44767 George Stephenson

Eugene and the Stewarts were behind the idea to preserve 45156 weren't they? However, I think that they had mostly dropped the idea before I joined in Nov/Dec 1968. I seem to remember we met you on the way back from looking at the locos @ Preston Docks early in '69.
Cheers,
Ray.

 

Totally off topic I know and probably well documented elsewhere, but is anyone aware of how 44781 came to be sent for the film role that ultimately sealed its fate, rather than any of the other many classmates still knocking around then?

 

Would those who favour removing the name from 44767 say the same for 92203, for instance?

 

Convenience I'd suggest re 44781

 

Yes

 

Most likely, it just seems odd now given all the other 1T57 participants seemed earmarked for saving immediately upon withdrawal but not 44781. It occured to me it may have expediently subbed for a classmate on the assumption it would be returned safely. I know efforts to recover it after the filmed derailment took place but proved too costly.
Supplementary question, does a classmate owe its survival to 44781s demise?

 

Slightly off topic but interesting nethertheless when I bought the mortal remains of ex msc no70 from the ELR in the early 90's a loco some said would never run again, I subsequently met a bloke called John wallwork who had put up the money to buy both 70 and 32 from the msc. He told me that during the search for motive power for a future ELR they had considered buying a pair of bagnalls from Preston docks but the asking price of £600 each seemed steep so they opted to buy no's 32 and 70 from the Manchester ship canal co at a more respectable £400 each. In today's world the sums involved back then are trifling but illustrate how marginal everything was back then.

 

Let me explore the the name argument from another angle. When I was younger, I was always into steam trains, but the locos I took notice of, remembered, and therefore became the locos (and host railways) I wanted to return to were those which had names, be they names they were given by the companies that built them (e.g. Blue Peter, Green Arrow, Stepney, Blackmore Vale) or those which had been named in preservation (e.g. Goliath, Trojan and Warrior at Paignton). I spent many happy Sundays in my first 10 years at the GCRN (where I am now a volunteer) and the adjacent country park, and during that time I probably saw and rode behind between 10 and 20 different steam locos, but the only one I can remember without the benefit of photographs or other records was 7822 Foxcote Manor, the only loco I saw during that time which was graced with a name. Even as an enthusiast, until I became about 13 the only locos I really remembered, and thus the locos that made me want to visit railways, where those that I could refer to by a name, rather than a number which was much harder for me to remember.
I understand people like a bit of authenticity, as steam railways were started to preserve a bygone era, but there are also the cold hard facts that steam railways need to make money, so they need to attract paying passengers, and they also need to attract new volunteers in order to survive. For me, even as an enthusiast, that was made far more likely by railways that ran engines with names. I know it's hard to come up with figures like this, but I reckon if you could, it would show named locos have made a slightly bigger positive impact on railway bank accounts and volunteer books than locos without names.
Don't knock the locos that have been named in preservation. I reckon putting a plaque with a couple of words on either side has, from a purely practical point of view, only positive impacts

 

Not only the cost but the condition could have a significant bearing on a loco's fate. A boiler in need of re-tubing would be a non-starter, even if all else was perfect.

 

From what I've read about the filming of 'The Virgin Soldiers' the studio that made the film wanted something capable of moving under its own power.

 

Yeah, I think so too, but there must have been severql classmates in that category or even other just finished types available to send. I assume 44781 was diesel hauled to the filming site?

 

92203 should retain it's name (and I am sure it will) as that is what Mr Shepherd would have wanted.

 

That, of course, is one point of view, and I don't dispute it. In my youth, i.e. from about three years old, I too loved railways and watching trains, but the expresses flashing past held no great interest for me. They were there; they were gone.

But I would go to Bank Hall yard in Liverpool and spend hours watching a humble shunter wagon bashing, or a slow goods ambling past slow enough see what was happening, Did I collect many numbers? None, or names. It was the engine that was important, not a bit of brass stuck on the side.

