Heritage Line Loco Power Requirements

I'd agree with that to an extent but again going back to the SVR a few years ago when 75069 was examined for its overhaul it wasn't considered to be as straightforward as first thought, so I think it was either 1501 or 7714 came out of the Engine House early, to take its place. 75069 went on the back burner for a little while but I believe it's not that far away from returning to traffic. From what I've read, again the problems with 75069 came from it being stored in the open. You do make a point in that those that are easiest to fix are done first but there does come a point when just doing enough to get a loco through a ten year ticket isn't really cost effective, this may have happened in the 1980's with say 4930 for example but I'd say most of heritage lines and quite a few of our mainline loco groups have realised something costing a few quid to put right today can cost quite a few more quid to put right in a few years time! You only have to look at a certain 4-6-2 that's had an 'on the cheap' overhaul recently.

 

No one in the UK can build a brand new boiler from scratch. All, even the SDR will be required to contract out work to other companies. But all the work can be done in the UK. There are many companies that have the ability to assemble a boiler if supplied with the parts. And the parts can all be made/formed etc in the UK from different engineering companies.

Regards batch building a standard 3 type. Reading General you haven't answered the question of who is to pay for the build costing around 1.5 to 2 million for one of these (not £800,000 as someone mentioned before). And if they have that amount of money why would they not just speak to a loco society and offer to pay for restoration of their loco? I would imagine that if you went to say the MRC butterley and offered £500,000 to restore the spare jinty, then Llangollen to the small prairie group and offered £200,000 to finish that, and I can go on and on, you would spend less money and have a few locos in service rather than just one and much quicker as so much of it doesn't need to be made from scratch.

 

If it's going to cost up to 2 million to build a 3MT how do you reckon the "spare"Jinty can be rebuilt for 500,000? There osn't much to work on as I recall.Can you really rebuild a 2-6-2t to as new condtion for 200,000? . Your figures are rather suspect I think. The answer to your question would be that that someone would want a loco for his own pet line under hios or the Railways control, not one belonging to someone else. It's not just about getting a loco into service as quick and as cheap as possible. The costs of a brand new loco over (as suggested earlier) 21 years + could be far less than with the sole and heel approach over the same period.

 

I believe about 15 years ago the North Norfolk made an offer to restore the spare Jinty at Butterly and were given short shrift... It's ok suggesting motive power should be shared out but what do you do when the owner dosn't want to give it up?

 

15 years ago is ancient history. I had a waistline 15 years ago. Owners, however, are still owners (provided they haven't croaked in the meantime). Winifred made it home, and 15 years ago, that wasn't on the cards.

 

Costs are a bit of a dark art: it depends crucially on how much is done by volunteer labour, and how much by paid (either in-house, or contracted out). As I understand, "Beachy Head" has cost roughly £750,000 so far and will probably be about £1million when finished, with quite an amount of fabrication work done by external engineering companies. The loco did have a substantially complete tender underframe (modified for the project, but with wheels and axles) and a good condition boiler, albeit still needing some minor repairs, retubing, a new superheater header, fittings, smokebox, chimney etc. to be made. I suspect that had the boiler and tender underframe needed to be made from scratch, somewhere between £1.3 - £1.5 million might have been closer to the mark, and probably 2 or 3 years longer in timescale. On the other hand, once finished it may well be able to run two or three periods in traffic with fairly minor work in between, given that everything will be essentially new. (See the argument from @Bean-counter about "resetting" the life of a loco at overhaul). That strikes me as one of the big advantages of a new build.

There are some interesting developments on costs. As an example, the previously mentioned No. 27 - according to its blog, new frame plates and cylinders (made by the poly pattern route) are about £10k, with another £7k -£8k for machining the cylinders. Those costs would have been unimaginable only a decade ago. Sadly, boiler work will always be expensive, because you simply can't get away from fact that certain processes (such as restaying the firebox) requires carrying out a skilled process hundreds of times over.

Tom

 

Aye... but it will look bloody marvellous!

 

Howard,

Don't get me going on the topic of that locomotive.

Regards

Paul H

 

Dare I ask?

 

Noooo!!!!

 

very interesting and shoots the feet out from under an estimate of 1.5 to 2 million for a 2-6-2T, which does need a boiler but doesn't need a tender. New builds really do make sense in the long term I think

 

Please don't - it will only spark off another "The IoWSR is marvellous and every other railway is running too big engines and Mk1 coaches" rant from PH.

 

The 82045 website estimates the cost of this loco as being between £1.25 million and £1.5 million, but notes series production would 'drastically' reduce this. Certainly, key patterns having to be made for the first one would exist for any further examples, and sub-contractors could well reduce costs for producing several examples of items they may only be making as few as one of at the moment. I seem to recall the cylinder pattern has already been used to cast a cylinder for another locomotive.

'Drastically' is not a fixed proportion, and it is difficult to estimate what proportion of costs are for patterns and the like (although the project themselves will know). It would be a total stab in the dark but getting the cost of a batch below £1 million each does not sound impossible - in part it depends on how much of the cost of creating such patterns the 82045 Group would look to recover, not unreasonably, from any other party undertaking such a project.

As previously stated, the challenge would be having say £5 million collected together to produce 5 locos. The business case if such funding were available may be attractive based on potential savings on future work over 20 to 40 years from a brand new machine, but improved methods of working and reducing costs for repairs could come continue to be found, as has already been the case.

Sensible and potentially via though such thoughts may be, I am afraid I don't see the necessary over-arching co-ordination for such a project materialising any time soon. For starters, just think of the arguments about whether the BR 3MT is the best bet or whether some other loco (LMS 3MT, and each Company's fans would have their nominee!)!!

Steven

 

Totally with you on the 3MTs.... and I love the design.

Re: Narrow gauge, the one which is particularly interesting me at the moment is the VoR. If they get round to needing 3 train operation (which I wouldn't rule out), they'll need more capacity and an NGG16 doen't carry many passengers. Developments at Aberystwyth have been mighty interesting of late. Wonder what they'll surprise us all with next?

 

Well it just is

 

Nowt wrong with the IWSR.... and MK1s would look very out of place there. Sure, I'd prefer a BP 2-4-0t, but I can't afford one... and the Ivatt 2MTs don't look out of place..... even if they're big - by island standards! If you haven't had the pleasure, might I recommend the line? It really is something else.

BTW... Is this still the 82045 thread?

 

Nothing whatsoever to do with the IOW or Mk.1s. Let's just keep the discussion to 82045 and say I think it is a very sensible choice of prototype.

PH

 

I can't help having a quiet chuckle at the costs and extrapolation of same concerning 82045 and any future of the same type. Folk seem to conveniently overlook the massive subsidy in skilled volunteer labour which this loco has been fortunate enough to attract. That alone must have saved a sizeable chunk of what would otherwise have to be contracted out. A suggestion that another 5 or so of these might be built using the same volunteer resource would very likely receive a rather stoney silence!

 

They are somewhat longer, carry more fuel and water whilst the cab is more commodious. They are somewhat chunkier, which makes for a tight fit under some of the bridges. Underneath it all they are much the same size and intended for similar work.

Paul H

 

It rather depends on the business plan. If the builders decided to go for it themselves and then sell or lease the resulting locos, then an investment of 5 million and their time could secure the future of their own loco or locos. It's not a huge sum nowadays, quite in line with what people paid for locos decades ago adjusted for inflation