80078

Oooh "anonymous people on the Internet work themselves up into a frenzy about something" shock! Hold the front page! It's not exactly news, is it? (The fact that there was a barrage of comment online I mean; not about 80078 moving, which is news). If the best that HR can do to pad out a story and provide worthwhile analysis is quote anonymous forums I can read (and participate in) for free, it doesn't exactly encourage me to spend my hard-earned cash on the magazine.

Perhaps the editor of HR would like to comment on their use of such material to pad out stories? Oh no, I forgot, all he does is create new forum non-topics on here telling you to go to a different website to find anything out, rather than actually getting involved in any debate here. Ho-hum... :smile:

Tom

 

It might be a good idea for twr12 and Jamessquared to go out and buy the current "Heritage Railway". They would then discover that only a small part of the article on the sale of 80078 concerned this thread, the great majority of it consisted of historical notes on the engine, a detailed explanation, by a director of SSL, of the background and reasons for the sale and a quote from the boss of the railway to which the loco will eventually go, explaining the new owner's plans for the future.
The HR news story is the only full and accurate article to have appeared, so far, on the sale of 80078. Far from being the product of lazy journalism, it has clearly involved a fair amount of research; ploughing through the 22 pages of this thread, trying to find something relevant, must have been quite an undertaking for a start!

 

Not Heritage Railway!

 

I completely agree with flaman, the article is much more than quotes from this forum. Surely good journalism involves doing research and getting different opinions and views on the article, which is exactly what HR have done by viewing this forum. Simply publishing our opinions as a forum to the readers who may not be on here, i don't personally see how that's lazy journalism. I do feel sometimes we are a bit quick to judge when we don't have the facts...and me, I work in a Pub and have nothing to do with the production of any magazines!

 

Halloween approaches, so I thought it might be an appropriate time for a spot of thread resurrection.

To recap, 80078 has spent the last three years buried in deepest Essex. As might be expected, the simple "re-tube, a few stays and a bit of welding" job that was originally foreseen/hoped for has expanded somewhat, to include major cylinder and wheelset work, some of which might have been "got away without", except that the owner is determined to get the loco restored to the highest possible standard.

Anyway, I now have something positive to report. The boiler has, today, passed its preliminary in-steam test. All major components are now to hand and reassembly will commence ASAP. Completion date (fingers crossed!) is expected to be sometime next summer and meanwhile I hope to be able to give sufficient progress reports to keep this thread alive!

 

Cheers for the update. Discussion in the Jacobite thread prompts the question is main line work an aspiration?

 

AFAIK the engine will be restored to a standard where mainline operation would be an option, but there is not any immediate intention to do so.

The reasons are that there appears, from expressions of interest already received, to be more than enough work available on Heritage Railways, it will be easier for the owner to arrange supervision on HRs and mainline operations on NR are increasingly seen as a bureaucratic nightmare.

 

Thanks, wasn't meaning necessarily on Jacobite btw. HR makes much more sense unless the owner has a specific aspiration to see it on the big railway.

 

Which contractor repaired the boiler?

 

Done "in house".

 

Another 8 months on. How's it going and any news on which line it will grace?

 

Knowing a couple of people working on it, it's progressing well but will be finished when it's finished.
As for railway's I cannot comment, but I'm sure the owner will have endless offers of work for such a useful loco.

Matt

 

Any updates on 80078?

 

It's approaching completion, basically reassembled but with a few details to finish, mainly completion of the rebuilt bunker and fitting of a new chimney, the previous new one having proved not to fit.

I hope to find time to have a look at it tomorrow morning, if anything differs from the above I'll post an update tomorrow evening.

 

Thanks for the update

 

As promised, herewith update with photos taken this afternoon. The main outstanding work is fabrication of a new bunker. Stewart, the loco's owner, expects to have it running by the end of this year. He then intends to bring it to Mangapps for running in, after completion of which a decision will be taken on which railway/s it will visit. A major factor in that decision will be arrangements for management and oversight of the loco's operation. In other words, it will not necessarily go to the highest bidder!

 

Me again, just realised that I had a third pic, of the remaining gap.

(And the elusive owner!)

 

Be nice if it could end up on a railway in the East Anglia region