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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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    In complete agreement Noel. Recently read the book Lion: The Story of the oldest Working Locomotive in the World (sadly no longer running!) but one of the things which struck me was that although many of us would say Lion was a celebrity loco now, in her working life she was a goods engine. Even rarer given the lack of locos that survive from around that era. A humble goods engine which survived through sheer luck and fortitude, and determination on the part of preservationists. We have however at the more modern, near to the end of steam sort of things, various GW, LMS and southern goods locos of everything from 0-6-0 to 2-8-0, and a handful of LNER locos of similar vintage.

    How many run today in comparison to the glamorous stuff? Is it in proportion to that we saw on the working railway? No, of course not: because we're catering to the general public, we're working from steaming what we actually have, not what is considered by an arbitrary "best loco for any job" dick measuring contest. At the end of the day we have to work with what we have, and what people are enthused to work on. We attract people by way of making our preservation movement attractive and that includes sticking locos in beautiful pre grouping liveries and also running larger than absolutely necessary locomotives. It's a balancing act of many, many factors, and not just a "2MT will do everything" affair.
     
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  2. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    FWIW, on the line I'm involved in :) our current operational fleet consists of:

    - A generation 6 mixed traffic 4-6-0
    - A generation 6 passenger 2-6-4T tank engine
    - A generation 5 mixed traffic 4-6-0
    - A generation 5 goods 0-6-0
    - A generation 4 passenger 0-4-4T tank engine
    - A generation 3.5 goods 0-6-0

    (Definition of generations here: https://www.national-preservation.c...t-nearly-made-it.1417976/page-13#post-2576214)

    Not much high-end express passenger motive power in amongst that lot! Sometimes I think certain people rail against what they dislike while ignoring what is actually being used.

    Tom
     
  3. jnc

    jnc Well-Known Member

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    I agree totally that that should be a factor in deciding what to build, but I think it's very good for the heritage 'movement' to have this discussion, to start getting people to think about that aspect. 'From small acorns', and all that. Maybe once we're done building the P2's and A1's and 470x's and all that lot, if there's any energy left for building new engines after that (which I cheerfully concede is a real concern), hopefully attention will turn to the influential freight designs, because the rail freight network was a key ingredient in the Industrial Revolution, and to the extent that heritage rail aspires to be a 'living museum' to educate people...

    Although really, one could have the exact identical discussion about ocean transports, which were an equally important part of that; the big Blue Riband liners get a lot of the attention now, but it was the far more numerous humble freighters that really changed the world. It was for good reason that Churchill wrote 'The only thing that ever really frightened me during WW2 was the U-boat peril'.

    Noel
     
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  4. ady

    ady Well-Known Member

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    ...fair point...
     
  5. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    Great post Tom and completely agree with your sentiments at the end. Obviously the Bluebell does have a couple of Bulleids - but they don't form the whole of the fleet and as of now are still under repair.
     
  6. jnc

    jnc Well-Known Member

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    Like the Thompson debate, I think this is another area where more actual historical data would improve the heat/light ratio. [Not suggesting that it's your job to do it; L-rd knows you've done enough! Just putting it out there as a general appeal. Although if you're bored once the Thompson book is put to bed, and you're looking for a project... :-] But looking at the numbers on where they put their locomotive investments, I suspect you're right.

    Noel
     
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  7. MellishR

    MellishR Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    deleted
     
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  8. Eightpot

    Eightpot Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    Your mention of 'Lion' reminds me that I have a couple of photos given to me 60-odd years ago by a Hatfield (34C) Driver. They were taken at the time of making the film 'The Lady with a Lamp' in 1951 starring Anna Neagle of the life of Florence Nightingale. They were taken at Cole Green station on the long closed Welwyn Garden City to Hertford branch. The N7 is 69695 which was shedded at Hatfield at the time, and I believe to have been the only N7 that retained a Belpaire firebox to its scrapping at Stratford.

    Scan 1 16.jpg

    Scan 1 16.jpg
     
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  9. MellishR

    MellishR Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    The 'living museum' is an important aspect of heritage railways, but they operate few demonstration freights and no real working ones apart from engineering trains. Moreover, with a couple of exceptions these railways were originally branch lines, where most of the freight trains would have been short ones hauled by small locos, not long coal or mineral trains hauled by 8- or 10-coupled locos, and we do have reasonable numbers of both sorts already preserved and operational.

    Anyway the over-riding consideration for any new build is whether enough people are willing to provide enough cash, and if that results in rather more passenger types than freight types we can like it or lump it. In fairness, I think current new builds cover a pretty good range of types.
     
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  10. Eightpot

    Eightpot Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    Don't know what happened, but here hopefully is the 2nd photo.

