P2 Locomotive Company and related matters

Its on iPlayer now (here) well worth a quick watch

 

Piece on James May on the P2 Website. http://www.p2steam.com/news/current-news

 

The first roadshow is less than two weeks away. Has anyone seen how to book a place? I thought I had but if so I can't find it.

 

Just a teeny nit picking point re Mr May, perhaps it would be a good idea to fasten your hair back James if you're going to do a lot of bending over spinning lathes and suchlike.

 

Not worried so much about the hair....but would worry about hot chippings burning arms and clothing......and nowadays no goggles....particularly turning down a square piece of metal......

 

Agreed - also polishing a spinning bar using hand held emery cloth is now considered an unsafe practice

 

The full story is on the P2 website here.

The (longer) video is on YouTube.

Foxy.

 

Just a note to say the first Roadshow is coming up this Saturday in London.

Details and bookings are on the P2 Website, and can be found by using the link below.

http://www.p2steam.com/events

Thanks, J. Gorman.

 

Well for those of you waiting for the opportunity to become a regular contributor to the Price of Wales project you are now available to do so via the website:

http://www.p2steam.com/how-you-can-help/regular-donations

The first of the road shows was a great sucess, with more over the coming months. Do come along and see us, dates and bookings are available via the website.

 

Way back up this thread (#147) I lamented the division of resources among so many new-build projects, but in particular the two P2s; so this thread is perhaps an appropriate place to note that the other lot, the Doncaster P2 Locomotive Trust, are now having frames cut: see
Unlike the P2 Steam Locomotive Company, they don't seem to have said much about their plans for achieving approval to run their beast on NR. Has anyone here heard anything about that?

Their rationale for building theirs with A4-style streamlining seems to be that they think it looks better (a matter of opinion) and, mainly, that the original shape was poor for keeping smoke away from the driver's view. The latter is of course one of many aspects which the P2 Steam Locomotive Company have considered and have plans to deal with, without significantly departing from the original appearance.

 

Congrats on getting the frames cut!

I was wondering about the streamlining how hard would it be to add the casing to your unstreamlined one? Tornado has been around in various liveries over the years and I was wondering if your unstreamlined P2 could be streamlined for a couple of years?

 

Whether possible or not, it would be quite contrary to the spirit of the project, which is to recreate the particular (and striking) appearance of the first P2 as built. The streamlined version didn't look much different from the A4s, of which six still exist, half of them in working order.

 

TATA should upgrade their OS by the looks of it!

Great to see the frames cut, amazing to think we might have 2 P2s running!

 

Yes, it's good to see the frames finally being cut, but I'm somewhat holding reservations over this particular project.

Now I'm all for new builds and I'd certainly love to see two P2s out and about, but in all honesty I can't imagine seeing the Doncaster P2 anytime soon or even, dare I say it, ever at all. The fact is it's taken, from what I gather, years for the group to gather enough money to have the frames manufactured, and even then it's looks to be the bare minimum you'd need to consider yourself an owner of a set of frames.

The crucial issue as well, as several people have rightly pointed before, the group don't seem to be all that talkative when it comes to matter of how they actually aim to achieve their plan, pratically saying nothing about the engineering/technical side of their project. The P2SLC on the otherhand, have been giving out nothing but technical and engineering details on the progress of their project, giving everyone much confidence in what doing and aiming to achieve.

Believe me, I'd love to see a streamlined P2 myself (if only to see people getting confused like nobody's busniess when it's placed next to an A4), but until they start giving out some solid info on what their doing and crucially how their going to do it (certainly financial wise), people are going to remain skeptical about their project. Certainly I'm sure there's still plenty of people who think it's only gone active recently, so as to take advantage of the interest that's come with the P2SLC launch, which is fair enough, but ideally they to show more of themselves then just surfers of another project's wave...

 

Of course, you mean to Linux.

They may be sticking with XP due to the lack of drivers for some peripherals in M$'s successor OSs.

 

But which flavour of Linux do you suggest?

 

Does this thread come with subtitles? I never understood the original comment.

 

I think it refers to the version of Windows that was visible on the OHP screen for a few moments in the office shots.

Very interesting video. What happened to chain drilling and getting the apprentices to chisel them out? No wonder we've lost our artisan skills!

 

Thanks Steve, thought I'd missed something important there for a mo

 

I think that you will find that frames were flame cut even in the 30s. I am sure I have seen a video of it.