Bulleid Pacifics - Past or Present

fully working air smoothed merchant stored in itchenstoke tunnel?

what's the identity of this engine does anyone know




35031 "The sunken line"?
is this a new build engine, because there were only 30 members of the class built

 

It's a joke.... :shocked:

 

oh didn't know
many thanks
yrm

 

I think you're splitting hairs. There are 6 locomotives in working order on the property and one away on loan due back in a week or two. Whether we choose to use them or not is doesn't make an engine non-workable....just not working.

As to Thomas it is a very profitable little engine. I don't recall anyone complaining that Baxter didnt really count towards the total number of Bluebell locos (for example) even though it can only really be used for shunting.

With a bit of luck we will outshop another locomotive (or two, or possibly even three) over the next 18 months, but I don't suppose those will "count" either if we loan them out or choose not use them all the time. You just can't please some people.

 

My interest is in the locos available to run the scheduled services, as these are the locos which allow the MHR to provide the Steam service it advertises. The rest are nice for bragging rights, but not much good day to day on the line.

 

My definition of "working" = current boiler certificate & not stopped for repairs expected to take more than the period to next scheduled use.

Number of working locomotives at Ropley = 6
Number out on loan = 1

Your post that there was already enough "dead stuff" in the yard at Ropley was one view of the situation, and I was offering a balancing view. No bragging was involved. We are fortunate at the moment, that might not always be the case, it hasn't been in the past. 10 years ago we struggled to have any steam engines.

Thomas is quite capable of working the services to which it is rostered - not every loco we have has to be able to pull 5 mk1s the length of the line.

 

Sorry for interrupting this tête à tête, but would it be at all possible for us to sort of get back to talking about Bulleids, please? There is a time and place for arguing the toss over X-railway's ability to cope with its services and the number of out-of-ticket locomotives it has (ie. that railway's own thread), and this thread has/is neither...

 

Good idea. Hasn't there been a plan to un-rebuild a MN before and nothing came about it? What makes the current plan with 35011 different and workable?

 

The world has quite enough unrebuilt Bulleid pacifics without making any more. They are horrible to work on, particularly the valve gear. Mr Bulleid was undoubtably clever but not very practical.

 

Nonsense! If they are so horrible how come so many have been put back into traffic?

 

Lack of imagination?

:behindsofa:

Could it be that unlike the rest big 4 there just wasn't much variety in the types of Southern locos that survived to be preserved? If you want a Southern loco, you're pretty much forced to have a Bulleid. I haven't made a count, but at a guess 1/4 to 1/3 of the southern types that still exist are Mr Bulleid's finest.

 

I think there are quite a few engineers who would love to be let loose on a MN to come up with a modernised design that would still look like an original but be simpler and more efficient to operate

 

3 sets of walschaerts valve gear inside the frames and the air-smoothed casing put back on?!

 

Because people like you want them to run again .

I have read a bit on Bulleid recently and the opinion of more than 1 historian is that the original engines were good but in overall terms an expensive failure. Having been involved with an original for a long time, how do you respond to the assertion that they were unreliable, consumed a lot of fitters time and had fundamental weaknesses in the chassis?

 

Maybe three sets of mini-Stephenson's run off eccentrics on a cross shaft driven by a cardon shaft from a gearbox on an axle (or two sets and a Holcroft/Gresley 2:1 )

 

As with all things their strengths and weaknesses will be overstated by their avid supporters and their implacable detractors. We've never had any problems with the valve gear on 34081 nor the reverser - beyond people not getting the hang of it - in fact mechanically 34081 was pretty sound throughout her ticket. Got a bit leaky towards the end and the steam brake became a bit temperamental though. The major cause of downtime during her first period of operations was the firebox and that can be due as much to the nature of heritage railways operation as anything else. In preservation a fairer assessment of their prowess would probably be obtained by asking the owners and operators of 34067 and 34092.
As for believing what was written, a lot depends on where the author is coming from. I have read pieces where the originals were viewed as the best things since sliced bread and others where only the rebuilds are worthy of consideration. They had their problems but show me a class that didn't and some of these problems were being solved when the decision to undertake rebuilding was taken. I do wonder what would have happened if Brighton and Eastleigh had been allowed to get on with it without the intervention of Jarvis.

 

Thanks for your reply Ian, very interesting. Do you think that in the preservation era, where locomotives spend less time running and have more time available for routine maintenance when compared to usage as a SR/BR engine, has helped to iron out the faults that BR identified with the originals?

 

It certainly helps with any loco if you can have a dedicated team look after it in between running days. You can keep on top of general cleanliness as well as keeping an eye on the mechanics in the hope of identifying and dealing with any mechanical problems before they become major ones. I will say that the oil bath idea is a dream. Keep the oil level topped up and the motion pretty much looks after itself, certainly at the level of operations you get on a heritage line. Whilst not a popular job, I can't recall us having to drain the bath and send some poor soul inside to attend to matters on more than a couple of occasions and IIRC that was to check rather than to rectify.

 

Of course it is.

The identity is really 35032 'Grey Funnel Line.' A largely unsung part of the Merchant Marine.

 

Not much variety in southern locomotives...?

Southern era survivors:

11 Bulleid Merchant Navy
20 Bulleid Light Pacific (10 rebuilt/10 unmodified)
1 Bulleid Q1
4 & a bit S15
4 U (1 slightly different being a rebuilt)
3 V (Schools)
1 N15 (King Arthur)
1 Lord Nelson
1 Q
1 N

Then add to that your pre grouping:

10 LBSCR Terriers
1 LBSCR E1
1 LBSCR E4
1 LBSCR B1
2 LSWR S15's
2 LSWR Beattie Well tanks
2 LSWR B4 tanks
2 LSWR M7's
1 LSWR T9
1 LSWR T3
1 LSWR 0415 Radial
1 LSWR O2
4 SECR P's
1 SECR D
1 SECR C
1 SECR O1
1 SECR H

With an LBSCR Atlantic to add in the future.

Providing i've got them all that's at least 26 different locomotive classes and at least 80 locomotives. 32 of those are Bulleid designs. I'd say there is plenty of variety there.