1014 County of Glamorgan

The Barry Ten were presumably the ones that were the least attractive to anyone for rescuing and restoring, while all the others were eventually rescued. And how many of those that were rescued from Barry are still rusting away elsewhere for want of the resources to restore them?

 

Unfortunately, Didcot seem to have a very odd set of priorities.

 

Not that many that I can think of. Of course, there are quite a few that were restored and are now awaiting an overhaul, but the same is probably true of the locos rescued from other sources - more were saved than can be financed to keep in working order, but at least there seems to be a degree of rotation, which could be said to make life more interesting, when a loco reappears after several years out of use.

 

Absolutely. IMO the money and effort would have been better spent on overhauling some of the GWS's earlier restorations such as 7808, 5900 or 6697 which haven't steamed for decades. Had they followed that path the GWS mightn't have had their recent motive power shortage. But, hey-ho, they're not my engines.
Ray.

 

Everyone who says 'Oh, we should have done X, Y, Z with them instead of building a faux County' needs to take this in.

Noel

 

Could have restored the Hall as it was and added a “County of Glamorgan” nameplate: I doubt too many Councillors would have noticed - nor cared had they done so

Tom

 

Maybe so but had their final reckoning really arrived? I find it hard to understand why those with the inspiration and resources to create the "new" locos couldn't equally conceive that next generation engineers might have been enthused by the Barry 10 such that they eventually, many years hence, maybe got restored. Lets face it, they had probably all reached maximum deterioration so preserving whats left would not have been much more than siding space. Their destruction was a poor set of choices for many reasons, some of which are still emerging. What's done is done though.

 

I don't find hard to understand that creating a unique GWR County inspires more enthusiasm than restoring an 18th GWR Hall.

 

That was not the choice made, the strategy denied anybody else chance of restoring a Hall and an 8F.

 

I really find that attitude very tiresome and rather pointless. Despite being an LMS man at heart I am delighted that a team of hard working individuals are transforming two piles of scrap into an otherwise lost GWR working locomotive. I think we should celebrate this project not nit pick. Actually I think it wonderfully appropriate that a Stanier is contributing to the heart of this ,the last of the GWR 4-6-0's.

 

It isn't an attitude, its an opinion. I too admire the determination to create a new loco, just believe it ought not to have such a reductive basis. Other views equally valid too

 

Sorry ladies and gents...

...But scrapping a Doncaster built 8F which could have been a shining light on the cooperation of the railway companies during WW2 and was also a uniquely preserved specimen of a very good class of locomotive in favour of the county has rankled with manynog us LNER aficionados for some time.

I don’t take pleasure in putting LNER on just anything but that particular 8F - whether it had entirely original parts or not - was part of the war effort and therefore a reflection and part of the LNERs contribution to it.

Lost to a new build that is not quite what it says it is or the other.

 

Totally agree, it was scandalous that no other project proposals were sought about the 8F once disposal by the Council became an option. Who knows what positive alternatives might have emerged if other suggestions had been at least canvassed? It would have made a fine wartime memorial loco, maybe even official to the RBL.
I did suggest not to rake this over again too though.

 

So why didn't this so called important LNER built engine not acquired by a LNER group during the 70's then as it would have been known then it was built in a LNER workshop.

Also remember the GWR and SR built this class of engine after the government had placed orders for more of these engines to be built so not a unique engine.

 

Why is this engine any more important than any of the other engines which were built for the government who was running the railways during the war which have survived such as all the MOS 0-6-0 ST's for it to be a "fine wartime memorial loco".

 

Possibly at that time some element of the condition presented what was seen then as an insurmountable barrier to restoration? As I said upthread, the passage of time has made most things almost routinely acheivable so that is why the later these locos were broken up, the less sense it made in terms of their future viability as restoration projects.
Once the 8F passed to the Council, other barriers to it being acquired were in place and for some time there was no possibility of a new owner being found. As far as I know, the only option considered when the Council finally relinquished the collection was for "component recovery". There were no invitations for alternative proposals AFAIK.

 

But it's hardly a proper County with all the compromises in the build.

 

Why not this 8F?, In my opinion it deserved a better fate than scrapping it to yield parts for a mongrel.

 

You seem to be saying that it's OK to break an agreement that's been freely entered into, with intent to deceive the other party? I hope not. (Although I'm not going to get into the whole 'it's not a real County anyway because of the compromises' debate.)

And if they had done that, someone would have told the Council, and I doubt the Council would have been amused. (Plenty of motives possible - e.g. an upset County fan.) To understand the Council's potential reaction, how would you feel if you made an agreement with someone, and then found out you'd been deceived and scammed?


Look, I am not taking a position on whether or not this was the best thing to do with them.

I also don't particularly care whether there's a County or not. (Although I think it will be pretty cool to have a Night Owl.)

It's done, though.

Noel

 

I'm not advocating breaking a deal after it was made; I was (slightly mischievously) suggesting that had the initial agreement been to restore the Hall but give it a County name, that may well have been acceptable and indeed preferable. I'm sure that from the Council's point of view, having a loco bearing their name with a direct connection to Barry is more important than the precise boiler pressure or cylinder diameter of said loco. From a performance point of view, they are in any case getting loco that is "County in name only", so it might as well be a restored original Hall bearing the name rather than a neutered County.

Tom