Bob Essery recalls being told similar by a driver when he first started on the railway and pointed out the engine's nameplate: 'Just a bit more weight to carry around.' I can't say I developed a similar attitude in my days on BR: I'd had the habit since childhood. Which goes some way to explaining why I never saw the point of preserving an engine simply on the basis that it had nameplates, Black Five 5156 for example. I could never see that engines were simply a means of moving the number and nameplates around.

 

I'm not so sure that people flock to a railway because it has locos with names, a bit like the spurious argument about that awful red 8F being responsible for an increase in patronage on the GCR. People go to heritage railways to experience a bygone age and show their kids something they have never seen before but they also want to learn. When I helped out on the Bahamas sales stand during the Coal Tank's visit to the Bluebell I was asked a lot of questions about the loco, the most popular being, why is it called a Coal Tank, not one mention of a name. Visitors were genuinely interested in it's history. Of course everyone remembers named locos from their youth, I can real off the names of Duchesses and A4s but not the identity of the lesser 5s or B1s. I can less well remember the namers at Old Oak because there were to many of them, The GW liked using brass. The converse of what you say is that a named loco should be something special that the visitor remembers not every loco with a nameplate bolted on just for the sake of it.

 

It's show business folks and somethings get noticed by your customers and the trouble is with a lot of this there is never any real research to show what makes a difference to Joe Blogs and family on their choice of day out, yes there is lots of anecdotal stuff about what people do say during their visit "oh look that red, green or blue engine looks smart" so colour does matter to some and we would be wise not to ignore it. With regards to identity for example I've never leaned out of a cab and had little Johnny read out loud a 5 figure BR number on a cab side but what I have heard is the loco nameplate being read out many, many times, but that's not to say we should run around and name every loco in a scattergun approach we do need to take a nod to preservation but when we do it we should do it well (like George Stephenson, Black Prince etc). If all this stuff makes a difference to your passenger figures is as I said difficult to quantify but I for one would be really interested to find out one way or the other.

 

The name was added during the Shildon Celebrations in 1975, as a nod to the one off valve gear for the class, seen as an improvement, a link with S&D, and being at the event.

For those 4 reasons, in my mind, the plates stay, have ridden behind her a couple of times on the mainline, and although she sat down with a split blastpipe once (repaired at Carlisle in double quick time), most people called her "George Stephenson", and not 44767.

Removing name plates added with good intentions, is a poor reflection on those who added them with all the right intentions at the time.

 

I believe that the primary reason why locomotives carry names (and numbers) is to allow the accountants to keep track of which one is which every time the workshop replace the frames at overhaul

Tom

 

The whole aspect is a bit fascinating. On the NYMR, everyone I know refers to 44767 simply as 'George' and never 44767 or even 'forty seven, sixty seven' as it would have been in my youth.. Similarly, 45428 is known simply as 'Eric' yet 44806 doesn't get universally referred to as 'Magpie' (a dreadful name IMHO) but as 806 and 75029 is never 'The Green Knight' but Big 29 (to avoid confusion with little 29!) In my days on the Talyllyn locos were never referred to by their names but by their numbers

 

Did the GWR name so many of its locos because most of their servants couldn't count?

I'll run and hide,.......

 

So where does history stop, where is this arbitrary point? Using 44767 as an example and this is based on Wiki dates so may not be strictly correct....

LMS ownership - 1 day
BR Ownership/running - c.19 years
Ian Storey Ownership - c.51 years
Name carried - c.42 years.

So she was only in BR ownership for c.27% of her life and has carried the name for 60% of her lifetime??

As someone with a young child, I have a large number of friends 40+ who take their kids along to railways and apart from 1 none of them give gnats backside what is on the front, what colour it is or whether it is an accurate representation of anything as they never lived during said period, however their kids do like it if it has a name!

Those who remember the good/bad old days are getting smaller and railways have to appeal to a new market to survive, yet people like the olde world atmosphere of p[reserved railways, but from my experience with friends that the stations and infrastructure with the precise rivet layout of the motive power being irrelevant to them.

Digressing slightly, this reminds me of a piece in the paper over the weekend that noted that despite many of a certain ages habit of referencing the war when discussing modern life, no one under the age of 88 could have actually fought in said war!