Bluebell Motive Power

You're setting off another hobby horse of mine i.e. the need for common ownership of railways and the equipment used to operate them. I have called the present situation "Byzantine" before.

PH

 

I had understood the problem with No.29 and 80135 (and 80002, although I think a second ticket was obtained after a lot of surgery) is that they were designed for copper inner boxes, and didn't have the outer wrapper renewed, so the steel box would have been stayed as if copper. Given the different properties of steel and copper, the use of stay spacing (and type?) designed for copper on steel seems bound to have lead to problems. At the same time, the extra costs of replacing the outer wrapper, and designing and gaining approval for the new design of stay arrangements would tend to offset the extra cost of a copper inner box - or a decision is taken that a new inner box in 10 years time is what has to be done - despite all the stay fitting involved!

Steven

 

Most of the time in pres to be fair it's a case of using what is available rather than what is desirable, the Bluebell has a small and medium fleet that someone like say the Battlefield Line could only dream of.

I presume 82045 is your new build of choice then Paul ?.

 

I am totally with you there Paul - a Railway needs control of sufficient locomotives to enable it if necessary to run its service, even if ordinarily this is supplemented with hired locomotives to give the necessary fleet size for service resilience.

It may surprise you to learn that I am criticised for that view, which is held by some to be unrealistic and unachievable. The pull of lots of different locomotives being available to have rides behind can, it seems, be very strong, whilst engineers will understandably want to see the pressure on their kit eased by the use of somebody else's !

Steven

 

It's a very difficult balance to achieve. You can say to private owners 'We reckon we're okay this year, so you might be better off hiring your engine out elsewhere for the season' and run the risk of your 'controlled' fleet suffering unexpected reliability issues, or you can guarantee them a mileage and end up with more engines than you need. Lose money on cancellations and diesel substitutions, or waste money on unnecessary hired engines. It's not a judgment call I'd want to have to make.

 

Which, to be fair, is broadly where we are - 2/3 of all the locomotives on the railway are owned by the plc or the Trust. Three locos have moved from independent to Bluebell ownership over the last decade or so. That said, it is a historical artefact of how the collection came together over the years that the Bluebell's own collection is predominantly, though not exclusively, the smaller engines, whilst those owned independently are predominantly, though not exclusively, larger. Clearly though it is beneficial that there are locomotive groups such as the MLS, Bulleid Society, Camelot Society etc which are closely alligned with the railway.

I might also (mischievously) add that in addition to most of the locomotives and carriages, the railway also owns the freehold of all its land

Tom

 

The staying for a steel box versus a copper box should be different but this, in itself, is not going to be significant. Steel boxes are inevitably throw-away items because they are attacked by fire on one side and water on the other. although good water management will go some way to minimising the latter. However, unlike an industrial boiler with condensate return and relatively pure water, a locomotive's water is a 'once through' process and you can never reach the quality control that it really needs. I understand that the average life of a Bulleid firebox was about 11 years and Phillipson quotes a similar figure for steel fireboxes in the U.S. However, these figures are based on a much greater annual mileage than is found on a heritage railway. The big problem that we seem to have today is that the quality of steel is vastly different from that which was used to build boilers in days gone by and the new it is not nearly as suitable as the old. Ask anyone who has renewed the bottom part of a firebox how fast the new steel has corroded in comparison with the older material.
I'm a fan of steel fireboxes but you have to realise that they are different from copper in more than just material. As an example, Phillipson reckons that an old steel firebox can be removed completely in 8-10 hours and, by using welded seams, a new one put in without having to removed the backplate in the case of narrow fireboxes. Steel boxes enable welding of stays and welding of tubes, eliminating the possibility of leakage (Bean Counter, please note re 75029!) and riveting can be largely eliminated. Most of the world outside the influence of the UK used steel for fireboxes.

 

Yes, along with the proposed Fowler 2-6-4T (See what the broadly similar WT achieves in Ireland)
Paul H

 

Steven,
I am fully in favour of the railway owning all its locomotives. Where our views disagree is in the fact that, given a mix of owned and hired locos, I'd use the hired locos in preference to the owned ones. In this way, you are in full control. You have a known outgoing on hire charges and no big bills to pay for the majority of your operation and your owned locos are available to cover if the hire locos falls down. Hire locos are notoriously not available when the unplanned need comes. Your argument that you are paying twice (to overhaul your own loco and then pay hire fees) does not hold water in my view. Overhaul costs are still largely a function of use. And the time to overhaul them, which is a significant factor in the equation.

 

Interestingly, so I believe some of the Terriers when first built had iron fireboxes and Stroudley also experimented with steel on some of them before definitively settling on copper.

Tom

 

But if you have one of the rarer narrow gauges or are standard gauge with a different braking system you have to cope. Such lines do.

I suspect the dreaded "wouldn't it be nice" is creeping in with this wish to hire in.

PH

 

No, the wish to hire in is to cover a need. No need to hire, if it wasn't. Experience indicates that the NYMR needs 9-10 locos to cover its services with a margin. It doesn't own nine locos. The theory of five in service, one on washout, one on repair and one on standby doesn't always work. The law of sod means that locos never fail in ones and Joe Public generally doesn't like diesel substitutes.

 

From the Bluebell e-Newsletter:

LOCO UPDATE: A SUCCESSFUL SUMMER SEASON

The summer passed in the loco department as quickly as it came, and we now find ourselves preparing for winter. Our daily service is now over and from an operational point of view, summer passed with a reliable locomotive fleet.

