Steam engines available for traffic in 2014

Tom
Don't want to repeat myself even more than normal!

However where option A is concerned the reason is clear. Dispose of the dead to keep the quick alive. I can think of a railway (not the Bluebell) which resembles a linear scrapyard with incomplete saddle tanks scattered around. Obviously there is not much money and the scrappies could produce the finance to help general progress on the project (provided of course these are in the same ownership) and improve the view for the passengers. There is considerable potential there but almost literally obscured by the grot. Of course scrap can only be sold once. Forgive me but it is a bit like saying "no point in washing because you will only get dirty again"

The IOWSR is quite able to defend itself without anyone else's help. However I cannot see how the various transfers in any way push the unrestored further down the queue. There aren't many anyway (6, shortly 7 presently serviceable) and shortly they will all be under cover.

Paul H

 

Miraculous to relate I don't think we are that far apart. I sense that some lines have found it expedient to hire power and have found it cheaper not to keep their own stuff in order. Most short sighted IMHO.

The reason for haste is that no-one knows how long they have got and the situation is a bit like the person who says he or she will "get round to" making a will "sometime" only to fall under the proverbial bus and leave the survivors with a big problem.

PH

 

Out of interest, in the last few years how many locos have moved from private ownership (individuals or external groups) to become "company assets"? I assume 34058 would qualify. Any other noteworthy examples?

 

On the Bluebell, within the last ten years or so:

263 (from H Class Trust to Bluebell Railway Trust).
178 (from Southern Locomotives Ltd to Bluebell Railway plc - the Bluebell had sold her to SLL many years previously).

I can't think of any other recent changes of ownership on the Bluebell.

178 is an interesting case: as I understand it, it had been acquired originally as a source of spare parts for 27 and 323. Then when parts were no longer deemed to be required, it was sold to SLL with the intention of restoration. They then sold her back to the Bluebell when they realised it didn't really fit with their core business of restoring large engines (mostly Bulleids). I'm not sure if she ever actually left the railway during that period. The Bluebell then finished restoring her (SLL had made a start), about 30 years after originally being rescued, and she is now an important part of the fleet, in traffic most weekends. That wouldn't have happened if she had been scrapped or broken for parts!

Tom

 

On the MHR since 2000 we have acquired (mostly from individuals or small groups, and mostly outright) 45379; 34007; 35005; 75079. 34058 doesn't quite qualify (yet). A legacy of previous times when money was not being watched as closely as it is now, or perhaps there was ambition in excess of ability to pay for it, means we don't yet have a running shed or a carriage shed or a loco storage shed. However, watch this space as they say. I am optimistic that this will change in a relatively short space of time.

I am with Paul in one sense. I think that there are owners (both private and company) that hang on to stuff long after it would have been better for the item, for them and for their base if they had allowed ownership to change. There is (inevitably) a lot of rose tinted glasses around, and some of them are blinding their wearers. I can think of some carriages languishing in storage that we would have restored by now if they had been sold or leased to us, but the owners didn't want to do that so they stay rotting and getting harder to restore by the year.

 

On the NYMR, 45428, 75029, 30926, 3672, 80135, 76079 and 44806 have all gone from being privately owned to being owned by the Trust, and the Mid-Hants have similarly acquired 45379, 75079, 80151, 34007 and 35005. There are those on the NYMR who think this is enough, if one adds locos owned by supporting groups, but supporting groups can (not always though) be fickle and can evaporate, just as individually owned engines can - e.g. in the case of the NYMR 75014, 6619, 90773, 44767 and 92214. As steam haulage is the railway's "stock in trade" and as the railway needs around 8 engines per season to maintain its timetabled steam services with a couple under overhaul it could justiably look to buy another 2-3 to be totally non-reliant on hired engines, whether NYMR-based or visitors. In practice a proportion of the home-based hire fleet is likely to be available and that could reduce the need, but if I was in charge at the NYMR I think I'd be looking for a couple more, preferably Whitby-capable, engines.

