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Current and Proposed New-Builds

Discussion in 'Steam Traction' started by aron33, Aug 15, 2017.

  1. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    Did they build that many? A quick glance at the LNER Use of Engine Power document for 1942-46 is revealing. What do you define as an "express passenger loco" by 1946 though? Because you would certainly class the Pacifics in mostly that category, some B-types perhaps. By 1942, is a C1 Atlantic an express locomotive anymore? Where do you draw the line? I'd say A10, A3, A4, A1/1, A2/1, A2/2, A2/3 by 1946 - that's only just over 125 locomotives.

    Everything else - i.e. the other 6300 odd locomotives - is mixed traffic, freight, or shunting types!

    upload_2021-3-31_10-5-21.png
     
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  2. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    I will play along with your Second Sondes.

    1. is it useful?
    2. Is it buildable?
    3. Is it fundable?

    There is actually a fourth question - which is actually the first question which is the why question. Why should we build this loco, what important historical or technological reason is there behind building this loco?

    If you can produce a compelling answer to that then you can answer 3 (is it fundable) which tends to resolve question 2 (is it buildable), I'd suggest that question 1 is a v low priority, but can be used to make a more compelling case if the answer to question 4.

    And of course there is the where will you store it (will something else need to be stored outside), who will maintain it, how will you fund overhauls. Although 1 in 1 out might also work.
     
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  3. GWR4707

    GWR4707 Nat Pres stalwart

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    We seem once again to be getting into deep WIBN for me personally territory, and rather ignoring the elephant in the room that to have your new build unless you have incredibly deep pockets it needs to inspire others to provide cash and big with a tender (And possibly a nice name) ticks those boxes, I would love to see one of these but accept I am probably in a minority and it ain't gonna happen.

    [​IMG]
     
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  4. Jimc

    Jimc Part of the furniture

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    And perhaps most important of all, will it attract visitors who otherwise wouldn't have come and thus get more bums on seats.
     
  5. clinker

    clinker Member

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    CDO it's the same as OCD but in alphabetical order
     
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  6. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

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    Surely that's a part of "is it fundable"? If it doesn't attract any more visitors than usual, then it will have to attract extra revenue in different ways. Although why does a new-build loco need to raise more money than an equivalently sized restored loco anyway, once the capital costs of construction are raised and spent?
     
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  7. clinker

    clinker Member

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    Don't worry, they're in the strategic reserve in Chrystal Palace Tunnel
     
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  8. ady

    ady Well-Known Member

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    more metal to manufacture and less grandfather rights I suspect
     
  9. Paulthehitch

    Paulthehitch Well-Known Member

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    I fear you are falling victim to the dreaded b*g c**********s like others. The old time civil engineers did not impose restrictions just for their own sake. Present day enthusiasts seeking excuses to run a 4-8-4 at the head of four Mk. 1s need to remember that. We all know of a certain line who ignored civil engineering restrictions and paid the price.
     
  10. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

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    I did say after capital costs had been raised and spent! :)
     
  11. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    Citation needed :)
     
  12. Bikermike

    Bikermike Well-Known Member

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    It's still 125 engines.
    If they were as irrelevant as has been suggested, would they have built them? It's a small percentage (albeit, I'd be interested to see that as a percentage output of engines built rather than in use), but you can't accidentally build 125 locos. That's still a big expenditure, which wouldn't have been done if they weren't felt useful. I suspect they actually had two very key purposes (1) publicity and prestige, (2) profitability on premium expresses.
     
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  13. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

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    I don't think anyone has suggested otherwise?...
     
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  14. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    No, I’m asking a question about the costs of a railway. Most lines permit large locomotives, and support reasonably hefty axle weights. For such a line, my question is about what difference having such a locomotive would make to the costs of the host railway.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  15. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    That would be nice, though it would be interesting to know for how long that effect would last.

    It's interesting to consider to what extent you could make a real business case out of a new build, rather than there being a degree of WIBN. A mid-size new build might cost, say, £1m - £1.5m. Overhauling a similarly-sized existing, but tired, loco might cost about half that - say £0.5m - £0.75m. If there is a business case at all, to me it would be to what extent does the new loco have several periods of reduced maintenance costs, for example by having a new boiler rather than one that has been patched. Sooner or later existing locos start needing very major work - new frames, fireboxes, cylinders; with a new build you spend all that up front, but maybe get 30 or so years of fairly cheap running thereafter. But no-one has tested the theory conclusively yet. My hunch is that they are probably more expensive than constantly repairing old locos, but maybe not by quite as much as some might think.

