80078

Blast it! I find myself in total agreement with Mr Paulhitch again! A lovely loco indeed and very useful!

 

John,
Not a word of this I disagree with. However, IMHO tourist railways suffer from an excess of "big chufferitis" in their supporters groups as well as wanting to be thought of as mainlines. Hence few 4MT, fewer 2MT and (to date) no 3MT B.R. standard tank locomotives survive.

Paul H

 

Not sure how you can connect heritage railway supporters groups with the lack of cl.2, 3 & 4 tanks surviving. That is, unless you consider Dai Woodham to have been a heritage railway supporter and also blame him for not buying up enough of these types when he had the chance.

 

Quite simply. At least one of the survivors (2MT 41298) has never been anywhere near Barry Scrapyard so there were other sources of "supply". @flaman expressed his surprise at the low proportion of surviving examples of the 4MT type currently available. This I ascribed to "big chufferitis".

PH

 

In the BR era the Severn Valley saw many of the 3MTs in service. The 4MTs were rated blue (in GWR-speak) and should have been restricted to 25mph between Buildwas and Bewdley which was dotted blue. They were therefore seen only rarely, probably if nothing else was available at Shrewsbury. I wonder what had happened the day 80078 turned up...



Extract from SVR News issue 15, Winter 1969/70, credit to the original photographer as shown.

 

No. In your post you said that few survive and blamed this fairly and squarely on the railways supporters groups. Let's get this right. 41298 was saved from the scrapyard back in 1967. At that time there were how many standard gauge heritage railways actually operating? Please remind me as I can only think of Middleton and the Bluebell. So, all the supporters of other standard gauge railways, which didn't exist at that time, had to have had the forethought to raise funds to buy sufficient Cl.2, 3 & 4 tanks that were going to be scrapped. It's a point that you may have missed but those fledgling standard gauge railways that were in existence but not operation did actually do their best to acquire suitable motive power: 41241, 30072, 3205, 46443, 43106, 42073, 42085 for example. No fledgling railway looked to acquire motive power which you would describe as too big.
And let's go back to 41298 for a moment. It may have been preserved back in 1967 but how long has it taken to put it back into service and during all this time was it ever made available to any heritage railway? (along with 41313 & 46447). Owners prerogative, perhaps, but holding on to such locomotives when you do not have the ability to restore them is not helping overcome the situation which you perpetually moan about.

 

Give the Lads on the MHR a chance - we've not had it that long! Bolso (as its become known) is a much better prospect for the line than a turntable with no space to put it!

In suspect the visit of 80078 will give the project to restore 80150 a fillip!

I for one am looking forward to seeing her strut her stuff & give folks a taste of things to come.

 

I know I've put this chart up before, but worth showing again.

It shows the progress of locos being bought from Barry, as a proportion of the total available, split into small (class 2 and below); medium (class 3 - 5) and large (class 6 and above).

What it shows quite clearly is that the early preservation groups quite actively sought out smaller locomotives while they were available, and it was only later that the larger locomotives were saved.

So starting in 1968, it took 5 years to save half of all the small locos at Barry; about 9 or 10 years to save half the medium locos, and about 12 or 13 years to save half the big locos.

Which would seem to indicate to me that far from demonstrating a preference for big locos, the evidence shows that the 1970s and 1980s preservationists focused on buying the smaller locomotives, and only moved onto the bigger ones when most of the good smaller stuff had already gone. (Many groups were also collecting industrial locos at that times as well, but they also tend towards being smaller).

The key point, though, is to remember that this is based on what was available at the time. In real numbers (rather than relative percentages) more of the Barry survivors were medium and large, so more entered into preservation - that simply reflected which locos were still being operated by BR into the 1960s. But given what was available, the preference was to rescue the smaller locomotives first. Sadly, any railway that wanted the pick of the crop of small pre-grouping locos, for example, really needed to be collecting in the late 1940s / early 1950s at the latest - about ten years before even the earliest standard gauge preserved lines got up and running.



