6100 Royal Scot

I've just done the same.

It's heavy going, but interesting how some predictions from a long time back have turned out to be very accurate. Despite all the scorn.

 

Is there a connection between Southall and Bressingham? Is it anything to do with David Ward? - the man who "saved" 70013

 

And the saga of 6100 continues..................

The latest issue of Heritage Railway arrived this morning containing more bad news about the return of 6100 to the ML. After only having time for a quick read before heading off to work it appears there are major problems with the alignment of her driving wheel axles and she will have to be dismantled again. The article shows that 6100 is certainly far from being fit for the ML.

 

Aaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggghhhhh! It's 1 step forward 94 steps back ](*,)..........Those poor people at Bressingham, can't imagine their feelings right now. I expect there are people involved who would much rather cut their losses right now, the money pit just got deeper.....

 

If your summary is correct then questions must surely be asked about where the £1m(?) was spent on the restoration. I'm sure the HLF will be investigating too.
Crewe will probably end up effectively doing another overhaul by the time they have corrected all the faults that seem to have surfaced since the Southall restoration.


Keith

 

One question I would ask if I was on the HLF board would be, what was going on at Southall if the loco has made a handful of steamings and is still far from a main line test run after falling behind the anticipated steaming and going considerably over budget?
Another would be just how bad was she before the 'restoration'?
Several restorations/overhauls have gone over time and inital budgets (4472 for a big example) but none (to my knowledge) have been to this extent where nearly a year after the loco was deemed comlete it is still far from full health.

Its (almost) a TV drama "Will Royal Scot be finished for the GBIII? Find out in the next installment of Wrecks to Rails!"

 

6100 is no longer owned by Bressingham. The Royal Scot & General Trust took her on a few months back, though I do believe there is a Bressingham representative on the Board

 

I presume this is the result of Crewe thoroughly checking her over - i'd say i hope there arent any more nasty surprises but if they plan on taking her apart again then im probably being too optimistic...

Chris

 

What with this one and the Flying Scotsman problems, loco owners would seem to be well advised to avoid Southall.

 

The latest Heritage Railway mag article suggests that it is still currently in Bressingham's hands, and that the transfer of ownership does not take place until it is mainline certificated, which is unlikely to happen until next April at the earliest.

David

 

whats more worrying (or maybe it's a good thing) is if this project influences HLF decisions to award money to railway preservation projects in the future and any changes in approach demanded.

Personally imho it doesnt sound like this has been a well managed project, or maybe that in the face of looming HLF deadlines, short cuts were made that have been detrimental to the project ?

 

I have to say I miss Impala's views and opinions on this thread. No matter what you thought of him, his input was always worth reading.

 

The earlier parts of this thread make it abundantly clear that something very odd has been going on. Maybe he and others were trying to warn without sticking their necks out. And I suppose they get fed up with being told they are talking rubbish. Oh for more hindsight.

 

If you read the early parts of this thread, it sounds like bressingham brought it all upon themselves by agreeing to having the loco taken away. There's too much of the meal ticket about it.

 

It doesn't surprise me that this project has turned sour. When the Bressingham people originally returned 'Royal Scot' to steam all those years ago they clearly had a team of people who were competant at the task; but that was then and teams move on particularly when there isn't much in the way of work 'in-the-pipeline' as it were.

The task of the Bressingham team was to gather together a competant project management team and a team of good tradesmen who could carry out the work. This isn't an easy task and it's getting to be more difficult with the massive contraction of mechanical engineering in this country. Many of the good people are already involved with preservation projects and wouldn't want to transfer their loyalties to another project at another preservation centre. Tribal loyalties can be very strong.

Given then that the project team wasn't very strong it was pretty well inevitable that things would go wrong and matters would get out of hand. I have managed projects and project budgets and the following purely hypothetical instance gives an idea of just how easy it is for a project manager to lose control of his budget. Imagine that a piece of work has been completed. It has been inspected and then assembled into its sub-assembly and then this sub-assembly has been further incorporated into the larger machine. On testing, it is then found that the sub-assembly has been put together incorrectly. Up and till this point all the work has been budgeted for with a little extra that a project manager always has 'up-his-sleeve'. But that little extra then gets used up and more by the dismantling work that has to take place to get to the original component parts. On inspection one of these component parts has been irredeemably damaged and needs to be replaced.

Now the project manager has problem. He hasn't budgeted for any replacement components, nor has he budgeted for the further assembly work that has to take place once the replacement part has been delivered. In addition, this extra work has put the project behind schedule.

Reiterative work costs a project dear and an inexperienced project team will create such circumstances just as a result of their lack of experience.

Another reason why restoration projects go astray is the 'one-off' nature of them and the fact that they are, all to aften, conducted in workshops that are not fit for purpose. 'In-the-old-days' a railway workshop would strip a loco down, carry out the work and reassemble in weeks, but they had massive resources and experience for the task. In these days of 'one offs' and budgetary constraints it shouldn't surprise that projects go astray, but I have to say that the 'Royal Scot' team seem to have loused up far more than even the most pessimistic forecaster could have predicted.

Regards

 

The project manager who started the overhaul was pushed out and the volunteer force with him, so that the project could be farmed out to Southall. That was a decision made by the chairman of the trustees at the time, who also had business interests at Southall. All that is touched on early in this thead.

Could it be any clearer?

 

I was thinking exactly the same thing.

 

One of the greatest problems with overhauls such as this is that the work content has to be defined and that can be very difficult unless the loco has already been stripped and a full assessment made. And even that assessment should not be done by the eventual contractor and certainly not on his premises. The reality is that it is not a realistic approach. It is nothing unusual, in fact it is the norm, to find additional work as the project evolves. Once a contractor has the loco (or anything) in his works, it is virtually a licence to print money if he is so inclined. The cost of 'extras' is always more than it would be if subject to tender.