Flying Scotsman

Well i have read it,
and what i say is, thank god it is in the hands of a body that is uncompromising in its version of "Correct" all those times in the past it was put together and core issues were accounted for with an "it'll work attitude" i for one am happy that they (The NRM) for all the whipping they have had have at least not tried to put it back together for commercial reasons but have stuck to their guns of what is correct, I still say that anyone else would have been under great pressure to put it back together and left some of the faults un addresed. In the end it will be done and it will be right, and just like Galatea, when it is done we will see it and enjoy it, and i for one will be proud that it is what it is, i will stand lineside with my grandchildren just as i did with my son all exited and loving every minute as it roars by.

The Melter

 

Interesting to know who was retracted from the interview list and why?

And to sound like a broken record but where has the £2.7m gone, its not disappeared into thin air?

 

Presumably apart from a misaligned cylinder , nearly every thing else has been fettled, fixed and in some cases replaced. As the report hints at the fairly comprehensive repairs to the rolling chassis had undone the wear that had occured as a result of the misalignment, only on reconnecting the motion and finding that it no longer married up would the degree of the problem reveal itself, Perhaps rolling the trued up frames connected to a misaligned cylinder actually produced the stresses that caused a few more of the older parts to 'give out' ...who knows.
There is an unmistakeable A1SLT tone to some of the Running/ maintenence guidelines... Lessons learned and passed on even from the most contemporary practice.
So 4472 is going back into the tunnel but this one seems to have been measured out and have daylight at the end
and.... if she no longer has to pretend to be an 8P LETS HAVE A NICE INEFFICIENT SINGLE CHIMNEY BACK that chuffs loudly and doesnt require the deflectors...

 

I find it amazing that the expenditure can be justified at all. The results are that it will be able to do the occasional mainline trip with a few coaches and never be seen by the majority of people. What's the point in that? The truth is the engine has been so badly treated it has been completely replaced breaking most of the NRM's own rules. You might as well call it a new build. But one that can't be used unless it falls apart.

I also find it abhorrent that certain railway experts insist low loaders are bad practice just because they don't actually need them and it restricts engines to run at their railways and not the majority of others. If you rule out all railways with no links, railways with curves, railways with gradients and railways that are so short it means constantly stopping and starting, you rule out all heritage lines I can think of. It also means it won't be running up and down the yard at York or other similar venues.

So we are expected to support the spending of millions of tax payers money on an engine that apart from the fleeting glimpse of it pulling a handful of coaches at speeds and in conditions that are far from inspiring. Sorry I would rather they spend a small percentage of that putting an engine in steam such as 2500 that can go anywhere, run on lines most other mainline engines cannot fit and work on heritage lines that have stations every couple of miles and lots of access from the public.

 

I think the Melter's post is excellent - and Mr. Mikado's call for a single chimney even better. But let's not go too far down that road...

 

While this post may be seen in some people eyes as provocative, I share your concern about severely limiting what Heritage lines it can visit, almost as if the word National in the title NRM has been forgotten, people all over the country have been contributing to this (whether they want to or not) as taxpayers as well as the NRM heavily pushing for donations and help from all over the country, to then be told that 4472 will never be visiting your part of the country then seems very morally wrong to me, if the no low loader rule is strictly adhered to, then effectively Flying Scotsman is banned from Wales as one area for example, certainly Llangollen & Gwili have no mainline connections are are unlikely to for some years.

I wonder how many people would have contributed to 4472 if they knew the intention was for it to run York - Scarborough with load 10 80% of the time ?, I only hope seeing as the plan RE: 4472 has changed so many times in recent years, that many of these recommendations are thrown in the bin by the NRM, making sure there is no excessive usage and not loading the loco to it's limit is sensible enough, but severely restricting where it can go seems to fly in the face of what the NRM should be looking to achieve, you can't expect a family living in Swansea or Plymouth for example to venture all the way to York to ride behind it.

 

Let's remember though that these are recommendations, not rigid rules to be obeyed 100% of the time.

To the pragmatic and discerning loco owner/engineer, these recommendations probably make a lot of sense; I detect a whiff of Tyseley about them - reasonable loads, avoidance of road transport, very limited heritage railway visiting. And no-one can question the quality and reliability of Tyseley's locos and their work.

That being said, these "in an ideal world" recommendations do need to be balanced against pragmatism and the duties of the NRM. But I am confident that they will be.

 

That seems hardly a fair assessment of what was actually said in the report, which are at its heart, recommendations and not rules.

