Current and Proposed New-Builds

Of the innumerable extinct classes that WIBN to re-create, some are good candidates for one reason or another, and some of those are indeed ongoing projects; but the justifications for some of the choices are unclear. Was there any good reason to choose all three Counties, other than the selling point of their shared name? How successful were the "County Tanks" and was that name for them ever more than unofficial?

 

I don't have a problem with the County 4-4-0 recreation as such, as that's using un-bastardised parts which are Swindon standard parts.
The Hawksworth County I would love to have seen had it had the correct boiler. As it is, it's a Hall with a County name, and probably not as much power as a Hall due to the 6'3" Drivers. Same with the 4700... I'd have loved to have seen that with the correct boiler too, but it's not a representation of a historical loco class as long as it's using a Castle boiler, and also for the fact that it's using the boiler from a perfectly restorable Castle in the process, as discussed at length above.

Richard.

 

I've come to the conclusion that there are too many nit-pickers/ rivet counters on this forum, the vast majority of whom have never seen an original 47xx or 'County'. This being the case how are they able to compare the appearance or performance of these locos with the originals ?

Bob.

 

Have you ever heard of photographs or engineering drawings?

 

I’d really like an LBSCR E2. I never saw an original example, so provided it looks roughly like this (without the face, and painted in LBSC livery) I’ll not quibble over a rivet …



Tom

 

But it just invites the question 'what's the point' If you are not building a replica of something then why not build something useful like the 5AT of the WSR mogul?

Once again The GWS have come to your rescue through a little casual bastardisation...

What with their apparent new urge to take everything mainline surprised to see that the GWS/47 Group were not at this meeting, https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2022/0...groups-meet-for-second-time-in-sheffield.html perhaps it clashed with a different appointment to go and measure up an Merchant Navy to form the basis of their next GWR hybrid.

 

It’s close enough to an E2 for me - I never saw an original, after all …

Tom

 

Great idea, turn the barrel upside down, stick on a king firebox ( surely theres a spare one somewhere) and your halfway to a Great Bear ... ish type thing.

 

Ever heard of the saying ‘if a jobs worth doing, it’s worth doing properly’?

 

The storm seems to be raging on, but here's a thought: if the 4709 group had purchased 7027 and said "we're borrowing the boiler for a while to speed the project along whilst we raise the funds for a new one of the correct , and putting the rest of the loco into secure store until we can return its boiler to it" would there have been such a fuss? It would have been a far more tactful way of dealing with the issue, and probably in time it would all have blown over.

 

I have heard there are three ways to get a job done. (1) Do it yourself (2) Pay someone else to do it (3) Forbid your children from doing it.

 

In preservation, it's often "If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing twice".

 

The differences between a No 1 boiler & a No 7 could easily be hidden under No 7 outline cladding & a No 7 diameter smokebox. All that is needed is a fatter ring where the smokebox joins the boiler and a crinolin to support the fatter cladding. The boiler plugs might also need long squares on them to be accessible. Plenty of steam from a No 1 for a Didcot shuffle or any heritage line requirements, remembering that the new cylinders are less than the GW design at 18" (Manor size). If it is to be a bodge then the No 1 option is relatively dissent free whilst providing a visually and operationally acceptable outcome (bearing in mind that in operational terms this is in any case a white elephant).

 

In terms of the 47xx is my recollection correct that most of the initial work was done in the same workshop where the Patriot was similarly erected. Has there been any indication that checks have been made to ensure that it isn't suffering from the same engineering malaise which has recently blighted the Patriot project?

 

I think the radically different firebox size might be something of an issue.
Std 8 started out as a Std 7 with a smaller barrel to save weight, so technically (as opposed to PR wise) it's IMHO a bearable compromise.

 

With respect, the point is that this is not what happened.

It's all well and good speculating on what could have been done differently; the fact remains the loco was sold to be broken up for parts for two new build projects, one of which is started, the other looks like a non starter, and the overall loss is a steam locomotive with far more new parts and work done on it extant than the media (which is being surprisingly one sided in its depictions of said loco) glossing over those facts.

People are angry, and rightly so. It's generated more heat than light and that's unsurprising, given there's been volunteer and paid work going into it, and a point of principle at stake which is railway preservation.

 

This is probably off topic. But heritage railways are strange beasts. In financial terms, and in the associated non-core support resources available (*) they are small organisations. But in staffing terms, they are mid-size, and in stakeholder terms arguably quite large; and those put large demands on the non-core functions. For example, it wouldn't be unusual to have a heritage railway that, if you mapped it onto a normal business, might have a turnover equivalent to a 50 person small company, but a staff count of 500+ and "shareholders" of 5,000+ It's the latter two that put considerable demands on the non-core services, such as communications, which are essentially scaled at the "small company" level but have demands at the "medium" or "large" company level.

A consequence of that is that it is far from unusual for a railway to get on and do some project or activity and suddenly cause uproar because what the twenty people directly involved thought was quite non-contentious suddenly comes as a complete shock to 90% of the workforce and 99% of the stakeholders. It's often at that point that things get revisited, and hence the old saw you quoted: if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing twice.

On fora like this, people are often quick to ascribe some malign intention from the "they" department, but I suspect more often it is just poor comms and a clash between a JFDI culture and a wider stakeholder base that feels like it deserves more consultation.

A trivial example, to show the point. On my own railway, there is a foot crossing (for staff - not public) that emerges from the water tower, and shunting moves regularly take place along an adjacent siding. From our normal process of safety reviews and risk assessments, it was decreed that there should be a whistle board placed in advance of the crossing to warn anyone emerging from the building of an impending move. Next thing anyone knows a ghastly "BR Totem" style whistle sign appeared, bearing no resemblance to any known historical example of such a thing, but which met the safety requirement. Cue uproar, Facebook outrage, preservation standards committee saying they hadn't been involved etc. In time, it was replaced with a design that still met the safety criteria, but in a form that was more in keeping with the ambiance of the station. The job was worth doing, and it was done twice. In that case, I don't think there was any malign intent; simply that the desire to get it done ran ahead of the communications process in a much larger organisation, and those doing it, being a small group, not necessarily having the diversity of view to realise the issue it might cause doing something in a non-heritage way. (**)

(*) such as legal, communications, HR etc - things that are essential, but not part of the core function of "running a railway")

(**) Just because we all volunteer on a heritage organisation doesn't mean we all have equivalent views about what that means, or what parts of that heritage are or aren't important - which shouldn't come as a surprise given thousands of individual stakeholders, but often does seem to be surprising.

Tom

 

With respect yourself, we all know it is not what happened. Bob simply observed that the 4709 people could have got where they wanted to be without causing so much aggro.
Might that even now be a way forward?
As soon as 4709 is finished they would start raising funds for a new No.7 and could place orders for parts. At some later date they would re-sell 7027, its boiler by then probably needing a re-tube but otherwise in good condition, and the rest of 7027 possibly having had some more work done on it in the meantime. The proceeds of the sale would go towards the new boiler. The frames of 4709 would then have to rest in the shed for a while, waiting for the new boiler to be finished, but that would be no worse than many other sets of frames around the country waiting for new or refurbished boilers.
I am sure loads of objections can be raised to this idea, but would it really be worse than where we are now?

 

Being honest could you really see that happening?