Owning a four wheeler

We currently have 10m of 5" track laid along garden path (PNP clip fit kit). Battery electric loco acquired for 300 quid (Maxitrak Ruston) and a driving trolley built out of misc stuff found in the garage and a pair of bogies acquired at auction (and cost of those covered by selling the rest of the stuff that was in the box with them!). Total cost just over 500 quid.

I've easily had my moneys worth just watching my son driving up and down that short section of track over the last few years (glossing over the incident where he rammed the buffers at full throttle, which threw him right over the cab of the loco!).

(Must clean the loco and make a cover for it - surprising how much crap gets on it just stored in the garage!)

 

Where did you get a Ruston for £300??

 

Going back to the original post, do any of the 4 wheelers up for sale have any particular historic value?

One currently up for sale is,I believe the last steam loco in commercial use in the UK

 

eBay - there are bargains to be had sometimes. Had to drive to Derby to get it, so add another fifty quid for that I suppose...and it had had some rough handling so I had to fettle the motor mounts a bit to get it running sweetly, but it even had a suitable car battery with it (although I later swapped it out for a leisure battery).

We also had a sit astride bogie carriage which could take 3 or 4 people (depending on size) which was another eBay bargain (under 200 quid), but there's not much track left to drive once you add that on, and you can squeeze a passenger on the driving trolley, so we donated the carriage to the NVR Wansford miniature railway project - somewhere we will take the above loco to drive as well

 

Was your overhaul at £40k done by contract or using your own volunteers? The work I described for £15k materials was as per yours but also included lower section of throat plate and backead, new front barrel section, crown stays and longitudinal stays. Prices are those for 2007 and mostly free volunteer labour.

 

We removed the tubes and the bad platework and stays. The rebuild work was done by contractors.

 

I see that the Mountsorrel Heritage Centre have just acquired (bought?) an 0-4-0 with the deal done in less than 7 weeks.

 

...and 3 of those were taken up with considering a completely different loco with Leicestershire connections which is currently on the market (but needs an overhaul)....

 

It would be interesting to have an actual order of cost to purchase but I'm sure that this will be confidential.

 

Not surprisingly I'm not in a position to reveal what the price paid was, apart from saying it was deemed to be a good/suitable price, particularly given its recent overhaul. There were 3 main donors (including me) who provided the bulk of the figure with a number of smaller value donations from the regular volunteers at Mountsorrel.
I'm quite looking forward to being trained up in operating the loco now!!

 

I love the wording here and I tend to agree. I guess the issue is what the person who is selling has already invested so they want to get as much return as possible. Obviously, for the purchaser, a 10-15k purchase gives a little more money for the inevitable repair/restoration bill. 25k seems a popular figure for a four wheeled saddle tank needing an overhaul. Do they fetch it? Who knows! I would have thought 15k would be fairer but in the same way why should the seller care what the buyer will have to spend on it? Difficult one isn’t it.

I do think though that for 15k it would be worth picking one up and attempting most of the tasks yourself to save funds.

 

May not be in the price range you are looking at.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-54735107

 

"two - tonne..." - more like twenty-two!
Ray.

 

Said loco is now removed from sale and the owner is looking to overhaul it and enjoy is

 

Interesting - He obviously gave up on the idea of buying a Steam Roller instead then.....

 

Posted in a separate topic under the same sub-heading;
https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/for-sale.1418829/

Pontypool & Blaenavon are selling a sentinel and and Barclay, the latter valued at £15k, missing some fittings and in need of overhaul.

 

Just to explore the other side of this debate, we can establish costs, but is there work? It strikes me the original post is trying to apply the mainline charter loco model to the far more common small engine.

I'm sure there are several lines that would offer to host your loco (especially if it is a runner) but would be very surprised if they would pay even a fraction of the costs required in a daily steaming fee. Perhaps this model would work for a 'really useful' Black 5 or a standard tank, but for one of the many 0-4-0Ts out there?

If you could find a line reasonably close to you which offered a place to run your loco at a steady frequency, access to workshop facilities, a pool of volunteers to try and enlist for help, a loco manager you trusted to look after it etc etc, you might consider lending it to them for free! I would be very surprised if you could find all that and have them pay you a substantial fee for the privilege.

I'd love to be proved wrong, could be the start of a new business venture for me

 

Off the top of my head I can think of the following lines/places that might have use of an 0-4-0 or other small industrial.
Aln Valley Rly
Stephenson Rly Museum
Bowes Rly
Tanfield Rly
NRM Shildon
Beamish
Eden Valley Rly
Stainmore Rly
Yorks Wolds Rly
Derwent Valley Rly
NRM York
Middleton Rly
Elsecar Steam Rly
Ribble Steam rly
Lincolnshire Wolds Rly
Appleby Frodingham Rly
Barrow Hill
Foxfield Rly
Crewe Heritage Centre
Chasewater Rly
Rocks by Rail
Telford Steam Rly
Northampton Lamport Rly
Whitwell & Reepham museum
Mid Suffolk Rly
Bucks Rly Centre
Cholsey & Wallingford Rly
Swindon & Cricklade Rly
Colne Valley Rly
East Anglian Rly Museum
Mangapps Farm
Chatham Dockyard
East Kent Rly
Rother Valley Rly
Lavender Line
S & D Rly Trust
Yeovil Steam Centre
Plym Valley Rly
Helston Rly.

I'm sure that there are others and, don't forget, even the big railways, such as the NYMR, have occasional want for small locos for specific things.

 

With the slight proviso that the Rother Valley Railway currently run no train service at all....

 

Neither do Elsecar as it closed down some months ago.
Ray.