With winter just around the corner and the recent photo charters now completed, the Works will focus on preparing the operational locos for Santa Specials, completing the list of maintenance jobs and looking at the early 2016 motive power requirements. With just the occasional maintenance work on our C class No. 592 boiler over the summer, all the other locos performed faultlessly which is a credit to Andy Sabin and his team of paid and volunteer staff.

The biggest news though is the welcome return to traffic of BR Standard class 5 No. 73082 "Camelot" after a 10-year absence. The loco was substantially complete by the end of September in readiness for the painters who arrived on 5 Oct., 2015 to complete the top coat, lining, and varnish that week. The end result is superb, and the loco looks amazing. Our thanks go to Ian Hewitt and his team at Heritage Painting for an excellent job and to the volunteer painters within the Works too.

With our focus on returning the loco to traffic for "Giants of Steam", it was all hands to the pump to complete the final fitting and the inevitable snagging list. Test trains were undertaken starting 19 Oct., which threw up the odd issue, but otherwise they were very successful. So in the final week before Giants these last little jobs were completed, and on 31 Oct. the loco was officially released into traffic.

While on the subject of "Giants", our planned visit by BR Standard class 7 No. 70000 "Britannia" was cancelled at the last minute due to an issue developing while the loco was out on a mainline run a week before our event. So after many phone calls and emails, I was pleased to be able to announce the visit of A4 No. 4464 "Bittern" as a replacement. This would be the first visit of an A4 to the Railway and a suitable "giant" for our event. Thanks must go to Locomotive Services Ltd and the Mid-Hants Railway for the role they played in ensuring the A4 could visit--both parties making significant efforts to ensure the A4 and, of course, Schools class No. 925 "Cheltenham" were ready to make the journey to Sussex.

Overall "Giants" was a huge success with the visitor numbers and turnover above what the Railway expected. Thanks must go to all the staff and volunteers who put hours of work into the planning and preparation and who attended on both days to ensure the service ran to the highest standard.

Elsewhere in the Works, the new platework for Schools class No. 928 "Stowe" is now being installed, and the first section of the new outer firebox is prepped and ready for welding in place. BR Standard class 4 Tank No. 80151 has entered the Works, and within a week the loco was stripped, the boiler lifted out, motion removed, and the loco will shortly be lifted from its wheels. Some maintenance work is being carried out to E4 No. 473 (stay replacement work, new slide valves, and new piston rings) and the S15 will enter the Works shortly for a piston and valve exam.

Off-site, the boiler work on "Sir Archibald Sinclair" continues at LNWR Crewe, with the new outer firebox sections now in place and the new inner firebox platework on site. When the loco returns to traffic next year, this also will be a welcome addition to the fleet.

By Chris Hunford, Locomotive Director

 

Certainly 78019 and now 46521 on the GCR have been the real workhorses of the last few years, whatever other glamour machines have been available. It's no surprise to me that 78019 seems to be being overhauled rather promptly, and of course 78018 is coming along nicely too. I think it's a shame (and a mistake) that the Bluebell are turning theirs into a tank engine - I understand the desire to recreate something which doesn't exist and the lack of a tender (although that is hardly insurmountable these days) but I'd have thought the greater coal and water capacity would be appreciated over the longer line.

 

I doubt coal or water capacity will be a limiting factor. If Wikipedia is to be believed, a BR 2MT has a larger coal and water capacity than the H class, which already operates along the whole line without problem. It is customary these days that on loco diagrams involving three or more round trips of the line, the smaller engines will normally come in for coal at some point, normally either between the first and second round trip, or between the second and third. There is water available on the run-round at EG if required.

You might just possibly get 3 round trips out of one bunker in a 2MT, but there is not a lot of operational point - you would have to fill up with coal at the end of the day anyway to allow some for lighting up the next day, so since there is time on the timetable between trips to come in during the day, doing so before the third trip saves you disposal time in the evening.

Tom

 

Is 78019 having a 'quick' overhaul then? I'm sure I remember reading somewhere about some parts being potentially being used to get 78018 in traffic sooner?
Chris

 

Tom, do you think you will benefit as well from having the weight of water over the driving wheels when going up the bank?

 

The latest GCR newsletter said the boiler is off and will be sent away for overhaul. I'm guessing that bypasses the current queue of boilers outside the shed at Loughborough, but only guessing. If any bits do find their way onto 78018 I imagine it will be small stuff like gauges and so on, though I don't know what '18 actually lacks so again, guessing. The boiler cladding off '19 was going to be used as a pattern for cladding '18 but apparently every sheet is slightly different!

I'm not involved in either loco so only going on what I've read.

Sorry to take the thread off topic slightly.

 

According to Wikipedia at least, there isn't much difference in adhesion weight - 41 tons on the 2-6-2T vs 40 tons on the 2-6-0 class 2 standards, and presumably that adhesion weight for the tank engines will vary according to how full the tanks are. I remember having a very slippery ride through the tunnel - with five coaches - on the 78xxx that visited a few years ago. Possibly more significant is the 20 ton weight reduction of the tank engine, equivalent to about half a coach.

Tom

 

Loco roster for December http://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/loco_roster.html
73082 and 263 will be operating services between Christmas and New Year.