35009, Shaw Savill

Well, I both admire and despair at the owning group of 35025 in equal measure. Admire them for their determination to hang on to their loco and despair at their apparent inability to get on with the job. I don't think it's entirely their fault, but had they done a deal with another railway with Bulleid experience rather than moving it to a field and leaving it there, they might be a bit further on with the job. I seem to recall that the 'bottom half' was coming on quite well when work stopped at the GCR. I presume that shares are still available in the loco so I am sure there is scope for someone to sign up and inject a large sum of money into the project.

35011 looks rather more challenging. Although there is a "spare" driving wheelset in York which could probably be replaced with a wooden replica without anybody noticing...

 

But do they have an alternative to hanging on to their loco, apart from scrapping it? Ian Riley had 35009 on the market for quite a while and no one was interested. John Bunch also tried to sell 34073 and once again, there were no takers.

 

The problem is a double whammy for both these groups, your average invester wount know where Selinge is, and they are out of the public eye so wont get the funding needed, had the engines gone to a railway site, then i think they could have done better, more like minded people willing to get involved, and more members of the public to drop change into buckets and notice the engines, i think for these 2 its over, can you honestly seeing them getting done, i cant, no disrepect on the people at selinge but these engines cost lots of money and on a regular basis to move them forward.

 

its been some 5 years since i stopped working at Selinge, and nothing has been done on 25 in that time it would seem, and very little if any progress on 35011, both groups either have not got the money, or the working members it would seem.

 

If SLL don't have a presence there who is actually working there? The Austerity tank is being worked on so somebody must be there. What about the Rememberence Line brigade?

 

I seem to recall hearing that the owner of 5197/6046 at the CVR was interested in buying it around that time, so they didn't have to hold onto it.

One has to wonder though what's actually going on behind the scenes for a group seemingly relatively advanced on their loco to appear to be doing nothing with it, with complete radio silence for so long

 

SLL have no connection with selinge the Austerity tank was being done by a group of RL members, but now that project is as good as folded i guess that its most likily going to end up being loaned to east kent or Kesr. of the merchants there was never any working groups for 35025 and only a few times did anyone work on 35011, one week end 2 guys from eastleigh who i knew did some de rusting on her

 

The Austerity looked like it was a fair way down the road and the work was recent. People were there when we were. There was a Mark1 and a load of the Finnish stuff as well. Now that Les has departed I see that corner of railway rust getting cleared. I can't see the Birch family wanting it there now

 

The problem is that Les gave the Selinge loco group a lease on their bit of land, David , was dead against it, so i can see problems in the future i think the border is the track so you could get a large housing estate built next to the railway scrap yard, thats really going to endear the home owners

 

The obvious issue may have been the asking prices rather than any lack of desire for the locos.


Keith

 

Yes, funny that!

 

I doubt they could even give them away now. Everyone is so keen to avoid disrespect, but this sort of hopeless dreaming is pathetic. The Binbrook Crab suffered from the same sort of obsessive behaviour

 

I don't know much about 11 but 25 is perfectly restorable. It probably needs new ownership though. The major components are all there.

The story goes that the owning group suffered a fairly catastrophic split after one of them went off with another one's wife. I don't know how true this is!

Towards the end of it's time at the GCR, there were a couple of guys working on it, but those guys are now involved in projects at the GCRN (being locals) and not involved with 35025. The sad thing is that they were starting to make some progress after years of not going anywhere much - had the GCR not lost patience and evicted it, it would probably have been coming together nicely by now. But, moving it to a field in Kent was a stupid thing to do. I can only assume it is close to the home(s) of the major shareholder(s), who from what I have seen is/are old men and unlikely to do much in the way of practical restoration. The group always struggled for funds but they used to have fundraising stalls at events and were plugging away at it - all that seems to have stopped since it moved.

I guess that there is scope for an injection of cash from new shareholders. Has anyone tried contacting them recently?

 

Last time I checked, there were two Austerities on the site. Antwerp was hiding inside the tent, and 68078 was down the far end, being worked on by her owning group. I believe that RL were not actively involved in the restoration of 68078, which is still a few years off steaming.

 

And thats the problem, these projects are off the radar, so not getting any public attension, if the owners want to see these engines restored they have to get their fingers out, the problem is that Selinge was a dream, if i can be honest when SLL left it was hoped that there would be an influx of new members and funding on the back of the RL scheme, and that it would become a restoration centre and that that in turn would bring in people who wanted to work on 25 and 11 and get them on the main line as all pipe dreams, it didnt quite work out that way, had the Ashford works museum plan happpened with a restoration workshop, that would have been ideal, because once you had exibits and something that would attract the visitors then you would be able to get interested people and the grants etc to help

 

So accepting that neither Bulleid is going to be restored any time soon under the present setup, the groups surely should be seeking new homes elsewhere? Maybe they are and we're just not aware of it. It would be a great shame if they just sat there rusting until all the owners were dead and the landowner decided to clear the site - which is essentially what the "do nothing" option amounts to.

 

Engines have to go where the money is, and the money is with the companies that collect revenue from heritage railway operations IMO.