Class 507 to be preserved at Nant Mawr, funding appeal launched

The Class 507 preservation society have announced a home has been found for the unit they plan to preserve at the Nant Mawr visitor centre, and will launch an appeal to cover the £10,000 needed to transport it:

 

I wish this group luck but it sits rather uncomfortably next to the class 503 thread in my news feed. I hope future "future generations" who this unit is being saved for are a bit more appreciative than current "future generations" who the other one was saved for 40-odd years ago. Do you think they will be?

 

I visited Nant Mawr a couple of years ago, and quite liked it in an "no need to rush back" way. But with more and more units gathering, I'm struggling to be more optimistic than @Sidmouth.

 

IMO they are wasting 10k of their, or rather other people's, money. Hasn't the recent 503 debacle taught them anything? Unless an EMU can be kept in working order, on the 'juice' and preferably under cover it is only a matter of time before it deteriorates beyond the point of no return. I was surprised that even the Tanat Valley offered it a home but, after all, they hosted Stuart Reader's junk.
Ray.

 

Do you have any better ideas as to where to put it?

 

Not just the 503 but the Clacton EMU was/ is a lesson in setting fire to someone else's money. It was under threat of being scrapped too. They'd have been better funding a loudmouth's political career like someone else, at least there would be content. I dont know where to begin with EMU preservation. What deserves to be saved? What deserves to be turned into razor blades? Especially as we look at the utilitarian, relatively anonymous second generation of them that just did their job. They're not quite as attractive or nostalgia inducing as first generation or even Pre-BR stock and still have nowhere to operate like most of the preserved stock. The 502 did spend a few years on specials on the Mersey system but we can see how that eventually went.

 

Isn't it important to preserve examples of the utilitarian stock that was most people's experience with travelling on the railway? Not to mention that what you consider "attractive or nostalgia inducing" is not the same as what everyone considers attractive or nostalgia inducing.

 

This is a cogent point but with limited potential and railways becoming reticent to take in such cases, where do you stop? I can think of at least one EMU set (Summerlee's 311) which has already lost a driving trailer that is/ was allegedly undergoing restoration which would help tell the tale of suburban electrification around Glasgow alongside the Bo'ness EMU as the operational example but as ever money just isn't there (I believe the 311 needs to be de-asbestos'd) as EMUs are the red-headed step-child of a rented mule of railway preservation.

 

That's fair, and with a 313 in private hands at Eastleigh, there has to be a serious question about whether there is really value in a (fundamentally identical) 507 being retained as well.

However, if we take the "utiliatarian" argument too far, we would find ourselves without important vehicles like the SECR 100 seaters, the Gresley Quad Arts, or the Festiniog "bug boxes".

 

My intention wasn't to denigrate the mundane vehicles. They are even more important than some show pony pieces. I'm sure if I keep typing we'll be entering into a huge discussion of semantics and worthiness.

 

Strangely, it's the utilitarian stuff I'm drawn to, like the coaches on the NVR with wooden benches for seats.

There was of course the 4-COR at the NVR for a period - it was even used for filming in "Secret Army".
https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topi...t-army-s2-ep1/?do=findComment&comment=4736160

 

Yes, sooner or later it will make its final journey to the scrapyard so it might as well be sooner. If Merseyrail had been able to offer the unit space in one of its depots where it could be maintained and occasionally operated it would be a very different situation. Taking the 507 to rot outside at Nant Mawr (presumably because it's the only place that would have it) is just putting off the inevitable. Obtaining, whether by purchase or donation of any rail vehicle is the easy bit, finding secure undercover accommodation for the vehicle's long term conservation is the hard bit - particularly for EMU's as they have no way to generate any income. There's no easy answer, and hard it may be for some to realise, we cannot 'save' everything.
Ray.

 

Would you support efforts to create undercover storage for EMUs?

 

If you are asking if I would financially support one the answer would be "no" as EMU's are not my thing. If, however, a group were to produce a viable plan for such I would applaud their efforts.
Ray.

 

Sell it to me my friend!

 

Unfortunately I'm not in a position to work towards such a goal. I was making a broader point about the dismissiveness seen towards EMU preservation.
That said, hopefully in future years I will be in a position to work towards such a goal.

 

Practicality or snobbery? You decide...

It's a great pity as so much is made of the steam era (even though now only people in their sixties and seventies will remember it) whilst there are a sizeable number of people for whom their memories of travel by rail involved EMUs . And if we're talking about earlier stock the control systems are incredibly simple to maintain. No leaking stays, no need for routine boiler testing, no complex IC engines whilst from another standpoint, they'll become far more environmentally acceptable than either steam or diesel.

For me, memories of visits to a friend in the 80s would have involved 312s to Kings Cross and whatever ran the Hastings services towards Orpington from Charing Cross.

 

Of course the problem is power supply.

 

Sadly, yes it is. Not helped by the general public's ignorance about electricity either - there really are people out there who think the electricity is only there when a train is present.

Such a pity that those that may survive will only ever be hauled stock, if at all