Preservation or Pastiche

And locos or were Franco-Belge tanks common on the Welsh narrow gauge?

 

But isn't that Paul's endless argument? Foreign locos and stock on his beloved WLLR or Austerities and Ivatts on his equally beloved IoWSR are fine but a big loco/Mk.1 rake on a former branch line are not.
If both his favourite railways were to achieve the authenticity that he considers should be the aim of all other lines, they'd be mighty short of motive power and/or stock for the level of services their patronage requires.
All lines have to make compromises is this day and age, some more than others.

 

I think there is an element of Pastiche in the way some locos are finished. Even when the livery is 100% accurate, restorers often aim for a high gloss exhibition finish with lots of burnished metalwork. The result is that, as you say, it looks wrong. This is a form of pastiche because it seems to be aiming towards a perceived styling of a mythical bygone age when engines were always shiny and were never allowed to get dirty.

 

I've only ever seen the old practise of working repeating patterns of wax polish reproduced a couple of times. If it takes as long as it looks as if it takes, that's hardly surprising. I've a photo of WC&PR No1 Clevedon (ex-Jersey Rly General Don) polished to the extent of rubbing the paintwork off!

 

I don't think anyone is dismissing it, just acknowledging that every visitor has to suspend their disbelief a bit to feel like they are truly being transported back to an indeterminate and flexible period 'in the past'.
If any of you have read up on William Gilpin's concept of the picturesque, for me railway preservation fits it to a tee. That's not being pejorative in anyway, just (IMO) realistic. Perhaps that's a better expression than 'pastiche'?

You remember it when the loco was in pre-grouping livery?

Ah, but you forget the golden rule of railway preservation. There are two ways of looking at it - the PH theory of selectively positioned goalposts way*... and the wrong way.

(Any disagreement with said theory to be countered by playing the victim card)

 

If it is what I think it is, then I'll buy that. The fly in that ointment is the historical claims of most preserved railways - hence my suggestion of the tension between preservation and pastiche.

 

I'm sorry but when you've spent countless hours and hundreds of thousands of pounds restoring a loco or other railway vehicle, the last thing you want to do is let it get dirty because a few people like to recall the demise of steam when things were unkempt and dirty. That is not the impression you want to give to the average visitor. Cleanliness shows pride in the job and conveys a good impression to the passengers and other visitors.

 

Actually Franco Belge did supply locomotives to South Wales, to the Barry Railway I think.

PH

 

One is 50% inauthentic. The other is 100% so.

PH

 

Only when (? deliberately) misquoted.

PH

 

A very valid point. The MHR authentic grubby event a few years back produced some very nostalgic photos, but I'm ignorant of how the event was received by Joe Public at the time. The W&L also allowed No1 to get filthy for a photo charter goods train, last year IIRC.

Is anyone up for an authentic 70s station experience? Long queues at one open ticket window, unintelligable tannoy announcements, indifferent (or closed) catering facilities, filthy platforms and tracks, sporadic lighting and passengers playing "dodge the endless line of moving "Brutes"? No takers? Guess Spamcan's right, and it is only the sanitised version we're promoting then!

 

Ahem ...



Taw Valley on the Cuckoo Line, tender first with a couple of carriages, 1965...

Tom

 

Ah, but was the Barry Railway narrow gauge?

 

As opposed to the modern day when it's long queues at the one working ticket machine.

 

I was under the impression that something is either authentic or not. I didn't realise authenticity came in degrees but every day's a school day as the saying goes.

 

It also implies that the experience is 100% about the engine and the carriages behind it as well, and everything else is irrelevant, which, I think we *all* can agree, is patently not true.

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

 

Not NG of course (anyone got a full quarry loco list?), but GW (Ex Barry Rly) Franco-Belge B1 class 0-6-2t nos.273-277 survived, Swindonised, until withdrawn between 1945 and 1951.

 

You know perfectly well it was not

 

How very true. And the experience can vary between different members of a visiting party. On our annual trip to Yorkshire, I'm studying the roster to work out which locos I want to be hauled by while my partner is browsing in the shop and judging the quality of the coffee, cakes and the ladies.