Tom

 

The thing that Barry Scrapyard scrapped more tank engines, than they did tender engines including the other two 1366 tanks which worked the Bodmin to Wadebridge railway quite a few 94XX the last surviving 3150 class engine and some Longmoor Military Railway MofS 0-6-0 ST.

 

I am not hung up over loco numbers, 41298 was merely cited as an example known to me of a machine that was never resident at Barry. There are others, such as the David Shepherd locomotives which did not go there either. Incidentally, as of today, a 2MT which was indeed at Barry, has run under its own power, i.e. 41313. This makes 100% of 2MT tender and tank locomotives rescued by the Ivatt Trust currently operable.

This still does not address the fundamental question raised by @flaman about why such a low proportion of such useful machines as 4MT tanks are serviceable.

PH

 

Hold on lads, let's not come to blows about this! I was merely replying to @Hicks19862, who made the valid point that there are a considerable number of Std 4 tanks around, but when a restored example becomes available, it provokes something of a feeding frenzy among potential hirers. They are indeed, very useful and desirable locos, yet of those nominally preserved, two thirds are currently out of use with half of those unlikely to be restored in the foreseeable future. No doubt lack of funds is a major factor but I, like @paulhitch , suspect that another is the widespread bias towards bigger engines- indeed, it was an example of that bias that led to 80078 being sold to its present owner. Of course, there are other factors; 80078's owner had previously investigated at least three of the no-, or rather little-hopers, to be told in one case "no way at any price", in another, asked a price so hair-raising that it also put-off "Britain's biggest loco buyer" and in the third told that the owning railway would happily sell, but they were prevented by trust covenants. Nearly four years on, those three locos still languish and, in two cases at any rate, deteriorate.

Such is the reality of loco (and rolling-stock) availability among our heritage railways. It doesn't bode well for the future.

 

There's no getting away from John and Paul's point that a standard 4's a useful beast but putting it this way, 80079, 43106, and 42968 which one would you like to see in action? As a younger man I wouldn't say I was sick of the sight of 80079 but going past 43106 when it was in store at Highley I know which one I would have preferred at the front of my train! And again using 80079 and 43106 as examples 80079 had it's day in the sun in the mid to late 90's while 43106 had a little rest, the tables are well and truly turned at the mo with 80079 in the Engine House and 43106 in traffic, you can't play with all the toys in the box at the same time. Just because some are out of traffic dosn't mean they're out of mind, it's just not their turn to have a go at the mo.

 

80079

PH

 

You would say that wouldn't you?

 

Yes

About time you lot gave a bit more thought to the balance sheet.

PH

 

Given that the three locos mentioned by Matt comprise a standard 4 tank; an Ivatt 4 mogul and a Stanier mogul; all three of which are very similar in principal dimensions (grate area, tractive effort etc.) I'm curious as to why you are so certain about the supposed economic advantages of one over the other two.

Tom

 

But at the same time the usability has to come into place in the overall plan, A 80xxx tank is probally the exception to the normal drawbacks of using tank engines in that they are capable of hauling most preserved lines largest loading services and have a decent coal and water capacity so are ok on longer trips.
That makes them ideal engines for preserved lines, big enough to be useful , without being to large, or heavy, and yet economical , so most lines would fall over themselves if one became availible, which makes you question the logic of SLL in the first place, i guess " Glory" engines ie large named engines gets you attension , and people do get attracted by large engines, and it massages some peoples egos, to be able to say we are restoring an ex large mainline pacific , as opposed to a mixed traffic engine, when to the operating arm of the railway , the mixed traffic 4 , is the more suited engine to their immediate needs, no railway can need to have 6 pacifics availible for traffic, except on special occations, in normal use 1, or 2, and a fleet of smaller engines, at the moment 70078's former home has a well ballanced fleet now, or soon will have, 3 engines of class 4, 2 7p engines, and a 2p Tank for early/ late season when loadings do not require 5 -6 car rakes.

 

Just tweaking the tail. Running numbers mean next to nothing to me. I was never a number collector.

PH