LMS Patriot Project Updates

Indeed. But those are public procurement rules, and I can't for the life of me imagine what relevance they would have had to an organisation like the A1ST

 

Is there not a thread somewhere for moaning about the EU/Brexit/the laughably tragic state of English political affairs isnt there????

I refuse to believe we cant make tires here. There are many a VTL that could whip out a set in a matter of hours. Many within the M25! Calling BS on that!

These boilers are disposable items. They cannot go on being patched forever, and nor should they IMO.

It a pretty logical and some what straightforward step to take a CAD model of a pressure vessel, chuck it in to your favorite FEA package and start some very rigorous analysis.

This absolutely does not negate the need, or even legal requirement, for good old hand calcs/excel calcs, but what it does do is allow a designer to pretty quickly identify areas of concern in any given design, adjust the model, and re-run the analysis.

The value and utility of this cannot be overstated, and it is for this fundamental reason of on the fly real time design that I feel we are going to see more new boilers.

As we can see, CAD is now a cornerstone of making these locos happen, and the ability to iron out serious stress/strain problem areas in literally a few hours, is a huge advance.

Further, how long is it going to be before the insurance companies start demanding this kind of engineering analysis? That is already happening in many other sectors...IMO its a matter of when not if.

 

Sounds like a business opportunity.

 

I am not sure I have ever felt this speechless and outraged on behalf of a group in the heritage railway industry before!

http://www.lms-patriot.org.uk/engineering/2017-05-25/boiler-manufacture-may-2017

So LNWR Crewe have decided to end all sub contracting work, thereby throwing a spanner in the works of the Patriot Group. Is this for real? The end date for completion is a year away and they had a contract, surely?

Beggars belief!

 

Yes there has been stories going around that they were just going to do one contract boiler work at a time, which I quite understand if warning is given the the engine owners who wanted them to do the overhaul/repairs to as their home fleet is more important, but to turn around and say we are not going to finish of the boiler work which we are partly way through is not good at all, and I hope railways black list their engines for running on their railways.

 

Shocking!

 

Absolutely astounded, LNWR Crewe will make no friends from this move, especially if the 11/11/18 completion into traffic is missed...

 

Yes you would have thought so, lets hope it is actually a 'wont do' rather than a 'cant actually do disguised as a wont do'...

 

Surely they're in breach of contract..

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

Hard to be definitive on that point if you haven't seen the contract.

Tom

 

Regardless of what's actually in writing, From the outside LNWR don't appear to come out of this with much credit.

 

Not to mention, we don't know what the contract provides for in the way of termination.

 

Moving on, regarding possible contractors who could fulfil the contract, there are a number that have almost, but not quite produced a complete flanged and riveted, copper boxed boiler, the A3 is one such, which was I think done at the SDR ? Also do West Coast Engineering do their own boiler work ? and of course Tyseley and the SVR. Just thinking aloud...

 

We have contacted at least 12 companies for quotation as Kev has written in the report, Tyseley,SvR, West coast etc have all been contacted. The big thing for us though is that I'm guessing all of these already have full order books and other work to be getting one with, and I'm sure the loco groups who are having work done don't want to loose time and let us jump ahead of them in the queue. I'm not part of the conversations on the engineering so I have no more info than what's been said. We are highly highly disappointed as you can imagine. Llangollen engineering are to have the bottom end complete by the end of summer waiting for a boiler to then fit. So with regards to 11.11.18 it's completely dependent on the boiler.

 

Strongly worded letter to one of the mags beckons. Highly infuriating. Thanks for update Gav.

Maybe this could be preservation's finest moment - all of us clubbing together to help get The Unknown Warrior ready for the Memorial Day in 2018?

 

What we don't have here is why LNWR have taken this decision, why would a multi millionaire drop the Memorial locomotive in the mire at such a crucial time.

 

I'd certainly put my hand in my pocket for it.

 

It certainly seems very unpatriotic and short sighted.

 

They did the same to 71000.

 

Just holding off on strongly worded letter. Apologies fellas, this one caught me totally off guard and rankled a bit. Maybe given the week it's happened in didn't help.

Apologies for the angry young man behaviour today.