True Preservation

So why does just about every railway have its own locos instead of hiring them in? Why is Bluebell bothering to repair engines instead of trying to keep that hired in 9F, for example?

 

But where are all these desirable smaller locos? There are something like nine BR standard 9Fs in preservation, and precisely zero BR standard 2MT tanks, and precisely zero BR standard 3MT tanks (new-builds notwithstanding). The same applies for the other companies. For all that it might be desirable to run class 1 or 2 motive power, I can think (for example) of only seven locos of that size of Southern origin likely to be available for heritage line use (five of which are on one railway, two of which are currently serviceable, third is under repair and a fourth is under overhaul) - yet there are just as many class 6 S15s available for preservation use, and four times as many class 7 / 8 Bulleid pacifics. The same is no doubt true for the other pre-nationalisation companies.

Bemoaning the fact that heritage railways tend to use locos that are a bit too big, while ignoring the actual distribution of locos available to be used, seems a bit strange to me. Far more sensible to ask what railways can do to increase their traffic to the point that such large locos are justified - though doing so gets us even further from the branch line preservation ideal that many aspire to (and would undoubtedly put yet more pressure on "non-prototypical" facilities such as cafes, shops, maintenance and storage capacity etc!) You can't have it both ways!

Tom

 

Security reasons? (clutching at straws here I know) Perhaps I'm speaking too much for personal experience, GWSR owns precisely zero locos and I naturally assume their way of doing things is the same as everyone elses, not knowing as much about other railways' inner workings.

 

I was playing devils advocate a bit there. I am sure there is a balance of reasons, and I take the point that money raised by the owning group is extra to that paid by the hiring railway, so the hire could in theory be cheaper....but surely the owning group charges as much as it reasonably can to fill the coffers for the future?

 

Temper temper. I don't moan but I do criticise! Sooner or later the true cost of maintaining equipment has to be faced up to and assuming that someone else will pay is not good enough.

PH

 

I thought you had a 2MT tucked away which has never emerged and a 4MT for that matter but I could well be wrong. Of course what is around today is what was rescued yesterday and not everybody was as sensible as the Ivatt Trust were at the time.

Talking of "sensible", even if it were practical to increase traffic to the point to justify large locos, extending platforms to the necessary 12 car lengths would, even if the space was there, wreck any remaining ambience. I am afraid it is you that is trying to have it both ways.

Paul H.

 

It's a bit of a mix. There are locos owned by railways. Locos owned by individuals/groups but based on a railway under a service arrangement (railway pays maintenance and overhaul costs in lieu of hire fees). Locos owned by individuals/groups but based on a railway on a daily fee/mileage rate basis but the owners pick up the overhaul costs. There's a few available on a spot hire basis too.

 

Very few locos can command a realistic hire fee. No point in charging more than a railway can reasonably afford. That's why many owners have other fund raising initiatives.

 

Oh for heaven's sake! We couldn't all save Ivatts as there weren't that many to save. As for the Ivatt Trust being sensible, just as well we haven't all taken as long to get our engines going. No offence intended to the Trust by the way.

 

You're so right. My involvement in preservation has cost me a small fortune. Do I regret it though? Do I heck?

 

Hang on here, firstly you criticise the Bluebell for not having done the Standard class 2 (being done slowly now) and the class 4(awaiting the class 2 to be done, and stored for future use), and yet when you look at the Bluebell fleet, its one of the more balanced fleets in terms of the sizes of locos available, and in service. It is also one of the few fleets that largely represent the classes of the loco that worked that line and that part of country, only two real outsiders of a fleet of over 30 engines.

Secondly you say how sensible the Ivatt Trust are, yet none of their engines have steamed in preservation, and now they appear to have handed them all over to probably the most inappropriate railway they could find to house them. The Isle of White Steam Railway are doing a great job with them, and good on them for that, but why would anyone think putting two Ivatt tanks and an Ivatt mogul on the Isle of White is sensible? They never worked on the island originally, and are really too big for the line.

Daniel

 

To be fair BR looked at replacing the fleet of Adams 02's on the IOW in 1960 with BR version of the Ivatt Cl.2 tank and had plans for a up to dozen or so modified 84xxx tanks. At one point several were transferred from the LMR and were sitting in the yard at Eastleigh works awaiting modification when they abandoned the project only to look again a few years later before settling on electrification of the system.

So 41298 and 41313 being inappropriate for the IOW is not really wholly accurate, the tender version - 46447 - is a bit more of a stretch.

 

Can I point out that the locos in Barry were not really those last in service with BR as most were in there a while before the end of steam. The West Countries that saw out steam didn't make it there for instance

 

BR may have thought about it, but they never did. As far as i can tell, the Ivatts are the largest engines everon the island.
Daniel

 

Recognising that 46447 was probably to big (in physical size, not necessarily power) for the Island, the IWSR entered into an agreement with the ESR that saw 46447 move to Cranmore for overhaul and the last remaining E1 transfer to the ownership of the IWSR. The E1 is, of course, a far more suitable engine for the IWSR.

The ESR have been making superb progress and 46447 is now well on the way to completion, have a look at the ESR Photo Gallery.

As has been mentioned on here before, the IWSR is in the happy position of owning its entire locomotive fleet, all of which are of an appropriate size to allow economic operation of trains.

 

Your sums are flawed. 200 days a year for one loco is a level of usage that few if any locos achieve. You've also missed out the fact that locos generally need repairs of some sort during a ticket so you can add that cost to the £250,000 to start with. It's a fairly complex issue and you've oversimplified it.