Current and Proposed New-Builds

Thanks for that comprehensive list. I had to look up "Derwent"!

In terms of numbers, the biggest gap in preservation is the lack of any 0-6-0 from the LNWR. Ramsbottom built 857 of his DX class 0-6-0 for the LNWR plus a further 86 for the LYR between 1858 and 1872. The total of 943 makes it Britain's second most numerous locomotive type, exceeded only by the BR Class 08. Webb followed with 500 of the "17-inch goods" (1873-92) and 310 of the "Cauliflower" (1880-1902).

However, the LNWR stopped building 0-6-0s in 1902 (to focus on 0-8-0s). Withdrawals began in the Edwardian era and were completed in 1955, before preservation gathered pace.

I think there is very little chance of a new-build project for any 0-6-0 tender engine. It is the express passenger types that attract the most support, but even these projects may have passed their peak in an era of ever-increasing costs and regulatory requirements.

 

Lets see how the current crop pull through, we've had to weather covid, the truss budget, brexit and the Ukraine conflict. As these have happened we've seen what works and what doesn't, the rise of CT Steel as a loco-builder. In the event of any stability we might be surprised...

 

I shall resist the obvious remark about lights and tunnels...!

 

Might be proved wrong, but I think that after the current ones are completed we won't have any more. Ones which I think we will see are G5, F7, P2, B17, Clan, 82xxx tank, Patriot, GCR 4-4-0, GWR County both 4-4-0 and 4-6-0, Not sure about the rest

 

If you don't want to count it as preserved, the other possible descriptions are new build, which it clearly isn't, or rebuild like the WSR Mogul, but that involved not only removing the tanks and adding a tender but also chopping a bit off the frames.

 

Rebuild is probably the most accurate description of what happened to 2890.

 

Much as I don't want to get into a nomenclature debate (well, maybe just a little bit), the alternatives to "preserved" are surely "in commercial use" or "scrapped". To "preserve" means "to keep" with a side order of preventing degredation. As such, it's neither razor blades nor doing what it was built to do, ergo it is preserved (albeit modified).

Don't forget, if preservation means keeping without modification, then any loco that's had new parts is not preserved.

 

There are plenty of historic (pre-preservation) examples of tank engines becoming tender engines and the other way. Typically you’d call them rebuilds. I can think of at least one currently preserved tender engine that started life as a tank engine and was converted pre-preservation. There is another that went tender —> tank pre preservation, and tank —> tender in preservation.

Tom

 

That’s not what “preserved” means. Keeping a loco in the state it was found (for want of a better term) without modifying or changing any component is generally referred to as “conserved”. The original Rocket is probably the most well-known example.

Tom

 

I'd argue it is preserved, it's still here long after its original working life ended. The whole of the bottom end, boiler, smokebox and presumably much of the cab is original - the sadlle tank has been removed and some pipe work has been altered, plus a tender added obviously.

 

You don't need headlights on preserved railways, so it can't be a train coming the other way...

My feeling is there are a number of issues
1) the economic climate has been bloody awful since pretty much just after these nee-builds were mooted
2) pre-Tornado new-builds weren't much of a thing, so a lot of enthusiasm was stirred up
3) these things all take a long time. Much longer than most people's attention span
4) every big project has hit a big road bump (welcome to the club, Tornado)
5) the above all needs to percolate through.

I doubt we'll see the froth (mania seems an apposite word) that we had 10 years ago again.

Lets not forget we've got 6 complete now (the WSR mogul, the Saint, the Grange, the Marsh Atlantic, the railmotor, and Tornado).

AFAIK, the Saint has settled down, and when we get a few more off the rank and the actual timescales and costs become understood. We have 6 "newbuilds" in commission right now, so data will accumulate". With cost, time and utility data, hopefully an entity will decide to build another one.

 

I'd argue that is a term of art in the museum trade created to attempt to pick up the ambiguity (after all, the terms "preserve" and "conserve" are pretty much interchangeable in the world of jam).

Not that it changes the basic thrust of my interpretation of preservation for these purposes.

 

I think the other confusion is people are conflating words that refer to a state ( ie, “preserved”) and those that relate to a process (ie rebuilt, overhauled etc). A loco can be in a state and also undergoing a process, so the terms aren’t either/or: a loco can be both preserved and being restored.

Tom

 

21? --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradyll_(locomotive)

 

True, but I think there's also an angle to consider about how far what came into preservation is being maintained as it was, rather than changed into something else. I'm at the relatively laissez faire end when it comes to making alterations to preserved locomotives (and other vehicles) that are well represented in preservation, but a term like "preserved" don't quite sit right with locomotives like 2890 or 9351 which are in a materially different state from what they were in when they came into preservation. At the same time, @alexl102 is absolutely right that the majority of the locomotive is original.

So we come back to me saying "tom-ah-to" and you saying "tom-a-to". Both right, neither wrong.

 

Could probably add the remains of OW&W No. 34 (GWR No. 252) as well giving a 22nd example.

Tom

 

For what it's worth, in my book something remains 'preserved' if it hasn't been scrapped. Restored and Unrestored items are both assets that haven't been reduced to scrap. Some Restored stock/locos haven't run for decades but are stored and preserved. Some may have been cut-and-shut from "preserved" stock.

 

What the plan is for No. 35011 is going to blow your mind!

Tom

 

And that's where definitions vary - because to me "preserved" also implies something about the condition, which the "cut & shuts" don't quite achieve.

 

Not necessarily - I'm a Southern Locomotives shareholder because of the earlier, now abandoned, plans to unrebuild 35022. And what those plans both had in common was a restoration to a prior state - rather different from 9351 or 2890.