Flying Scotsman

Riley's seemed to manage it ok using the ELR

 

How many heritage lines are connected to the "Big Railway"? I know the Nene Valley is, but others?

 

SVR, KWVR, South Devon, Strathspey, NNR, Ecclesbourne Valley, Bluebell, Mid Hants, Bo’ness, NYMR off the top of my head.

 

West Somerset, Swanage, Didcot are a few more.

Tom

 

Middleton. Although it hasn't been used since 1990 it is still connected and technically open.

 

Time it was Steve. What about one of your locos coming for a spin - 'Blue Peter ' perhaps!!??

 

I'm sure you could organise that, Mike. A year or so back Freightliner offered us one of their locos if we wanted and more recently William Cook Rail looked into using it as a prelude to doing some testing. The last things to traverse it were a pair of EM2 bogies brought in from Holland (on a wagon) for storage by the EM2 society.

 

I don't think the connection to the Wirksworth branch remains.

I'd add the GCR(N), Torbay & Dartmouth, Dean Forest and ELR to the list of railways, plus Tyseley, Barrow Hill and Carnforth to the list of steam sheds.

And if we're on that wavelength, I'd love to see 60103 coaling up at the AFRPS...

 

North Norfolk is also rail connected and, although a smaller site, so is the EARM at Chappel & Wakes Colne

 

Best all round would be Carnforth considering the amount of steam tours using it, and there need for air braked locos

 

I'd have thought it would be better for West Coast, if Riley's were to regain the contract (assuming they were to rebid for it) and WCRC operate the loco on the mainline for Railway Touring Company, as was the case until the start of the year.

Would WCRC want to take on responsibility for maintenance and overhaul of Scotsman? Especially as they're still collecting locos and forming a bit of a queue at Carnforth, with 34016, 34073, 45110, 44767, 48151, 45690, 5593 and 6201 all either awaiting restoration/overhaul or are already under overhaul and 34067 is currently undergoing repair, plus 35018 is possibly close to it's boiler ticket running out (unless it runs through a 10 year ticket).

 

Three pages worth of discussion since the " news/rumours/speculation broke and nobody's linked another article of railway news of the last few months, which may or may not have had a bearing on the FS contract. I would have bet a sixpence that someone would have linked the two by now

 

As has been asked before, please let's have none of this "I know something that you don't".

 

If all this is true there needs to be an enquiry into the management of the NRM. They had a reliable custodian with all the workshop facilities and expertise to keep it running so why change to an unknown?
Riley engineering have virtually kept West Coast and RTC on the rails with 4871 knocking up a huge mileage and all with 100% reliability. What more do they want? Most heritage railways have enough problems keeping their own engines running without an additional commitment line this.

 

@Johnb - a former colleague of mine would just say "that's what happens when you let arts students run engineering projects".

 

The contract was time limited so it had to be put up for tender.

We don’t know why Riley & Co didn’t get the contract- maybe they didn’t even submit a bid, we don’t know.
Why was another company selected? Well presumably because they met all the requirements of the tender.

Does this need an enquiry? I would say not.

If the contract had been rolled over to Riley & Co without a tender process there would’ve been complaints, so the NRM can’t win either way.

 

There is of course another possibility, that the NRM expected Riley engineering to be the winners, the bids were sealed of course, and they might have been surprised by this new as of then company, winning with the higher bid, of course, I would have hoped that the NRM, doesn't just take written evidence, and carry's out further checks to determine that said bidder does in fact have the expertise and back up to operate a loco on the main line.

 

Is the NRM not the client area in the process? They are part of the Science Museum, so I would imagine it was the S.M. Procurement department who handled it from the tender and contracts side. Of course around the time this all happened my Linkedin feed was inundated with Science Museum Procurement roles.

 

I may be wrong but I thought Riley’s did bid. If they did then it there was nothing to stop the NRM from staying with them.