Brighton Atlantic: 32424 Beachy Head

That is very interesting! So in theory - if true - Beachy Head could be this boilers first loco?

That puts a rather different, rather beautiful slant to it.

 

It is entirely authentic steam-era railway accounting. In a way, it is preserving an important part of railway operation....

 

I doubt it - unless the Bluebell are accounting for it from the ‘wrong’ budget

It’s a brand new locomotive - isn’t that brilliant?

 

It is indeed. I can't wait. I love Atlantics, too
But "real" railways often accounted brand new locos as rebuilds. The LNWR was always at it, for example. There are several well known examples of the "rebuild" entering service before the "scrapped" loco had been touched. One LNER pacific "rebuild" passed its alleged former self outside the works...
It's all to do with revenue, capital and tax...
At Crewe, a "rebuild" or "renewal" sometimes consisted of engine into works, new engine built, shift a few bits of expensive non-ferrous across (even number plates would be new), old engine dismantled, new engine out of the door.
People who don't get this often get very excited about the "rebuilt" Scots and Patriots, but by Crewe standards that was just a heavy overhaul.

 

There’s also the myth that it was done to ‘fool’ the accountants whereas I reckon they always knew.

 

This is apparently true for Merry Hampton...and Great Northern, given her original frames were passed on shortly after she was dismantled for rebuilding into the A1/1 (in reality only the tender, driving wheels, some bits off the cab and the cartazzi arrangement survived).

Does make you realise that these railways were not an enthusiasts' paradise, they were working railways.

 

They were both!

 

I stand corrected.

 

I think the accounting/reporting for the pre-nationalised railways was done to a detailed statutory schedule. I am not sure I fully understand the "renewals" concept but it seems as though the capital expenditure line may have been reserved for expansion capex. Thus the GWR Kings for instance appear to have been entirely classified as renewals rather than capex, and some at least of their external contractor-built locos were also considered renewals. I assume the renewals fund was effectively a different name for what would otherwise be part of the depreciation balance, but I have not got to the bottom of that. I don't think tax was a big driver (at least not latterly) as the Big Four were generally not in a tax-paying position.

 

Easier to convince a board to sanction a renewal work budget as this would seem to be an on going necessity / overhead rather than new items which might be seen as less so without a worked up case of cost benefit.

 

That's pretty much my understanding. I looked up renewal in 18th/19thC dictionaries on line, and in those days its meaning was much more like "replace with new" rather than "repair like new". In the 19thC a life expired 2-2-2 would be replaced with a new 2-2-2, and if there were parts of the old one that could be reused, well that was a bit of a saving. Once they were replacing 4-2-2s with 4-6-0s it got rather more complicated of course.

Where budgets came into it was that repairs had to be paid for out of revenue. So if there was very little revenue it was a considerable advantage if a major rebuild could be classified as a renewal. This is often - and I've been guilty of it myself - presented as an attempt to fool the accountants, but on reflection I think it much more likely that the accountants knew exactly what was going on.

 

I seem to remember reading somewhere - I think about the Festiniog Railway - that the accounting definition of the value of a company was very different in that era, and much more tightly aligned to the face value of the shares than is now the case. I imagine that this would have required considerable care over definitions of work, and how they affected the value of the company.

 

The LNWR - and others - ordered new locos through either the Capital or Revenue Accounts. Basically, Capital engines were new in all senses of the word, while Revenue engines would each replace and existing engine, and so not add to the number of engines in stock. 'Capital' engines would receive new numbers in sequence as each engine entered traffic; 'Revenue' engines would take on the number of the displaced engine. Since the new engine might have absolutely nothing in common with its predecessor, Revenue engines' numbers followed no pattern and explains the LNWR's apparently random numbering system.

 

You could replace "LNWR" with "LSWR" in the above and not substantially change anything else - least of all the erratic numbering sequence. In the days before having formal duplicate lists, if an engine was renewed but the old engine had a continuing existence, you'd have engines referred to as e.g. "Bison" (current capital stock loco) and "the old engine Bison" (duplicate stock loco).

It's struck me that in the 100 year period between the Stockton and Darlington Railway and the Grouping, not only did modern railways develop into something of a recognisably modern form, but so did modern companies. I've always wondered to what extent the railways - as amongst the largest enterprises then in existence - drove development of modern methods / understanding of accounting and company structure.

Tom

 

@Jamessquared The railway companies were utterly formative in terms of the modern understanding of what a company is.
In G. Stevenson's day, when people thought of a company, they thought of the East India Company or the Hudson's Bay Company.
The railway companies were the largest joint stock companies in Britain and many other countries, and had the sort of structures and systems we would now recognise - lots of shareholders, a board led by a chairman, general managers separate from the chairman, departments with internal responsibility and organisation, annual budgets, operation and maintenance processes, defined prices for their services, fixed and moveable assets.... The list could go on.

 

Latest update:

http://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/locos/atlantic/latest.html

Boiler and tender out of the works, and discussion of construction of the tender tank amongst other things. The crane lift shown was the same day that 84030 was rewheeled - one of the unseen facets of these kind of project is is the interdependencies on other projects.

Tom

 

Good to see more progress, hopefully will get the chance to view it tomorrow as part of the Shareholders Weekend as Atlantic House will be open.

Regards,

Dan

 

How come its getting air brakes?

 

Because the original had air brakes - the LBSCR was an air-braked line.

The reverser is also power-assisted using compressed air.

Tom

 

Thanks for update Tom - The tender frames for 32424 are from??