1014 County of Glamorgan

Can anybody remind me if anything is left of the 8f, please?

 

I urge you to contemplate the NatPres debate had a Hall ended up with a County name plate… no doubt arguments on whether the nameplate should have been straight or curved alone would have raged for months…



Simon

 

I'm sure I read somewhere that Rileys offered to buy the black 5 whole but were knocked back.

Chris

 

Couldn't they put the County nameplates on the Saint? That's just a big wheeled Hall isn't it?

 

Correct.

 

The drivers went to the 8624 group, the boiler barrell is going on 8173, pony wheels Patriot group, possibly axleboxes too? At least one cylinder is on 5407, maybe both? Bits of the firebox were to be used on 1014, which started the scavenging, but not sure now how much will actually end up part of the first project.
One could say all parts will be usefully recycled, but then if they are all fit for further use, was 8518 such a demic in its own right?
The frames are believed to have been cut up at Bury but not sure this was ever officially confirmed or indeed by what authority.

 

As I recall Ian inspected 4901 late 90s and offered for it more than once but the issue of disposing publicly owned items complicated matters and nothing came of it until his firm acquired the boiler. I thought it was bought from the current owners of the chassis but others have said it was bought from the Council separately. The chassis owners intended to use an 8F boiler from Turkey instead, ironic given 8518s boiler was broken up.
I am aware of at least two credible bidders for 8518 too, but the same problem was encountered.
I think this discussion has now been round enough times for everyone to draw a line under it, whichever side of the argument you stand.

 

... any more than a certain red Hall with a 'Castle' nameplate?
Ray.

 

Just want to offer my apologies for my moody post on the 8F the other day.

FWIW I do want as many of these projects to succeed - variety is the spice of life and all that - but the LNER is not entirely well catered for and there are few examples of locomotives preserved that were built by multiple big four railway companies to the same design.

No, 8518 on its own was not unique (8Fs in good supply) but it was the only one that could have legitimately worn "LNER" on the tender. Behind that branding there are stories to be told. Of Gresley, Thompson, Stanier and Cox all writing to one another and suggesting ways of building these engines expediently. There is loco development, where the 8Fs informed Thompson's pony truck designs and the rebuilding of class O4 to O1 and similar.

The building of the 8Fs at Doncaster deserve to be remembered as a time when railway companies - always competing normally - were to be found cooperating as best they could under incredibly arduous conditions. Hence my sadness that such a locomotive, reflective of that, is lost to history.

That's my last word on the matter, I promise - I wish everyone involved the best of luck, and FWIW I hope we see the county in steam before too long.

Alternative thought - perhaps, given the county's own origins in the 8Fs being built at Swindon, and the relationship of the design lineage from Stanier's design, an 8F being recycled to help build a county is not so bad after all.

 

Clearly then the fault is with the A1 society, who, it seems, chose to kick off a project to build a fake LNER locomotive at a time when that genuine one was still in Barry scrapyard...

Which is of course a pretty ludicrous argument of very little merit, but, I submit, at least as sound as the interminable criticism aimed at the County project in this thread...

 

There was also a strong justification for 8518 being added to the national collection to fill several gaps in the narrative. What a splendid addition to the Shildon site a cosmetically restored, locally built, wartime to end of steam story the 8F could have represented.

 

I offered my apologies Jim.

If you’d like to turn into a “which has more worth” thread that’s your hang up.

 

I agree.

 

In my photo of 48518 at Barry there's some writing scrawled on it suggesting maybe that someone was going to buy it. Anyone know what happened?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/hemerdon/38669634160/

 

It looks like (on the cylinder cover) "Res Peak Rly Soc" (i.e. Reserved Peak Railway Society) - there is also "PRS" on the cab side.

Tom

 

Certainly has the appearance of being cared for in a remedial way, pending extraction. You wouldn't have earmarked as a future 'scrapper'.

 

So why didn't anyone do anything; the thing sat in Barry, mouldering away, for donkey's decades.

Noel

 

Not sure that has much relevance to its ultimate fate because it did survive the scrapyard, though looking at the photo posted above, it was obviously heavily robbed down the years. This will naturally had a steadily damaging impact on its appeal as a project. Ultimately it seems to have been the victim of a series of neglectful acts, without any one group or individual singularly responsible.

 

Understood, and concur. But all the same, one can perhaps understand why people at the time looked at the situation and deduced that it was utterly abandoned, and thus suitable for being broken up.

Noel