5972

Someone just reported on one of the Yahoo groups that Olton Hall has been sold to Warner brothers and is going to America
Fact or Fiction?

Neil

 

Sold to fund more Bulleids perhaps? Sure a goodly sum will have been extracted.

 

Well, on RMweb I've been having a discussion with someone who stated this, and here is that I've found on the RTC website:

My apologies for the colour, can't seem to remove it. Link here.

 

Or Warner Brothers near Hemel Hempstead..

http://www.wbstudiotour.co.uk

got to be cheaper than making a replica in the US and bringing it over here… and why buy an unrestored lookalike over here when you can have the real thing.

Not a bad deal really, cash in £££ now, in 15 years time when Harry Potters faded into history with the Smurfs, buy it back for ££ less and return it to steam again.
Right now it's a wasted asset with WCRC.. it's hardly ever used, has to be close to the end of it's ticket and cannot really be marketed without oodles of fees to WB… as a Hall in BR Green it's not going far.. 4936 and 4953 have hardly found their place on the mainline.

 

Below is part of a news article I've stumbled across....... It could be off to the states !

The new Harry Potter area opening at Universal Orlando Resort this summer, called Diagon Alley, will offer fans a new thrill ride themed on Gringotts bank from the Harry Potter book series, along with more than a half-dozen eateries and shops selling souvenirs like wands.
But the location of Diagon Alley will also require tickets for both of Universal Orlando's theme parks if guests want to see both the new and original Harry Potter attractions. Diagon Alley will open at the Universal Studios park. The original Wizarding World of Harry Potter area, which opened in 2010, is located at Universal's Islands of Adventure park.
The two areas will be connected by a train called Hogwarts Express, but if fans want to see both, a two-park ticket will be required. Currently, single-day admission for both parks is $136.32, including tax, for anyone ages 10 and older.

Surely they cannot be thinking of using 5972 ????

 

No, they are using these:

http://blogs.orlandoweekly.com/the-...-express-train-on-track-at-universal-orlando/

 

Oh, link to article below

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/23/wizarding-world-of-harry-potter_n_4652624.html

 

Ok, thanks.

I'm going to Florida at the end of the year, I cannot wait to ride behind this.....Pulled by a wire probably !!

 

Halls are extremely useful on preserved lines though - are we seriously saying it would cost more to make a fibre glass mockup for a theme park than to purchase the actual engine?

Find it difficult to stomach that the locomotive - brought back from Barry Scrapyard and restored - could be sold to Warner Brothers. What an absolute betrayal of everything railway preservation was supposed to be about. That's not conservation but commercialism gone mad. Whatever may be said for the cost of 4472, the NRM were right to buy her and save her for the nation. Now 5972 has been sold without seeing if any other loco owner or railway would purchase it for preservation - and a working future - in this country?

Mr Smith's locomotive to do with as he pleases but I find the concept shocking.

 

I doubt it will ever run in the USA.. it would need too many changes.. Cowcatcher, Bell, Headlight and still be subject to a rule regarding foreign construction, US Boiler regs etc etc. (4472 wasn't allowed to pull passengers), insurance would be insane. It wouldn't at that point make sense.

With 2 WB theme parks in the US both with a Fibre Glass Hall already bringing in the $$$$ apart from "wanting to own" it.. why would they want it at all.. (Hollywood doesn't "do" film prop museums in that sense).

However here in the UK it would make oodles of sense, and be more touristically fitting.. i.e. 'visit the real hogwarts castle in England, close to London, you can buy a copper cap in the gift shop ($49.32) and eat a wizard burger with coal fries and an oil-ade drink underneath the nameplate ($59,72), pull the regulator and watch the engine lift into the air ($81.51) pull the whistle and see rabbit pop out of the chimney ($61.15), Your name on a lump of coal ($56.99), hook a duck floating in the tender ($56.90), don't forget to pick up your "i'm driving a steam train" photo graph from the cab ($40.67) before you go. Buy 3 for the price of one next year it's $350.18 entrance fee.

 

But if the proceeds fund one or more other locos that get used by wcr far more ...........?

 

I'm not so sure, if it was operated conventionally by WCRC like 45699, 46115 etc, using your examples, 4953 has changed hands and gone to a non mainline connected railway so isn't available anymore, as for 4936, while Tyseley is a good engineering base, there's no real incentive for Vintage Trains to use it when they have their own Hall that doesn't incur hire fee's, could always upset the natives and use Kinlet on the Scarborough's

 

I have heard from several sources that it is the Warner's studio tour near Watford as opposed to America where she's headed. Apparently they have the space for her on the studio tour ready and waiting.

 

Whatever the reason for selling, it's a shame it is only having one 'farewell' trip !!!!!

 

Pity an unrestored Hall couldn't have been cosmetically treated to fill the museum space. 5972 might have had to change identity but at least a working loco would still have been "at liberty". Surprised if wcr haven't proposed this really as a win-win for all concerned.

 

If that's the case then at least she'll still be in the UK and "never say never" as far seeing her escape "captivity" in the future.

 

Even in the USA, locos have come back to these shores - think 30053, 926, 4472, Pendennis Castle (from Australia) etc, as well as numerous carriages - the Swanage Devon Belle Car; the Churchill Funeral van; several GWR coaches now on the WSR etc.

I'm not massively au fait with theme parks, but my guess is they don't last for ever without change. No more Harry Potter films are being made or books written, and in a decade or so there will be some new blockbuster series that will replace it and the space will be needed to create a new attraction. We may find that in ten or twenty years time, Warner Bros want to revamp the site for the next big thing and there is a GWR Hall coming back onto the market at a discount...

Tom

 

Yep, as long as she goes somewhere where she's stored properly under cover I don't really see a problem. If its outside and rusting that's another issue.