Ten grand for a grounded body?

I suppose with the prices people are paying for things to convert to unusual holiday lets, anything's possible.

Story here:

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/n...et-sell-10-000-charterhouse-auction/#gallery3

 

Some folk when they have a grounded body like this, just see the £ sign and expect those little paper promises just to roll in......... Just look at those that pop up on eBay,every now and then.

 

There is a little bit of creative writing going on there, 'could sell for up to £10k' no suggestion whether there is a reserve etc.

Its just a blurb piece for some free advertising, unless £10k is the reserve (which doe seem a little high) it will sell for whatever a buyer thinks its worth.

 

At one time, owners of grounded bodies often gave them away. Much opportunity was wasted twenty or thirty years ago, leading to the Mk. 1 plethora.

 

That rather presumes that the railways that took Mk1s straight from service 20-30 years ago were in the market for the sort of restoration job that would have benefitted from those bodies. It's certainly a missed opportunity, but I would challenge the cause and effect.

 

Give it a rest Paul.

 

RWIBN
(Retrospective WIBN)

 

Oh dear. Paul's got his "back in the olden days" glasses on again.

Those wooden bodies being given away: were those the ones which had been sat in fields without wheels or underframe for decades?

I really can't understand why the heritage railways took the Mark 1s instead. I mean, those nasty modern carriages had been running, painted and fully maintained until just a few months before.

 

I think they very often still do. (Lots of stories of grounded bodies being on the market for £10k; less evidence I am aware of that they actually get sold for that).

But - you get your free grounded body. Then what? A few thousand pounds of recovery and transport, then maybe £50k or more of work needed, plus a redundant under frame, plus thousands of hours of skilled labour to turn it into an operational carriage. The overhaul costs are so high that actually the asking price is a relatively trivial part of the whole, regardless of whether that price is £0 or £10k. It isn't the asking price of such bodies that prevents their going into operational service.

Tom

 

Yes, they thought they were taking the easy way but time suggests this might not be the case. "Heritage'' is an awkward word which can be defined in many ways and future generations may have similar thoughts about Pacers as I do about Mk.1s.

 

But *all* carriages need ongoing maintenance and rebuilding if they are used beyond their planned working life. Even wooden ones.

OK, Mk.1s have rust problems. But there are also older wooden carriages which are now out of service again or never entered service as their owners didn't have the money or skills to restore or maintain them.

 

I think most people's thoughts about Pacers make yours on Mk1s seem moderate.

What you miss is that the railways which used Mk1s have had 20-30 (and more) use out of that stock, in many cases creating capacity for them to earn the funds and recruit volunteers who can do the in depth restorations that they require. The real missed opportunity, because preservation was in it's infancy, was in the mass withdrawals of the 1960s. However, given the information and resources of the preservationists of that era, before I was a speck in my parents' eyes, I'm not going to criticise them for that when they achieved so much with so little.

I think it revealing that the IOW, as an exception to that rule, was also a complete network with it's own very distinct operation - and a desire to preserve that in the round. That marked it out from just about everywhere else that saw standard gauge preservation, where the culture of line first, choice of trains later, prevailed.

 

Hopefully, my last comments on this thread!

There is only one passenger vehicle on the IOWSR which did not operate there before the present era. It actually got turned down by a certain mainland group and now, modified fo''easy access'', is in daily use.

A certain line must be kicking itself.

 

Maybe they are but isn’t hindsight such a wonderful thing?

 

I'm not sure why said line should be kicking itself, given that in the time since a mutual agreement was reached that the carriage would stand the best chance of restoration on the IoWSR, the line that should by now be suffering from a repeated self-inflicted kicking has outshopped about a dozen pre-nationalisation carriages itself, with another four or so under restoration ...

Fortunately, the zero-sum antagonism ("our gain is their loss") of some isn't the prevailing attitude.

Tom

 

You make my point for me - the IOWSR formed out of a self contained network where locos, stock, track were all part of a very distinctive whole, unlike pretty well the rest of the network.

 

I can give a first hand example. GWR 216, five compartment carriage. Recovered 1991 for nominal sun. Body conserved and repainted until 1994 when stored due to other pressures. Underframes aquired (ex BR MK1 horse box would you believe!) and stripped, shot blasted and converted 2002-2005. Body placed on underframe 2005. Restoration made good progress for 3 years, before slowing down and having to be slotted in between other work. Now in 2021 hopefully on the home straight with extensive work to the doors which requires some skill including making a brand new one, due to outside storage a lot of work had to be redone which was previously done both inside and out outside. Many parts missing inside so the seats in particular are non authentic but everything else (luggage racks, gas lamps etc) will be.

Lessons -

1) you will need a serious sum to either provide a new under frame or build one
2) a carriage shed is a must
3) permanent worshop space is required
4) a skilled team is also a must.

Mk’s do cope slightly better with being left outside although over time they will also deteriorate.

regards

Matt

 

But if railways had collected grounded bodies 20/30 years ago, wouldn't that have led to the dreaded 'linear scrapyard' on those railways? Can't have it both ways Paul!

 

I hadn't intended to post any more on this thread but I had to reply that the worst linear scrapyards seen by me were full of Mk.1s!

The poverty stricken L.C.D.R. used best Burma teak for carriage frames and this stuff has astonishing decay resistance. Rare and unaffordable now.

P

 

They still are given away for free. For example the LBSCR coach bodies donated to the Mid Hants a few years ago, and the LSWR coaches at Blaenavon currently being given to the British Titanic Society.

A few deluded sellers may put them on E bay expecting to get £10k, but they don’t sell for that price.