NRM and Tank locos

Mr Coullis would be better qualified to answer that, but as far as Im concerned a proper "preserved" loco would be kept in a condition and conditions where it will not deteriorate to illustrate a particular part of the history its portraying. surely a 2-8-0t or 0-6-2t to illustrate South Wales mining activity during the GWR period would be a major part of railway history to portray.

 

Well I think a 2-cyilnder 2-6-4T (ex. LMS or BR) and a really really big tank like a LSWR Urie freight or a GCR A5 class loco would been good.

One tank maybe should been preseved by the NRM would been maybe a Kerr Struat 'Victory' 0-6-0T tank?

 

what should have been claimed ? firstly the last built 800xx tank loco, this being the final varient of a type that has been a part of railways for many years all over the regions

pre grouping, an urie h16 tank and one of the large gw passinger tanks

 

Ignoring the distinction between true National Collection and other collections or preserved railways, and just looking at the total UK collection of preserved steam, what we have is a mixture of the deliberately preserved, the serendipitous and the available when needed:

Deliberately preserved In this category you have Gladstone, Caerphilly Castle, City of Truro, Mallard, Evening Star - inevitably there's a bias towards glamorous, named and ultimately significant engines. (For example, not a dirty black 9F, but a shiny green named one)

Serendipitous Things that survived more by luck than judgement, at least long enough until people could see them for the interesting relics they were. A lot of the seriously old (e.g. > 150ish years) survivors could be said to have survived serendipitously, locked away in forgotten sheds or removed from their wheels as stationary boilers. Arguably, the Southern habit of ekeing out timeworn victoriana because it was more cost effective in capital terms than building new branch line engines could be said to have lead to the somewhat serendipitous survival of Terriers, SECR O1, Adams Radial, Calbourne etc. If you had to characterise the serendipitous survivals, you'd say a motley collection of mostly old engines.

Available If you were the Bluebell or Great Western Society or one or two others around in the early 1960s, available means whatever BR would sell you - which means a Terrier, P tank, Dukedog and E4. For most other railways, it means what survived at Barry (a good range of GW and BR Standards, lots of Bulleids and smaller numbers of other SR locos, a good smattering of LMS stuff; almost nothing LNER), or else 1950s industrial tank engines that soldiered on into the 1970s.

So what does that give you as a total notional "national" engine shed? Well, firstly the LNER are poorly served (Barry was weak in LNER locos); amongst modern engines (say big 4 onwards), there's a preponderance of significant, named locos but relatively few general "vernacular" engines, at least nowhere near enough in proportional terms (trivia quiz: across all classes, how many pacifics are preserved? How many 0-6-0 tender engines?); but peversely, where victorian engines have survived, there's a bias towards the humble over the glamourous (lots of victorian tank engines; rather fewer express 2-4-0s and 4-4-0s).

So it's a rather lopsided collection; on the other hand, it's what we've got and it's significantly more complete than that in many countries, so we should be thankful for that! And there's always the possibility of new builds to fill in the gaps

Tom

 

A national collection?

make it about 95% Great Western, and chuck in a few others, thats about right.

And they say I'm biased........

Regards,
Ian.

Its sunny here......

 

Indeed - to take just one example, there are 19 preserved 0-6-0Ts from the Southern Railway - which sounds quite healthy until you realise they come from only 4 classes: 10 Terriers, 4 P tanks; 4 USA tanks and 1 LBSC E1.

Of any CME of any company, who has fared best in preservation - either by numbers or variety? 3 out of 4 Bulleid steam designs for the SR survive (albeit the MN only in rebuilt form) so he must be a contender, along with there being 30-odd individual locos. Riddles sees 8 out of 12 BR standard designs surviving (and 3 of the 4 remaining being subject of new builds or conversions). And I guess there is at least one survivor from most of the significant designs by CB Collett. Any other contenders?

Tom

 

shame that out of them, the V2 and A2 are out of service and scotsman is costing more than 1/2 the rest of preservation put together.

I agree with a previous post that a working Claude Hamilton would be a wonderful thing to have, it's on my list of things to do when I win the euromillions !

 

Tiny is part of the collection, but 4248 belongs to the Borough of Thamesdown or whoever operate STEAM

 

Oh yes, we'd love another Standard - but they are so sought after! 61624 has a point earlier about locos on preserved lines too.

 

Mr CouLLs isn't really qualified to comment, but there's not such a thing as a museum quality exhibit - we display a mines loco exactly as it came out of Ellington Colliery, oil, coal dust, rust and all. It depends on what stage of an object's life you want the exhibit to represent, and that can range from brand new, through in service to "as withdrawn". I personally think 4248 does a great job at representing a loco under overhaul, which is why STEAM collected it.

 

Oh yes, a Victory would have been lovely, and two survived until the very late 1960s!

 

An 80000 tank would be an ideal candidate for the collection, but they're all spoken for!

 

We had 80079 at Shildon 2005-7 prior to it going in the Engine House, the problem is space now, our obligation is to house our own collection and we don't have the space for long term visitors these days sadly. However, who knows what future developments may bring...?

 

I'm interested to know what the policy was on compiling the collection in the days when locos were available. Why was no large GWR tank included for instance? In fact why was no large freight tank included at all? It seems to me whoever compiled the list was biased towards the passenger locos and named ones at that.

 

Some interesting passenger locos here: -
GWR 28XX 2-8-0, GCR O4 2-8-0, NER Q7 0-8-0, LNWR Super D 0-8-0, LMS 4F 0-6-0, LMS Crab 2-6-0, SR Q1 0-6-0, GER J17 0-6-0, BR 9F 2-10-0.

 

If you can find it:

Skeat, W. O. (1966). "The Consultative Panel and the transport museums". Journal of the Stephenson Locomotive Society 42: 263-73.

 

thank you. Im not critizing the collection as it is today, its simply world class and a credit to all those involved.Hindsight is a wonderfull thing.

 

The things that really should be in the National collection are:-

A Great Western No1 boiler. The boiler that set the yardstick & formula for all the other 20th century large passenger classes (Black 5, 8f, for example). There would ideally be a display, to show the historical context of the exhibit.

Zeiss optical equipment. This would show how very close engineering tolerances were achieved, and how this affected the quality of the finished locomotive.

Perhaps there might be a large sequential display, which shows a locomotive in its construction phases. I don't expect to see the exhibits strewn all over the place, with bits taken off. More a collection of large, (not A2 size) photographs taken in works, blown up to give a sense of size & scale.

That wonderful creature, hindsight, shows that there is a large bias towards things 'Northern' at the NRM. That's history for you! If I want to study things Great Western or Southern, then I know to go to places like Didcot, SVR, Bluebell, or Mid hants, etc.

Regards,
Ian.

Its sunny here.......