    Scan 21.jpg
     
  11. ross

    ross Well-Known Member

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    The statement that preserved railways are about re-creating the past, or education, is all so much eyewash to justify the fact that we want to play trains. It sounds good and virtuous and all that, and some people might actually believe it, but its not true. True recreation of the past would be a 3 train a day service, one slow freight of about 3 wagons. No-one actually wants that. Not the public. Not the volunteers. Not the management.
    We are fond of Lion, not because it is a humble L&M freight engine, but because she became a film star. There is no replica.
    Planet replica,
    half a dozen Rocket replicas....
    If any group wants to get together and build a humdrum and unremarkable 0-6-0 freight engine, do it. No one is stopping you. Other groups have had the drive, ambition, brains, skills to build an A1, a Saint, a Baldwin 2-4-2, a bunch of quarry Hunslets(which aren't express engines) and are making progress on other projects. Are they really to be criticized just because these are not dull? Or because they give old trainspotters a chance to see something they miss, or missed.
    Look back at the last few years. Do you remember the dull days, boring work days, washing up and mowing the garden. Or do you remember the good day at work, your kid's birthdays, what your wife did on your anniversary?
    If you join a group to build a new locomotive, its probable that you will build one locomotive. One chance, and that is a better chance if it is something that a lot of people would like to see.

    Please forgive the very politically incorrect analogy, but would you choose Margaret Thatcher, or Emeline Pankhurst (who are certainly historically significant) or Aunt Bessie? Or Marilyn Monroe? Who do think the public would pay to see?
     
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  12. Cartman

    Cartman Well-Known Member Account Suspended

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    Some good points. Most preserved lines, if they were accurately recreating the past would be a two coach push/ pull about four times a day, or a two car dmu with unstaffed stations, to use the East Lancs as an example.

    One other point, which we have touched on before, is the fact that LNER big stuff is pretty well represented, 6 A4s, an A3, A2 and A1, with a P2 on the way, also a V2.

    What is missing are smaller freight and mixed traffic locos, I mentioned GC types (my favourite bit of the Eastern btw) as it's not well represented in preservation, there is the 567 4-4-0 on the way which is good, but I think something like a J11 or A5 tank would be good
     
  13. redbarron

    redbarron New Member

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    Mrs Thatcher every time, wonderful woman. Did a great deal of good for this country, that had to be done to drag a collapsing post industrial economy into a modern, financially driver service economy, an industrial economy
    strangled by unions that had such control over industries their strikes fianlly closed companies dying from lack of internal investment in their future. And before anyone mentions the moners strike, remember, it was an illegal strike, called by Scargill without a union ballot. It was known that stockpiles of coal at users were high, so its impact was minimal. If she had been a man there would be no way he would get the cristisim she does.
     
  14. Cartman

    Cartman Well-Known Member Account Suspended

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    Yeah, she was great, trebled unemployment in 6 months, destroyed public services, sold the country's arse off to foreign corporations while wrapping herself in the flag

    Hated the ***t with an absolute passion

    please can we, going forward, keep Daily Mail esque politics off here, mods?
     
  15. jnc

    jnc Well-Known Member

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    I did say "to the extent that we're trying to create a 'living museum' " (emphasis added); clearly there is more going on in the heritage world. But the 'living museum' thing is for real; at least one heritage line's trust has it in their mission statement.

    Noel
     
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  16. ross

    ross Well-Known Member

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    And I didn't quote you or anyone else, because I'm trying to challenge what I perceive is a widely held false belief. But I don't want to take anyone particularly to task- we are, on these forums, talking about playing trains after all
     
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  17. Paulthehitch

    Paulthehitch Well-Known Member

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    At least one is a museum accredited by the Arts Council..
     
  18. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

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    Several actually, NYMR, NVR and Ribble Valley are all accredited museums in their entirety i.e. not just a museum building.
     
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  19. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    The 0-4-4T / 0-6-0 / 4-4-0 with commonality of parts was certainly a common pre-grouping trope: the Drummond M7 / 700 goods / K10 small 4-4-0 come to mind as one such series, but there were plenty of others. On the SE&CR, the interesting bit of standardisation was around the H class boiler, which was used to reboiler Stirling class O (0-6-0); Q (0-4-4T); R (0-6-0T) and Kirtley class R (0-4-4T) amongst others.

    The J is an interesting design. Amongst Wainwright designs they don't have a particularly great reputation. OTOH, they all lasted 40-odd years in service and did over a million miles before withdrawal without any significant rebuilding, so they can't have been that bad. A certain CME plying his trade out of south Hampshire certainly produced plenty more duds than that ;) I suspect they never ran to more than five locos because Wainwright retired and Maunsell / Holcroft came in with very different ideas.

    Tom
     
  20. Cartman

    Cartman Well-Known Member Account Suspended

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    There was also the G class which the SECR bought from the GNSR, who couldn't pay for them all. The strange thing was that the ones which stayed with the GNSR, then LNER/BR, lasted to the 50s, class D40 I think, but the ones which went to the Southern were withdrawn in the 1920s
     

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