 

I really don't follow the 'scrap it to keep the railway going' argument. Scrap value is relatively low for locos compared to the cost of a 10 year overhaul, and even less I imagine for carriages. I do follow - to an extent - the 'keep it tidy or you'll put off Joe Public' argument , except that actually most railways look better now than they ever have, so surely they are getting there?

More can always be done, but that doesn't suggest the model is wrong, just that resources are finite and therefore there has to be a process over years - indeed never ending - where steady gains are made against a constant background of work.

No doubt there will be the occasional asset that must be declared beyond hope, but the reality is that as soon as anyone mentions scrapping something, someone turns up wanting to buy it and restore it. What are you going to do, ban them? Its their money.

I still think the biggest problem among the second rank railways is the sustainability, attractiveness and cleanliness of their coaching stock, not the odd unrestored steam loco. You talk about people being put off by 'junk' steam locos, but nothing puts the head of the family off quicker than scruffy dirty seats or opaque windows or mucky door handles in the carriage they are travelling in. You then get resistance about 'dirty steam trains' the next time you want to go to a railway instead of the beach.

 

The privatisation of British Rail, as has been discussed in many books, was based on road and air ideas.

Paul your comment about tourist railways being bad at scrapping things, I am not sure many would describe themselves as 'tourist railways' and more as working museums, so have different ideas about scrap...

 

This neatly demonstrates the semantic point from earlier in the thread - there is only one 'unrestored' loco on the Island - 41313, which was bought straight from BR and is in pretty good condition, as I understand it no worse than a loco that has been round in preservation like 1618 or 80064. B110 has run in preservation and is complete so cannot be said to be unrestored even though it probably needs more work than 41313!

 

Perhaps we are confusing "second rank" with size. There are several who might consider themselves "front rank" but are quite capable of turning out carriages which have worn out seating or are dirty or are both! Indeed I suspect that the number who do not sin in this respect can be counted on one hand. Cleanliness of lavatories and catering facilities is also vital.

I do think railways need to get a hold of groups who have been pottering around for years without much evident progress. Some may find this endlessly fascinating but in reality it is no different to Great Uncle Joe who has been filling up the rear garden for years with half dismantled motor cycles and never finishes one of them. A great irritation to those who have to look out on the mess.

PH

 

41313 came from Barry scrapyard. It is 41298 that was bought direct from BR.

 

Is there any market research to show that this is a major gripe for visitors to heritage railways? More so than dirty carriages, smelly loos and poor catering? You should not assume that what annoys you as an individual also annoys the general public. On the occasions my partner accompanies me to a heritage railway, lines of stored items in a siding are not of major concern. Cleanliness, catering and sanitation are and I suspect similar could be said of many others accompanying their husbands/boyfriends to a railway.

 

A bit like a barking dog really. No annoyance to the owner but plenty to other people whose views aren't sought. In his post (No. 345) 21B has it about right.

PH

 

I lived in the US for a while, and although I was unable to visit more than a few local railway 'attractions', I visited enough to say that the average American 'tourist railway' has precious little to offer the enthusiast. It will likely have only one or two working steam locos of fairly nondescript type and no historical connection with the area, gutted or fake passenger accommodation, and little in the way of museum or facilities except toilets and a huge gift shop. It will be geared entirely towards getting you on the train and off again and out of the premises with your souvenirs as quickly as possible. Questions about locos or rolling stock will not be encouraged.

What exactly they are going to do when their locos need major overhaul is not clear - buy one from China or stick a diesel engine in the tender.

It might be a way for these organisations - which are usually mostly paid staff, poorly paid - to stay in business, but it is not railway preservation as such. Unless you regard a Beefeater Inn as a genuine English pub.

There are genuine preservation sites as well, on British lines, but very few of them - and the best one I visited was concerned with trolleys/trams, not railways. Those are like ours, stuffed siding-full with things in the various stages of preservation from derelict to gleaming just-restored. And , as one would expect, they have a major contribution from volunteers, and a connection with the local community the 'tourist' types do not have.

