Ivatt 2 41312 Farewell

The withdrawal from service of the Mid Hants' Ivatt 2 41312 seems to have passed the forum by. The fact it made it to the end of its ticket is a tribute to the guys who initially restored it and have maintained it since. This engine really has been a terrific ambassador for the Mid Hants and its owner over the last 10 years, having run over 58,000 miles. It's certainly demonstrated its ability to do almost anything asked of it, from passenger trains, engineers trains on the Bluebell and a sojourn on the mainline in its early years. It definitely looked at home in any picture I saw. The site of the two Ivatts working together at the MHR's Autumn Gala was great.

I only got to see it in steam a couple of times at the Bluebell, but it instantly became my favourite engine with its looks and pure suitability for most heritage railways. I'm only disappointed I was never able to get the engine to my local line (Spa Valley) and have a footplate turn. Maybe it could be possible in her next ten year ticket.

What I'm wondering now is what the future holds for the engine. Do the MHR guys out there know of any initial plans for the engine? I appreciate that there are a number of other projects in front of her that are going to demand the workshop time. I was just curious if its going to be a case of when there is time, a start will be made?

Cheers

Matt

 

It was still being discussed yesterday on this thread: http://railways.national-preservation.com/viewtopic.php?f=106&t=17856&start=0


Keith

 

This seems the best thread to post in as it is solely for the Ivatt.

Looks like she has got an extension and will be attending the gala:

 

41312 is currently hauling passengers on the Swanage Railway

 

Reviving this (very) old thread does tend to give the wrong impression for a moment.

PH

 

Thanks for your feedback. Possibly you are right (though I am not sure what wrong impression it could give when the original question was “what does the future hold for the engine”?), but if searching online (as I did) for status and history of 41312 there is nothing ‘current’ out there and I thought this update may help someone somewhere. Best intentions...

 

It was the heading which says "farewell" which gave the impression of serious problems being encountered since the Cranmore visit but then I noticed the date of the original posting.

Paul H

 

41312 seems to have been quite a hit at Swanage with so many Bulleids coming into traffic there over the next year or two I'd suggest that they should agree a long term swap of the Ivatt for a Bulleid with the Mid-Hants.

 

I know where you are coming from with this, but in view of the fact that Swanage do not own any of the Bulleids concerned I do not think that it is for them to arrange such a swap. Although SSL plan to have all these locos running in the future lets not get too far ahead of ourselves. As we know there are too many things that can go wrong with such targets - just look at the current situation with 34072.

Peter James