Flying Scotsman

I interpret it that the client (i.e. the NRM) will arrange, free of charge, to shunt the loco and tender to their respective loading points for the contractor to collect. I would guess £5m or more craning insurance cover is not unusual in the lifting industry. Imagine the cost, not to mention the tragedy, if a 'flying' Flying Scotsman suddenly stopped flying.

 

"Make sure you don't crack the frames when you lift it onto the lorry..."

Am I right in saying it couldn't be towed to a contractor that has a main line connection?

 

Yes

 

I wonder how this looks from outside the UK?

It just adds to our overall appearance of total incompetence. We have what is arguably the most famous steam locomotive in the world and struggle to get a heavy overhaul on the machine anywhere near right - to say nothing about within budget. Oh well.............

And joking about damaging the thing in transit just isn't funny because the strong suspicion is, that at some time or other, that might well have happened.

 

From France (from a french railway enthusiast instead) it is appalling, deplorable and very sad because it's a shameless wasting of PUBLIC money!the most of humble people and enthusiasts alike!
I think that the person in charge of that true scandal must be accountable to british authorities in charge
regards
Noel

 

No joke intended - I think its daft to stick it on a lorry to move it to where it will be finished - its not exactly a family car is it? Even if it is done at 10 or 15mph over night surely moving a rolling chassis is preferable?

 

If your boat is insured third party though, that's only insuring against damage to other people's property-if you prang it, the insurers would only pay out the third party, not for your damage. Similarly, if you insured Scotsman third party, it would cover the car you dropped it on from the crane, but not the engine itself... At least that's how it would be in car insurance terms...

 

As I read it, longitudinal misalignment means that the coupling rod isn't perpendicular to the crank axle, therefore the only way that it can be assembled is with slop in the big and small ends. The vertical misalignment isn't quantified, and so it's unclear as to whether it was identified with reference to the drawings or whether it was just perceived misalignment due to the design. So the 1/2" vertical offset that Mr Kennington refers to is not the primary concern.

 

From France (from a french railway enthusiast instead) it is appalling, deplorable and very sad because it's a shameless wasting of PUBLIC money!the most of humble people and enthusiasts alike!
I think that the person in charge of that true scandal must be accountable to british authorities in charge
regards
Noel

Not strictly speaking public money in the sense of government grant. The overhaul money is all money donated to the NRM for the purpose of the overhaul. not sure if that makes it better or worse really.

 

Would be interesting to know if the money donated is being frittered away on consultant reports, etc...

 

Too right on the last post. Consultants recommendation is usually to employ more consultants! Self serving in their own interests more often than not....

 

Are the consultancy fees a waste of money if the reports have helped to persuade the (non-engineering) management & funding decision-makers that the project is worth continuing? Rightly or wrongly the previous NRM approach to running this overhaul lost its credibility. It seems reasonable that the current management sought independent advice before committing more public money.

 

Promoted beyond their competence. The Royal Navy lost ships because of that phenomenon (the crew of H.M.S. Dorsetshire maintained that that the ship would never have been lost if "Pincher" Martin had remained in command - just one example) but now we have people in jobs unable to make the decisions required of someone in their position. Similar thing really. So fortunes are paid out to have an external body make the decision for them. This is very useful since it avoids taking the blame should things go wrong and allows for the infamous phrase " lessons will be learned" to be hauled out yet again. You might not save your job but your handshake and pension will be well protected.
So the NRM got consultants in and we have people unsure of their findings. No matter what you think about RK and Southall, he may well have a point.
What would it cost to have the SVR remeasure it? They have the right equipment when all is said and done.
I am surprised that IR did not notice anything wrong - well he did - but did he follow it through? All the way to the end? He is not in a position to say. He might have suspected. They must have double checked everything when the life expired frame stays were being done.
Someone, somewhere in the past whilst working on the engine made an enormous mistake and people have been tripped up by it ever since. Sad and costly. I hope that someone has the courage and humility to make sure that the situation is not continued.

 

Personally have no problem with consultants, however, what I don't want to see is money donated by enthusiasts for say, vac brake fitting, blown on a report.

If it has been, that is a very big slap for people who have donated so much, and so often to try and get her back working.

 

The other problem with contracting parts of a job instead of the whole thing, is a tendancy for the contractor to do exactly what has been asked, and no more. If something else is noticed along the way, its kept to the contractors chest. In my experience of contracting out work I've always got better results where you give one firm the whole shooting match instead of splitting it up...

 

Does recent news about funding problems at the NRM, MOSI etc mean the end for Scotsman?

 

I'd agree with your every word if Flying Scotsman was owned by an engineering works or railway company but the NRM is no such thing. Its core business is running a museum of railway history and they could do that without operating trains, although that would be a great loss in my opinion. NRM is part of the Science Museum, and locomotive engineering is only one of the many subjects curated by the Science Museum Group. Can senior managers be expected to have personal expertise in every Science Museum discipline? No. Should they rely on professional advice from in-house experts in each field? Normally yes, but what should they do when the in-house plan has repeatedly failed to deliver (see the Meanley report for full details)? Even if the in-house management has changed has the NRM yet re-gained its credibility to run major locomotive engineering projects? I hope that following the consultants' recommendations will help them to do just that. No-one has seriously challenged the credibility of the NRM's consultants but, as you say, only time will tell if they are right in every detail.

I am sure the SVR's historic Doncaster machinery is not the only way to accurately survey a LNER designed locomotive. After all there are several which have been successfully overhauled or newly built elsewhere. No doubt many Engineers could have done this work sooner if the NRM had asked them. Unfortunately it seems they did not. According to the Meanley report:
"It is not clear that there was ever a plausible restoration plan.
Following the failure of the “heavy intermediate repair” to reduce
the rate of failures, there was a list of known problems but there
is no evidence of a survey adequate to detect other potential problem areas.
Work started to rectify the known problems, particularly around the boiler,
and the project stumbled into other problem areas over the following 5 years."
(quoted from: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/about_us/smg/~/~/media/33CDC07ED88345BEA5412F91D8742D45.ashx )

Rileys were not involved in the work on the frames in the early years of the overhaul and I doubt they would comment on advice given to, or instructions received from, their clients in later years. However Ian Riley has stated, in a recent post on The Works forum, that he has confidence in the NRM's current advisors on this project.

 

I disagree. What I suspect most people want is to see the engine restored to an acceptable high quality for the smallest amount of money. If spending a portion of the budget results in savings elsewhere (for example, by enabling things to be done once, properly, rather than having to be redone because of poor initial scoping) then that money will have been money well spent.

After all, given a choice (hypothetically) between your money being spent on some consultants giving sound advice enabling the engineering to be done properly; or being spent on what looks like "engineering" but which has to be undone and redone, would you still rather that your money had been spent on "engineering"?

Tom

 

It's the promise of what the money will be spent on that's the difference. If you promise me that if I give you £1 to spend on X and you spent it on Y then I've got an entitlement to feel that you didn't fulfill your promise.

 

The appeal was for the cost of returning the loco to steam. Shouldn't this cost include the surveying, testing, designing, project planning (including reports), contract writing and thinking parts of the engineering process as well as the physical work?