It's been badly treated, yes, in terms of overhauls - but not by the NRM. They have handled the overhaul badly in many respects, but at least they have been upfront and honest enough to present all the information on the table once digested. The locomotive itself has been overhauled to a certain stage, and is probably in the best condition it's been in for many years.

What working steam locomotive isn't effectively renewed at major overhauls? It's a straw man argument. It doesn't work. None of the major working locomotives doesn't have some form of rolling program of replacement parts going on, year on year. It's a fallacy to suggest it's a new build as the entity has always been known as Flying Scotsman. Identity is not defined by originality...

There is no choice in the matter: the money which people have donated to get 4472 running again must be used to get 4472 running again. End of debate frankly.

 

Not at all. As Anthony has said time and again, there are no hard and fast rules on how the NRM treats its collection - every vehicle/artefact is assessed on a case-by-case basis - in this case, 4472 has undergone so much replacement since 1963 that to conserve it on the grounds of retaining originality would be very dodgy - so they aren't.

To impose a "replace nothing" rule would be as ludicrous and unenforceable as a "steam everything" rule.

 

So when running with the 250psi boiler and 3 x 20" bore cylinders, the nominal tractive effort would have been 41,400lb, handsomely exceeding that of a Duchess or King! When running in this specification it seems inappropriate to refer to it as an A3 - perhaps a new LNER class designation is called for - A9 anyone?

 

That was a 4-6-2T class. Given the LNER's love of sub classes and if you must have a new designation, A3/2 would seem to foot the bill.

 

And yet the frames were designed to cope with the stresses for an engine that originally had a TE of only 29,835lbs.And even then, the frames were recognised as one of the weak features of the design, with frame replacements being common. As our American cousins would say - Go figure!

Still, I'm sure the various mags were only too happy to report on the magic feats of the "super A3" in the early 'noughties, performing miracles that only added to its lustre. Just a shame that they didn't ask a few pertinent questions at the time as to whether, just possibly, a loco running in that form might be knocking six bells out of itself even as it stormed over various hills pulling enormous loads...

Tom

 

Tom - 1990s? The Marchington funded (either £2.25 million overhaul if you believe "A Day in the life of Flying Scotsman", or £1 million if you believe the railway mags and Roland Kennington) Southall overhaul (at which the A4 boiler and cylinder modifications were made) was completed in 1999, the locomotive ran for just under four years before 4472 was sold to the NRM in 2004, and was unable to even steam into York in celebration as a result of certain deficiencies.

Locomotive taken apart for major overhaul in 2005 after a summer of failed Scarborough Spa Express runs, nearly a decade later and here we are.

I am in complete agreement with you, RE why were these questions not asked at the time these modifications were being made.

 

Sorry, early noughties. Will edit my original post...

Tom

 

No problem Tom. It does seem hard to believe, doesn't it? That such an expensive overhaul (whether it was £2.25 million or £1 million, and what was a record overhaul cost at the time) could result in a locomotive which it is clear from the report was rife with mechanical problems and fatigue, after what can only have been four years total running under Marchington.

 

That probably hasn't done the frames and many other components much good if no one forsaw 4472 being "tuned" to that extent, it's all very well trying to get the maximum performance from something, but were all the components built with that extra performance in mind ?, they might not show stress for some time, but you could find a component totally knackered after 10 years rather than 30 or 40.

Hopefully the recommendation as restricting heritage line visits and their criteria will be relaxed in that case, your right in that there's something of a Tyseley philosophy in there, but there is a difference in that the Tyseley fleet is privately owned and it's entirely Mr Meanley's decisions where and how often they run, the National Collection is owned by the Nation for the Nation so have an obligation to the public to do certain things, including letting as many as the people as possible see the operational and popular assets.

What's best from an engineers point of view can sometimes be the opposite of a Museums moral obligations, hopefully the NRM can strike a balance that reasonably acceptable to all parties.

 

Are you sure about the A9 4-6-2T? I thought the pacific tank classes only went up to A8. No mention of an A9 on lner.info.

 

Yes the A series went up to A8 BUT the adoption of A10 for the unrebuilt A1 Pacifics [before rebuilding to A3] seems nicely positioned to include A9 for the hybrid Flying Scotsman as modified by who knows who who knows when.

 

You are of course correct and I can't count.

 

Something does not add up here, Marchington claimed it cost 2.5 million Southall say no 1 million was spent on the overhaul, who pocketed the other 1.5 million , come on, own up, have the toilets in the enginmans lobby at Southall got gold plated taps and an axminster under the yard formans desk? )))))))))