sector is unable to deliver even on a small scale.

 

Reading the full NRM report from 26/10/2012 (Google - Flying Scotsman Report October 2012) they are pretty damning of themselves from pre-purchase throughout the whole project until then in terms of management.
If they had more time, resources and expertise before committing sealed bid for it they would probably have found out properly what state it was in and got away with bidding a lot less - but what would everybody have said if as a result it HAD gone abroad?
Effectively contracting out the whole of restoration, maintenance and operation to the likes of Ian Riley from day 1 would probably have been the best but probably politically unacceptable pre credit-crunch.
If that is what will happen now, IR would justifiably charge higher costs than would be the case with a private owner due to the level of auditing and accountability that NRM will be obliged to apply - possibly facing the spectacle of appearing before a Commons Committee?

 

You know, it's very easy for us all to be 'wise after the event', but we are where we are; the locomotive WILL now be returned to working order ( the outcry had she simply been 'stuffed & mounted' after all that's been done and spent would NOT have been a good thing for the NRM or the preservation movement in general, I believe), so let's hope for a speedy return to service for the old girl.

As a bonus, if she gets a new 10 year ticket, she'll be able, all being well, to be running on her 100th birthday. There's something to look forward to, is it not?

 

She should have gone to Ian Riley's works in the first place when the overhaul was required. At least she is hopefully on the way back to steaming now.
That recent BBC documentary was on the TV again the other week and it made me very sad when she was shown collecting dust in the NRM works at the end.

 

And here's a clue as to when we can hopefully see her turn a wheel in anger.............................................. Owners Manual....

 

I have had this book on pre-order with Waterstones for nearly two years! If it's as good as the Tornado Haynes Manual it should be a good read.

 

Enthusiasts are very good at spending other people's money. Besides, even the most benevolent of owners don't last forever, as we're beginning to see with Blue Peter; I wouldn't lay odds on when we'll see her in steam again.

Private ownership, whilst originally saving the loco, has subsequently very nearly lost or destroyed it, through a range of vanity projects.

Thankfully, it's long been unconscionable that that would happen to Mallard (which no doubt would have been thrashed to bits by now if we didn't have the NRM), and now Scotsman is safe too.

Spending public money rightly takes time. There are a million and one hoops to jump through. More so when errors are made - and they have been here, but I'm struggling to hold the NRM as culpable as previous owners.

Simon

 

I know!! Until recently the publishing date was April.................................................

 

I wonder if the image of 4472 within the NRM press release is any indication of the final restored appearance....?

Well you can always hope!

46118

 

I'm led to believe that they only just won, so bidding a lot less would not have secured the loco. But then again, I'm also led to believe that had that been the case, it wouldn't have gone abroad either....guessing who bid for it is left as an exercise for the reader, but at least one of the multi-millionaire loco owners in this country has already burnt his fingers on FS, so you can probably count him out

 

Not a case of spending someone elses money, leastways not as an enthusiast. I am pointing out that private ownership works and continues to do so. No one is pretending that it is perfect but the record for the public ownership of the engine is unspeakably bad. Blue Peter is another issue that has been going on in one form or another for more years than I would care to remember. The owners have always been "unusual" to deal with. The problem with public bodies is the time it takes to make a decision and one of the reasons why it does take so long? Because quite simply if you get paid by a body that spends someone else's money, your average public corporation or Government department for example, then why not spin the job out to take as much time as possible and get well paid for doing it? If time has to be paid for, why should it be necessary to take as much of it as possible to reach a decision?

On the subject of thrashed to bits and Mallard - what on earth crosses your mind to give you such an idea? 60009 has always worked hard. I am not aware that it is in bits. An A4 is a very different machine in some ways to an A3 and it is quite probable that the A3 was not as well looked after in its final years on BR as the newer machines. The engine's problems could well be rooted long ago.

 

Hmm, isn't it actually 'on record' that a member of the team involved in the last overhaul prior to the NRM buying 4472 has admitted that, inter alia, putting an A4 boiler onto her, having bored out cylinders & higher boiler pressure, in order to get Class 8 performance out of a Class 7 locomotive was 'possibly not the best thing to do'?

 

Makes you wonder what "nasties" they may or may not find in the part of the frames they cannot yet examine..................................................

 

Hang on, I detect a bit of unwarranted "public sector" bashing here.

Firstly, to say "the record for the public ownership of the engine is unspeakably bad" - well, what about the previous private regime? Hardly did the loco any favours, did it? Meanwhile, the NRM actually has quite a good record of successfully operating locomotives (4771, the T9, Cheltenham etc). Meanwhile, for every "Flying Scotsman" in public ownership, I could point you towards a "Royal Scot" in private ownership, which has also cost significantly more than envisaged and been significantly behind schedule into traffic. The big problem with Scotsman is that the NRM bought a loco that was probably considerably more clapped out than maybe they had bargained for - not least because of the previous thrashing and potentially destructive modifications it had received before it came into public hands.

As for the time taken to make decisions: part of that is due to the need for accountability with public money. In particular, public sector procurement can be tortuous, but that is not the NRM's fault per se. It is also not true to say (as others have done) that public sector procurement necessarily leads to the cheapest bid: it is designed to lead to the best value, with a weighing up between quality and cost. How good an outcome you get depends on how skilful you are in carrying out the procurement process. But it certainly isn't a simple matter of "cheapest bid wins", nor, for that matter, "make everything gold plated with knobs on".

There is a place for both public and private ownership of our locomotive fleet. But to uniquely criticise the NRM for the current state of FS is to turn a blind eye both to what happened to her in the previous forty-odd years of private ownership, and to the decidely patchy record of private ownership of other locos.

Tom