another post got me thinking....

...which loco has run the most miles/ spent the longest in service in Preservation?

 

The most miles I would imagine would be Ellerman Lines at York. Or is that cheating a little bit?

 

Longest in service - I suspect might be Stepney, which has been preserved 54 years and has spent a lot of that time in traffic. Otherwise maybe one of the TR or FfR locos - I'm less famiar with their service history, but e.g. Dolgoch and Talyllyn have been in preservation for ten years more than even Stepney.

Biggest mileage - I wonder if it is something a bit left-field like Clan Line, which has been preserved a comparatively long time, has been mostly in traffic and, being mainline, has the opportunity to do fairly big annual mileage a when actually running?

Should say - both are guesses, I don't have figures to back them up.

Tom

 

Id go even more leftfield and I'll go for 48151 that pretty much seems to have been in service since the mid eightie's and pretty much all its mileage has been on the mainline.

 

The original TR locos, Talyllyn and Dolgoch, must have the longest period in preservation. IIRC, Tom Rolt, Michael Whitehouse and the others formed the world's first railway preservation society in 1951, 63 years ago. I'd guess that the Ffestiniog locos probably have a higher annual mileage, because of the length of the line. In the standard gauge world, was Stepney preserved before Flying Scotsman? Do locos like GNR No. 1, "preserved" by the LNER, count in this context?

I'd expect that locos like 80136, that have had long periods of daily working on long preserved lines such as the NYMR, are likely to have the highest mileage. Which locos on the oldest, longest lines have the highest mileages? Those that are also (or have been) mainline certified, such as 62005, are probably the top candidates.

 

Truro must have done a few miles on Service trains when steamed in the 50s, does that count?

 

To answer this surely you have decide what preservation means, did it start in 1951 or before?

 

Im sure I read somewhere that the highest preservation milage was 48773 on the SVR? I could well be wrong though........

Chris

 

48773 has done 151,805 miles, according to the Autumn edition of the Severn Valley News.

 

I interpreted the OP's question to mean "which loco has been operational for the longest in preservation", not just preserved (in any state) for a long period (i.e. it asks "longest in service"). Rocket was preserved (as in acquired by the Science Museum) in about 1860, and arguably was privately preserved for twenty-odd years before that, but it hasn't had too many steaming days in that time!

With regard locos like City of Truro, the T9, Jones Goods, Caley Single etc that had celebrity careers on the mainline in the 1950s / 1960s, were they still owned by the BRB at the time? That would argue against their being "preserved" at that time.

Amongst standard gauge locos, Stepney, P class 27, the Adams radial tank, the North London tank, the Dukedog, Captain Baxter, Birch Grove and Fenchurch have all had over fifty years in preservation, and of those, I suspect Stepney has had the most time available for traffic. It's possible that something on the TR / FfR has had more years available for service on account of being preserved for longer, but I don't know the history.

Tom

 

Ring haw at NNR did 22 years straight at one point, every time I visited in the 90s it was in steam doing something

 

Indeed that's what I meant. Actual steaming days/ miles run,,,,

 

You still need to know the actual preservation dates in some cases, as with the examples you mentioned. That is what I assumed was meant - ie when does Truro's miles begin to be preservation ones?

 

1931 was the date of it's preservation....but it did no mileage until about 1957 and not an astronomic amount since, so I doubt it's a contender (but it has a far greater claim to fame anyway)

 

What, the first loco to do about 97 mph?

Tom

 

I don't know what 80135's mileage on the NYMR now stands at, but it must be well over 100,000, and I would imagine that both 45428 and 75029 are catching it up quite rapidly. Another dark horse is S15 30425/30841, although its schizophrenic identity crisis might rule it out!

 

Yes it did that, and the very next day it topped the ton too.

 

Yeah, but an awful lot of ours were well past a million before they even entered preservation!

Tom