60009

Sage words, @torgormaig - but you'll always get a faction that will cry "Mummy, they're taking my toys away!" or "I don't care what the owner thinks, this should be kept in running order for me to photograph it for all perpetuity."

 

I don't think there is any nationalism involved in Mr Cameron's plan but I agree with you about ownership. The notion that because you "own" something you can do with it as you wish is quite wrong. I am not commenting specifically about Mr Cameron and his locomotives but stating a general principle.

 

Morally, in a case like this, I’d agree with you. But legally there is no protection whatsoever for the vast majority of preserved locomotives and rolling stock.

JC has proved his concern for the future custodianship of his locomotives by deciding to give them (plus the museum site and no doubt additional support and money) to a charitable trust.

 

I am not sure I remotely follow your logic here. Ignoring Property Law (which has it own sets of rules) if you own something you have the right, subject to other laws (environmental, planning etc) to do with it as you wish. Using your logic people who own vintage cars (and may have spent a fortune maintaining them over the years) should obviously be made to sell them if they now want to stop paying the bills and leave it in the garage.
I assume you must also object to the concept of Barry wrecks being part used because they are not being left as they were.
JC must have spent thousands if not millions over the years running his locos, and on the mainline to boot, yet "some higher authority" you do not explain who this would be, must now give him permission to do what
Force him to sell?
Agree who it is sold to?
Make him keep paying the bills and overhaul it?
Continue to run it on the mainline?

The steam movement and mainline steam owe much to those who have used their own money to allow us to have the pleasure of steam in the 21st Century and JC is one of those few, and should not be vilified for whatever decision he wants to take.

 

I absolutely agree. I once owned an old car that I cherished. It was in original condition and when I sold it I really hoped that it would remain that way but simply put, the buyer could do whatever he/she pleased with it once it became theirs.
Preservation of steam locomotives such as No9 is not a democracy and to be quite frank, if you're not the one paying and owning, any personal desires may count for little.

 

I think I'd draw the line at Mallard and Flying Scotsman. If they were in private ownership and the owner decided to scrap them, the state should have the opportunity to CPO them. No different from The Fighting Temeraire.

 

From some of the comments above, one would think there is a risk of the locomotive not being preserved and looked after, but left outside to rust or dismembered and used as parts to make other things. Hang on, hasn't that been done somewhere already?

 

You mystify me, I have objected to nothing apart from the belief that ownership confers the right to do with something as you wish. You in your post identify just a few of the restraints that exist.

However, I now strongly object to the inference that can be drawn from your last paragraph that I have vilified Mr Cameron.

 

However there is no mechanism for the state to do this - and even if there was they’d also need a budget and you know what governments are like. Fortunately most owners of historic locomotives do tend to see themselves as custodians.

 

not if the planners have their way

 

I wish to clarify (if it were not clear enough already in my original post) that I was not referring to JC specifically - and I have no doubts about his community based intentions when you study the plans drawn up for him.

 

If they do he will have to think of something else, I have said what I personally prefer but it's really nothing to do with me or anyone else

 

Amen. If I own a historic building, artwork, or piece of land, does that mean I can do whatever I want with it?

Noel

 

Nobody's vilifying him, just disagreeing with the concept that 'because he owns them, he can do whatever he wants with them'.

Noel

 

Yes it does. Other than the rules for listed buildings and planning permission there are very few legal constraints. Custodianship is a matter of conscience.

 

Don't know why he doesn't build a shed at Bo'ness, more people get to see them, and provides a further attraction to the Railway.

 

That there is the problem though (and again, this isn’t a criticism per say of JC).

Perhaps it should be more about social conscience. A recognition that we are ultimately mortal, never more than a bus widths away from having no say in what happens now and in the future.

I’ve spoken to a few groups recently who recognise that succession planning should be a bigger thing in our industry than it currently is.

My views on ownership of things like steam locomotives have changed over the years quite markedly. Ultimately they outlive us all if we take care of them.

How can you own something that is ultimately immortal if its just a collection of malleable metal components, coal, oil and water, if you yourself are mortal?

 

But isn't it about where you draw the line?

Would it be unconscionable for David Smith to sell 44932 in a thousand parts to Ian Riley for use as spares for his locos? I say no.

Was it wrong of Winston Churchill to chop up Graham Sutherland's portrait into little pieces? Hmmm.

It is best for the patrons of the arts and sciences to be the curators on behalf of society, as I'm sure Mr Cameron is aiming to be. But-- plan B-- in the rare event of some kind of irreversible wanton destruction going on (54398 anybody?) the NRM should be in a position to step in. Mr Coulls and co should in such rare cases be guardians of the public interest.

 

Not the same thing, with buildings and land you can't do anything without planning consent, if the artwork is owned by you then yes you can do what you like with it. I have said from an enthusiasts point of view I would like to see the engines have an operating future but that's not what the owner wants. What would I do if I met John Cameron again? shake his hand and thank him for spending a lot of money over the years to give us all a great deal of pleasure.

 

(Might be worth taking all this conversation to another thread?)

Indeed, I think people are getting mixed up between the moral and legal case for custodianship. If you own a precious historical object, there may be a moral case to see yourself only as a custodian, receiving it from the previous generation and handing it on to the next. However, in legal terms, that isn't the case and indeed might be essentially unenforceable.

Thought experiment: Suppose you own a 2018 registration car. You drive it a few years until it is worn out. Do you have a moral duty to hand it down to the next generation? Not many people would say yes. OK, suppose you have a 1998 registration car - any moral obligation to preserve it now? Probably still no. What about a 1978 registration car? Or a 1958 car? Or a 1938 car? You've now got a pre-war relic; most people would consider it decidedly infra-dig to scrap such a machine, but instead would bring out the "custodianship" argument, saying it should handed down through the generations

So clearly there is a continuum, along which the moral case for being a custodian rather than an owner becomes stronger. But it is only a moral argument, not a legal one. If you tried to make it a legal requirement, pretty soon you would be into having to write into law stuff such as how old does an object have to be before it becomes a requirement to view ownership merely as a custodianship? And whatever age you set it, you'd create a perverse incentive for people to scrap old stuff just before the threshold, rather than take on what would essentially be a liability of preserving it - which would surely be counter productive. If you said the threshold was, say, 50 years, you'd get lots of 49 year old objects being scrapped. Or else you might start having to create a nationally-enforceable "listing" system for a huge variety of objects and artworks, well beyond the current scheme for buildings.

So we should be glad that certain people have been prepared to preserve many old artefacts, sometimes privately and at their own expense. But ultimately, that is all - we should be glad: making it a requirement is fraught with difficulty.

Tom