    (As an example: P class No. 27 is getting new frames, new cylinders, refurbished motion, a largely new boiler, new tanks, new cab and bunker and myriad small parts. Would a similarly-sized Second Sondes actually be much more expensive than that? Basically only by the cost of the wheels and some fraction of the motion. OTOH, there is obviously a moral imperative to restore an existing old locomotive).

    Tom
     
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  16. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    Oh absolutely Mike. The A3s and A4s in particular were all about the PR and running the expresses to time.

    The point I was making was that they were still a very small part of the overall operation - why do we focus, for example, so much on the A4s when there were hundreds of other Gresley classes making up a huge percentage of the overall work?
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2021
  17. ady

    ady Well-Known Member

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    You still missing my point, I just don't want every new build project, and attention, to be diverted to 'express' types, I want preservations to give them more.... love(?) then they do now. I not doubting the rationale for building them in the first place, nor did I say they were 100% irrelevant.

    You are really winding me up. Its bad enough being treated like an idiot for thinking the K class was a good choice for a new build, being mocked for being upset it isn't going to be one despite there being 10 years of speculation which I believed. And being forcibly to understand out they terrible locomotives despite all I read and I was stupid to think that. But can't stand when I thought at least for once tried to make a grown up argument about mixed traffic locomotives in preservation/new build projects in general, you seem to intentionally missing the point I made, to the extend I now probably this close to being banned...
     
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  18. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    I somewhat disagree with the above. Taking your fourth question: "what important historical or technological reason is there behind building this loco?" I'd suggest that for many current new build locos, there isn't much compelling historical or technological reason to build it. Hard to see what those reasons might be for the Clan or 82xxx, but both are progressing strongly. I'd argue that there is a compelling historical reason to build something from the otherwise almost unrepresented mid nineteenth century, but that suggestion has largely fallen on stony ground from the point of view of being fundable (by which for absolute clarity I mean - is there a large enough number of people willing to pay for it that it can get built in a realistically short timescale). So - sadly - being historically compelling doesn't seem to guarantee being fundable; and there are several locomotives currently doing very well on funding that I would argue have little historical or technological importance.

    Is it buildable is to me a separate question to is it fundable, though there is some crossover. Some locos have design quirks that would just become very difficult to reproduce: Beachy Head has a joggle in the frame that couldn't be made in this country now, and almost couldn't be made ten years ago when it was done. More or less no amount of money would get round the difficulty of forming those frame plates if you tried to build another one now.

    On the question of "And of course there is the where will you store it (will something else need to be stored outside), who will maintain it, how will you fund overhauls." I'm primarily interested in heritage line running, not mainline. The answer for at least "Beachy Head" and 82045 is that both are being built for use on the respective railways where they are being constructed; the intention in both cases being that they just become core operational locos in the respective fleets. As a general point (not just restricted to new builds) I tend to believe that locos that have a very strong tie to a host heritage railway (either by ownership or very close working relationship between the railway and owning group) are those that stand the best chance of being looked after in the future. Except maybe for very tiny locos, I have never thought the jobbing "loco for hire" model is a very sound one.

    Tom
     
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  19. Bikermike

    Bikermike Well-Known Member

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    Well, that's not what you said. And please lay off calling people names, thanks.
    The LNER was neither as skint or as disorganised as you make out. They built a lot of them as they made good money off them.
    Of the current new-builds, apart from the P2 and the Patriot and the GC 4-4-0, they all have mixed traffic pedigree or, in the case of the Churchward County, was built as a secondary passenger engine. And the patriot site has pics of them hauling freight.
     
  20. ady

    ady Well-Known Member

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    Yes it was. No one else seemed to miss-read what I said.

    Their design brief was to handle express passenger services, the Churchward County intention was be the top express engines on routes where the 4-6-0 were barred (the North-West route for example where the LNWR were fussy what the GWR used). The Hawksworth Counties were meant to be a cheaper engine that could do the work of the more expensive 'Castles'. The Saints were designed an better express loco over all of the older Dean/Churchward 4-4-0's. The A1s were defiantly not mixed traffic, they were classed 8P like the A4s?!?! The D16's and B17's were designed to replace older express types which could not handle the existing work that well anymore. They may been relegated to other work near the end of their lives but that was what happened in general as locomotives were superseded by newer designs...
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2021
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