BR 3mt 82006

Weren't the scrap merchants obliged to return the copper firebox (for recycling to overhead cable?) at that time though? In which case its value would be immaterial to them, in fact a cost to them if anything for extra admin etc.

 

I don't know whether this is fact or urban myth.

 

I remember seeing a contemporary photo in one of the magazines of a few engines in a line, but only the fireboxes standing on the trailing coupled wheels and Bissel trucks remained. There was a suggestion that the fireboxes would be returned to BR for use in cables for overhead electrification work. As the engines were Bulleid Pacifics, I rather had my doubts.

 

Could be. At over fifty years I don't think I trust my memory.

Mind you, these days that goes for fifty minutes too!

 

That's Buttigiegs.

 

I don't think that the copper fireboxes were returned to BR as the price paid reflected whether or not the firebox was copper. I'm sure that the fireboxes would sent to a different recycling site than the iron and steel. Hence them sitting on a separate pile in a scrapyard.
Mind you I still feel sad at those pictures of those perfectly good locomotives sitting awaiting their fate......

 

Steel is easy to cut, copper needed a specialist, hence not uncommon to see fireboxes piled up in the yards.
Doesn’t explain the Bulleids though.