35011 General Steam Navigation

Interested to hear what the new approach might be? Restore to rebuilt condition? Drop main line aspersions?

 

I'm conscious that Dr Rapley (CME) has previously posted on this forum regarding progress with 35011 GSN but not for some considerable time.

Some headlines from Winter 2024 of The Packet released this week :

NLHF stage one application that had taken considerable time & effort to produce, failed in October and the Board have been reviewing options to move forward, remaining both positive and knowing what might be a better approach with future bid submissions.
Group Chairman has stepped down due to health issues but remains involved.
Options are still being considered and could involve a revised more piecemeal lottery bid that has lower risk of failure. NHLF feedback : reduce risk, complexity & cost. Focus on skills development, young people and diversifying the volunteer sector.
Finding a strategic partner to assist and extend project over a longer, more realistic period.
Not taking 35011 on the mainline in the short term as part of lottery funding.
The board are pleased to say that Leaky Finders have offered an the opportunity to work with them and relocate GSN to their site near Exeter. As 35011 was a 72A engine, a case of 'coming home'.

The project is still focused on rebuilding to original "spam" design

Initial working weekends in 2025 will focus on prepping the locomotive and components for moving to Devon.

The membership is modest so anyone wanting to get involved, I'm sure the team would love more people to join in. There is a specific Volunteer Opportunity available as Fundraiser with more details available from the team for anyone interested.

www.35011GSN.co.uk

 

As a shareholder in 35011, I was disappointed to read that the NHLF bid had not succeeded, especially given the amount of work involved. That said, I'm not particularly surprised as I have never had too much faith in these lottery bids (I can't really explain why, it's just a gut feeling). I do hope that the group keeps the aim of completing 35011 in its near to original condition as possible, as this would, in my view, give it a unique selling point. I doubt very much that it will return to the main line, but who knows? I just hope that it will be restored and I will continue to contribute to it financially.

 

Thank you for the update.

 

post abandoned.

 

I have personally submitted one NHLF bid for a group I volunteered for some years back and it was successful. The key learning at the time was that the submission needs to demonstrate value & benefit based on diversity and inclusion across multiple demographics. I would say that GSN is an ambitious project with many risks and subdivision of the scope may prove more fruitful. I hope so.

 

Education is a very important one as well. Documenting progress is another. It's all well and good having an end product, but if you can show off how you got there and what steps were taken to do it, the better. Even just a website blog will help.

 

Perhaps speak to the MHR, as 35005 was supported by the NHLF - see how they presented their project (which wouldn't be quite the same size as 35011 but would come under a 'large project').
Of course NHLF criteria may have changed since 35005 was awarded its money.

 

I thought the NHLF has significantly less money these days than when it was launched, and hence supports fare fewer projects.

 

Quite possibly, but it's all about getting key words and proposals in the application - the MHR may be able to help with that.

 

As may plenty of others.

Sadly, my hunch is that grant givers are more limited now, and track record is key to getting money - so it may be better to focus on a series of smaller steps than trying to go with one big one.

 

In the past five years things have changed. Less money available in all areas, fewer volunteers, fewer enthusiasts with hands on knowledge, fewer enthusiasts for steam. Forget not greater costs and greater levels of regulation and quality required to meet them. One has to expect
the result of all of this will be fewer locomotives in service and being returned to service. Don't expect this to change in the coming five
years. Projects will continue but at a much slower pace and new sources of support will have to be found but do not ask me where because
I do not know.

 

Certainly less money. Certainly more regulation. However, I'd take issue with "fewer enthusiasts with hands on knowledge." A recently formed group on my own local railway, has seen an exponential growth in those wishing to get their hands dirty for a particular cause. It can be done.
Something which is particularly depressing from the HLF response, is this now rather tired trope on "diversity and inclusiveness".
You can't force people to be interested in something which their culture does not compel them to be. Currently, there is a very healthy mix of genders within the preservation movement. Beyond that, the cultural divide becomes rather more apparent.
How do you bridge that? Not everything is a DEI quick fix. Just leaves me wondering how you go forward from that admonition.

 

Ignoring the ins and outs of what the HLF are looking for "over and above" the core requirement to restore the loco, this still looks to me a high-risk project from an HLF point of view. You have what is essentially a Barry wreck and a complicated project to recreate an awful lot of stuff that doesn't exist: all the usual problems of a big pacific overhaul, but throw in casting and fitting a new inside cylinder, all the valve gear, steam reverser etc. There's a lot of risk and a lot of complexity in that. Even if the group were well-resourced and had absolutely top-notch engineering expertise, that is a decade-long project. (And while at the S&CR, it was being done outside with very rudimentary equipment, as far as I could see, both of which slow down any project). Moreover, the group had no track record with previous HLF grants, but were going in straight away at the top end of an application.

Given all that, I can't see how the HLF could ever have supported it: too high risk, and with a likely project timescale stretching out far too long. I think the move to Leaky Finders is pragmatic (get the loco under cover, and at a location well equipped with tools, cranes etc); now the difficulty is going to be to break the project down into manageable chunks, and feed a voracious funding requirement that, if the project is going to happen this century, probably needs to be running at least ten times more per year than it currently is.

Tom

 

Diversity is a government policy; ACR enforce it rigorously at present (ask opera companies and their views will be less diplomatic than yours!). But with finite money, priorities have to be set somewhere. That’s before you think about the risk profile of this project, where I think @Jamessquared is pretty spot on in his analysis.

 

I suppose this could be a phased approach ie get an air-smoothed casing made, remove the outside valve gear and you have a Non working look - alike, which can be used to generate more interest and get the other "bits" made, as and when finance permits, then fitted at an appropriate time?

 

And then what do you do with it? No-one can see it at Leaky Finders, and who is going to pay to transport 150 tons of dead loco to act as an attraction at a gala?

The core issue is drawing, casting and fitting a new inside cylinder. Then follow up with the valve gear. A lot of other tasks are blocked until that happens. But it is going to cost rather more than £10k per year to get there.

Tom

 

Well, at a pinch you could double head with it, or, as on the main line, put a diesel on the back, smoky rags in the smokebox and away you go!???

 

I believe that a conversation with the MHR team did take place. It was mentioned in "The Packet" members magazine last year that a meeting was taking place with the MHR chief executive.
I think the extended time it has taken to complete 35005 has also made the Heritage Lottery Fund nervous about supporting another member of the same class with vastly greater requirements in both engineering and financial resources. That seem to be one of the reasons given amongst others for the failure of the bid.

 

And I guess to the casual non enthusiast observer it will look very like any other unrebuilt Bulleid Pacific of which there are a few operational.