I suspect in the US the division between the two types took place many years ago, because there never were as many railway enthusiasts and steam disappeared over there at a period when nostalgia was deeply unfashionable, whereas the trolley museum speaks to nostalgia for the 'roaring 20's', a different phenomenon entirely to our looking back to the 50's and 60's. There is also the contributing factor that modern railroading in the US is still quite spectacular and diverse, which tends to focus what railfans there are more on the contemporary scene.

 

Missing the point entirely. Have you any market research that suggests lines of unrestored vehicles are of concern to the ordinary visitor and more likely to dissuade them from visiting than dirty carriages, smelly loos, poor catering and/or poor customer service? Do you have any evidence to back up your claim?

 

No more than you have to deny that they do.

P.H.

 

Thus your argument begins to fall apart.
I have experience in dealing with the public on heritage railways plus have visited railways with non enthusiast friends and family. For several years I volunteered "front of house" at the NVR - a railway with its fair share of unrestored items. Yes there were gripes from time to time but I cannot recall anyone mentioning the "scrap lines" in a negative manner if at all. That is only a small sample I admit and there may well have been people who were put off but never mentioned it but you can only go with what feedback you get. In no particular order I have found people concerned with 1.) ticket price, 2.) car parking, 3.) length of wait for next train/when is the next train?, 4.) catering, 5.) loos, 6.) length of ride, 7.) "is Thomas running today?" It will be interesting to learn from other volunteers on other railways as to the feedback they get from there visitors.

 

It's interesting that Pete2Hogs gave an American example, because I was thinking simultaneously along New Zealand lines.

There's a museum in Auckland called MoTaT - Museum of Transport and Technology, which - while not officially a national collection - is the closest there is in NZ to the NRM, Hendon, Crich, Beaulieu etc all rolled up into one.

The railway collection is probably everything Paul and others dislike - a dusty agricultural shed, with half-decayed exhibits crammed together to be more or less un-photographable. Outside, various large chunks of metalwork are arranged seemingly at random. In short, it gives an air of gradual decay, the talents of the staff who are gradually restoring items (to a very high, museum-fidelity standard) notwithstanding. No doubt some say they should scrap half the collection and concentrate on doing less, better.



However - a hundred yards away is the aeroplane collection. Here, there is a vast airy hanger, home to a superb collection, including New Zealand's only Lancaster, a Mosquito and the world's last surviving Short Solent IV, a vast flying boat airliner.



Why is that significant? Well, fifteen or twenty years ago, the entire aeroplane collection was housed in conditions no better than the trains, in many ways worse. The Lancaster flew into Auckland in the mid 1960s as a working exhibit, was moved to the museum and then left outside in the sea air to rot away. Again, many people would have had those exhibits scrapped. But instead of that somewhat defeatist cause, the museum management worked hard until they could deliver a building for the aeroplanes worthy of the collection; plans are now underway I believe to transform the railway collection. The Trams already have a beautiful tram shed on the main site, and are used to ferry visitors the mile or so between the museum's two main sites.

What MoTAT acquired was strong management. Yes, it's true you can't save everything. But equally - once it is gone, it's gone. We are, after all, in the main a preservation movement, not a fairground attraction - even if it is the fairground attraction part of our operations that pays for the museum! I suspect if we stopped the preservation aspect, life would actually get harder: harder to raise money from charitable sources, and people would also feel less inclined to visit as somehow railways would feel less "worthy" and more just like any other fairground, to be judged as such.

Tom

 

Thanks for the clarification, though I believe my comments on the condition of the loco still stand.

 

on the GWSR in one of our membership magazines last year visitor feedback was published. I have just reread it and no where does it mention rusting hulks in sidings or anything of the sort. As Spamcan rightly points out, what appears to be most important according to this survey is catering and being able to see out of nice clean carriages. A fair amount of people seemed to want to be able to visit the engine sheds, which of course have, along with running items, rusting hulks as well! On the other hand, earlier last year there was a couple of posts by the then chairman about "improving the view from the carriage window" and "Improving the view from the carriage window - part 2" yet the only comments received were negative. I have only ever heard two people complain about rusting hulks in sidings (both on Natpres) plus directors attempting to guess what is important to passengers, which looking at the recent survey isn't.