steam for sale

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Posts amended


Keith

 

So how much would 34073 cost me? And how much to get her back into fitting fight fit condition?

 

500k at least.

 

If you need to ask you can't afford it.

The answer to part two of your question will not be known until the work is finished unless you are able to develop an all embracing fantastically comprehensive set of contract documents for the repair work involved before any of it starts. This in itself would be a pretty major exercise.
Having done that you will probably scare the living daylights out of any prospective contractor though!

Most projects operate on financing & completing managable chunks of the work at any one time rather than trying to address & get phased by the whole thing.

You wont buy & complete a loco like this for the above quoted £500k figure unless there is very major unpaid volunteer input and you already have a fully fitted out workshop do do the work in. The figure needs to be at least doubled otherwise.

 

Which brings the thread back to a conversation between some SVR people recently which was comparing the cost of a really heavy general against new build.

 

Yes, this might come to be true especially if the owner of a scrap condition engine finds that it is the last one not to be restored and so asks for a price which makes a new build cheaper. I have wondered if this is the reason the 'BB' engine at Bury remains unrestored and I can't help but wonder too if the Binbrook 'Crab' would be too expensive to restore at any price.

Regards

 

Most things are for sale if the price is right and/or intentions are sypathetic with the previous owners.
What would it cost me to buy the Caprotti five, fit it out for the mainline and have a new BR1F tender made for it ? Dont know and dont care as i know i couldn't afford it.

 

I can see boilers being replaced with new, simply because the labour costs involved in overhauling one are the most significant part of the job Drilling out/removing stays and rivets is a time consuming operation that doesn't have to be done with a new build. Apart from the boiler, i can't see new build being cheaper than overhauling because the manufacture of new parts will generally be more expensive than refurbishing existing ones. Look at the cost of new wheels, as an example. Even re-tyring a wheelset is a miniscule cost compared with manufacturing anew.

 

Which is exactly why total new build will not be a universal answer to the future provision of steam power for heritage lines in the foreseeable future - the capital costs & sheer volume of work required are simply too great when you consider the current (and increasing) difficulties in continuing to fund and volunteer resource relatively modest overhauls on locos where the majority of components are far from life expired.

 

A point that those advocating new builds haven't grasped yet.

 

However, if you are building a relatively modern new build steam locomotive, such as the 82xxx, then the capital costs and volume of work are doubtless less than, say a complex 4 cylinder pacific for example. The alternative of course is to let things run on until operating steam locomotives becomes too expensive and/or people lose interest. I am hoping that neither happens but, as one cannot rely on hope alone, other alternatives, as evinced by the 82xxx project and also perhaps like the relatively (!) simple projected Victorian 4-4-0s may become the main focus of our interest. It will be interesting to see what happens when all the people who support UK heritage railways and who remember them in pre-preservation days have passed on. Will steam become extinct too? (I recommend some alcohol prior to reflection upon these somewhat deeper thoughts closely followed by donating to your favourite steam locomotive project!)

 

Having come in from the firework display, studied the engraved drawing of a scottish game bird in my collection and depleted its contents as prescribed by kinghambranch, my thoughts are that the great age of sail is long gone, the last china tea clipper has been laid up in dry dock in all living memory, but rich people still pay for yachts to be made to order, at prices which make our activities look cheap. Alternatively, go look at the price of an aerobatic worthy spitfire. If we make our hobby attractive and stylish, these inflows of capital are possible.

Regards,

Tim

 

Indeed! A work colleague of mine is the proud owner of a Jaguar XK140 which he maintains and fusses over. He brings the usual Jaguar enthusiasts' magazine into our tea bar and swops it for my heritage railway magazine and we both agree that quality transport never goes out of fashion! I am always stunned, when reading the Jag Mag, that there are so many E-type models around and also how sought after they are and just how expensive they are - over £100K for a good one and £30K for a dog. Steam for Sale? I guess if we make it desirable enough it will always find a buyer! Now, that Hughes Crab... only 3 in existence... must be worth doing!

 

We shouldn't confuse really any of the current new build/cut and shut jobs with aiming to provide a long term supply of steam locomotives. With the possible exception of 82045, all are aiming to plug "gaps" in the line-up of locomotives preserved, althouigh in many cases, it will take an informed enthusiast to spot the difference between the Class the new build is bringing back and a similar preserved loco!

I suspect many don't realise just how much has already been achieved by way of rebuilds both of BArry wrecks and locos that have been running for many years. Yes, original boilers are becoming life expired but very major surgery has/is already been/being undertaken. When people quote the costs of overhauls, they tend to assume that all future overhauls will cost the same as the present round but already this is proving not to be the case. Careful handling and refinement of what is done and by whom is all necessary, but I know the view of a former BR Regional CM & E Electrical Engineer is that a proper rebuild now will "reset" boiler life and give another 40 to 45 years before such work is necessary again. The additional paperwork needed for a "new" as opposed to "repaired" boiler is what is probably meaning that we have only seen one new "boiler" to date but other boilers have had pretty major renewals, including at least 1 full ring of the barrel and significant proportions of both inner and outer fireboxes.

If new build were looking to provide new machines for heritage use, then a batch of the same design - porbably one of the Standard Tank designs, perhaps updated with roller bearings and other features, would be the answer. It would be interesting to see such a costing for say a batch of 6 locos plus but I suspect proper repairs of what we have would still come out as cheaper.

Steven

 

E.S. Cox in his book Standard Steam Locomotives stated that fitting roller bearings rather than conventional bearings did not prove beneficial to the running qualities of the Standard loco classes so fitted. Great expense for little, if any, benefit.

 

Doesn't it depend on what is meant by 'running qualities'? The rolling resistance of a plain bearing is identical to a roller bearing, but, the life-time costs of a roller bearing vs a plain bearing is very much less. It wasn't for nothing that BR substituted rollers for plain bearings in all rolling stock post steam whether they were locos, carriages or wagon or, for that matter, that my Honda has rollers everywhere not a plain bearing to be seen.

My post earlier today was intended to highlight how the steam loco could be improved without altering its appearance. The roller bearing does have cheaper life-time costs, is more resilient to wear and also, and this is very important, doesn't involve the teaching of new entrants into the industry obsolete skills that they wouldn't be able to use elsewhere. I know the steam engine is stuffed full of obsolete technologies but I feel that the industry should try to limit their impact and get as great an improvement in productivity and possible. It won't always be possible to rely on unpaid volunteers.

Regards

 

This is exactly the point Steven. An existing steam locomotive can be rebuilt by a preserved railway company. In the current edition of the Railway Magazine it is reported that 4561 on the West Somerset Railway could receive a new set of frames. If the 'new-build' lot were to advise, would they suggest that a new GWR 2-6-2T should be built instead?! I believe that there is nothing on an existing engine that cannot be replaced now and that will always make it cheaper that building a new engine.