Steam locos: Do you like to see them running Shiny or Dirty ?

Dunno, I've managed to get it on a family holiday!

 

None of this has a great deal of relevance to railway locomotives running clean or dirty. A railway locomotive turned out in this sort of state would push "unkempt" to new levels.

PH

 

Er, not quite Martin. It's the great "washed" public, who rather want to stay that way.

I think you must mean the Ventnor West set which, amongst other duties, serves as the railway's Royal Train. A novel combination of uses!

Paul H

 

Yes i did mean the ventor west set, surely though, it must have worked other routes as required? as bogie stock replaced the 4 wheelers ?
As fa as washed goes you have i assume never seem the results of a " wet" valve lift

 

[QUOTE

I think you must mean the Ventnor West set which, amongst other duties, serves as the railway's Royal Train. A novel combination of uses!

Paul H[/QUOTE]
I think martin 1656 may be getting his crowns mixed up...................................................... sorry, l shall continue with the meds then .

 

I think martin 1656 may be getting his crowns mixed up...................................................... sorry, l shall continue with the meds then .[/QUOTE]
CH 19, you might be needing a crown but getting back to Royal duties i'm assuming that when Osborne house was a royal residence that the point of embarkation would have been Cowes? then on to Whippingham?

 

The most ridiculous state is when you have a crew in spotlessly clean overals and the loco looking a total mess.

 

CH 19, you might be needing a crown but getting back to Royal duties i'm assuming that when Osborne house was a royal residence that the point of embarkation would have been Cowes? then on to Whippingham?[/QUOTE]
It is believed that Queen Victoria used the IOW railways only once

Paul H

 

It did a few workings to Freshwater in the earlier years and to Bembridge whilst the turntable there was being enlarged.

Years ago I did observe priming through the safety valves, fortunately at a distance.

Paul H

 

I like filthy locos but I enjoy cleaning locos. Whenever I clean them, they seem to get dirty again fairly quickly so surely everyone is happy?

 

It certainly doesn't take long to build up the layer of dirt; On 16/5/14 Mr Riley's Black 5s are showing the accumulated effects of a week in Scotland without a clean while the K1 has no doubt had daily attention from the NELPG support crew. Here leaving Fort William for Mossend the locos were due to return directly to Fort William for the Jacobite season after 8 consecutive days in service.

To me the Black 5s look relatively clean but then as a youngster in the 60s the standard livery I was used to was at least 1/16" inch of oily grime on every surface and we just loved it when something clean turned up which wasn't very often !

Scott

 

I'd not heard that stated. Given the popularity of Cowes Week with 'gentlemen of standing' since it's inception in 1826, its a bit of a surprise, though it may explain the 20th century attachment of princes and princelings to the event, for who yachting must've been infinitely preferable to keeping out of the way of a moody old queen all summer.

Maycock & Silsbury (the RSV of the IoW railway history) mention QV's 'Royal Train' on the IWCR. The company's stock own was in such frightful condition that IWR carriages had to be used to form the service .... meaning that there has to be an offchance that one (or more) of the IWR bodies currently awaiting their turn in the restoration queue has played host to members of the royal party.

In pre-qrouping days, before the Wilmott regime introduced the novel notion of sensible management, such was the state of IWCR stock that 1st class passengers were said to need an umbrella during inclement weather. If so, we have proof that soggy ars*s were evidently less socially unacceptable than wet hair. One wonders quite how a chap was supposed to complete the crossword under such conditions.

 

I think this is a perfect example of the difference in opinion there is here. Some people (including myself) would be perfectly happy with a loco in the Black 5's condition, but there are others who would think anything less than the K1 is unacceptable. I'd also imagine if you didn't have the Black 5 next to the obviously smarter K1, you wouldn't perceive it as being quite so dirty as you do in that particular scene!

 

Does 62005 have a self cleaning smokebox? If the Black 5 is fitted with self-dirtying apparatus and the K1 is not...

 

Howard,

This is all going a bit "off piste" but whilst I do know Roger Silsbury, my information comes from another fellow member of the IOWSR Museums and Archives Group who is an erstwhile chief officer of Osborne House.

Queen Victoria travelled to the IOW by steamer from Gosport to a private landing place in Osborne Bay or, if sea conditions made this unsuitable, to a quay in East Cowes. Thus, she had no need to use Whippingham station to get to Osborne. What appears to be her sole use of the Island railways does not seem to have been terribly successful (too many local "dignitaries" around) and so the IWR's substantial stock of saloon composites was not thus called upon again, No one can be sure whether either of the two surviving bodies of this type were so used.

The present Queen did travel in the Ventnor West set when she opened the carriage works.

Paul H

 

Out of curiosity, do any locos have SC smokeboxes these days? The few that I've been on that have "SC" on the smokebox have the lettering presumably in the interests of historical authenticity, but don't actually have the equipment. But admittedly my experience of such things is somewhat limited - are there any locos out there that still have the equipment?

Tom

 

I always think that something clean looks looked after, and it shows someone cares. A few examples off the top of my head, 60163, 35028 and 5043 are very rarely turned out in less than immaculate condition, don't want to put the kiss of death upon any of the above, but I'd like to think the external condition of the 3 mentioned belies something to their condition mechanically too, would DB be happy to operate 60163 if it was caked in muck and generally looked a mess? And going on to diesels when I worked at Kidderminster and 50031 made it's mainline return way back in 1997 did we just send it out as it was? No way, we made sure that inside and out that machine was immaculate, when you've got staff from the big railway sniffing around you, on something you've worked on... Sometimes nice to see something like 45047 get a little bit grubby but a full on coat of Willseden/Toton grey...

 

Some of the NYMR ones do but don't ask me to say which ones! I can't remember because the turn I normally get given doesn't involve me opening a smokebox door. That's done by others. Choose from 44806, 45428, 61264, 75029, 76079 & 80136.

 

I don't think I'm confused at all...
Through experience with restoring classic motorcycles, and currently a classic bus - It's a hideous job stripping components off the vehicle when they are covered in a layer of crud - Especially air tank valves and change-speed / air brake control units. One tiny bit of crud getting in on strip-down makes for a complete strip and re-build, no matter how minor the original problem.
Also, in service, crud coating the non-essential bits can easily be vibrated off onto the essential bits with unpleasant results. I've seen this first-hand with a pair of front shackle pins on a friend's Regent III which we fitted new 4 years ago... It's only done about 3000 miles since, but the shackle pin bushes (which were also new at the time) are worn out due to muck and crap getting in, and the inner faces of the shackles have bitten into the chassis rails due to their angularity in the now oval bushes. The bushes were reamed to give a very snug fit too, there was no sloppiness on assembly. That's now entailed new shackles, pins and bushes again, plus considerable time and pain hand-reaming the phosphor-bronze bushes with a ratchet and adjustable parallel reamer.
The difference with steam locos is that the stripping is far heavier work, and re-conditioning of components is far more expensive.

Richard.