New built replicas.

Then there's the tricky issue of where the line is between keeping locos running and replacing components, and the loss of originality.

 

Have you asked yourself how much of some the existing ex BR locos is origonal?

Take for example the A1X tanks - Stepney & co - these locos are well over 100 years old & still in service. Even in their latter BR days there can't have been much left of the loco as actually first built.

The same applied to some extent to the whole stock of locos on BR.

What is important is that they are now repaired in an authentic way - not progressively bodged so that they bear less and less resemblance to the "real" thing. Unfortunately there are already examples of this.

There is no way that most UK heritage lines can contemplate £1m+ capital expenditure on a single new loco whereas there is more chance of keeping up with the proper repair of what they already have.

 

I have in fact asked myself that question, I don't have a problem with locos having major components replaced. I was going to use the example of Mallard, she's been through 6 tenders, as many boilers and the very large proportion of her components probably weren't genuine 1938 components when she was withdrawn in 1963(?) so what's currently preserved in the NRM isn't really the loco that did 126 mph but an A4 overhauled by BR in probably the early 60s and subsequently restored to running order (briefly) in the 80s. But it's the spirit of Mallard that is really preserved.

Like I say, I don't have a problem with major component replacement, because as you have pointed out, it's already happened many times pre withdrawal. But there are those who, what shall we say, 'care' a great deal about originality, and it's really people like this who would object to the fabrication of a new boiler barrel for example. However, originality in a working locomotive is impossible. But we can do authentic.

 

All the locos I have worked on in preservation have proved to be simply a pile of misc parts with numerous numbers of other classmates or other types littered over some parts from previous use.

On the GW/BR(W) there were more boilers than actual locos to ensure availability at overhaul and fewer tenders than tender locos because tenders could be put though the works more rapidly.

The actual make up of one particular loco (apart from the mainframes) would be pretty random and would change considerably at each heavy overhaul.

As a result not all the so called extinct classes are 100% gone with at least one loco currently running with Grange brake gear, County axleboxes and a bogie axlebox from the Great Bear! - how is that for authenticity!

 

I my experience of GWR engines it is not quite so random, the wheels, rods, frames and motion stay together as the motion will have been adjusted to match that engine. Axleboxes do seem to get swapped, after all that is part of the advantage of standardisation.

It is interesting to see that one of the pony axleboxes on 7202 was previously on Pendennis Castle amongst many other engines. If you find rods and motion swapped it probably happened in the late BR era as can be seen with the motion on 5322 or during the preservation era.

 

It all boils down to cromwells knife "weve had this knife in our family since the cromwellian times, its had 3 new blades and 4 new handles, but its still cromwells knife".

 

I'm surprised that no-one has raised the subject of the reported likely doubling in cost of the G5 replica (to ca. 800,000). That makes the quoted likely cost of the Patriot look increasingly unrealistic, for example.

 

Several Crewe drivers I chatted to in the mid-60s, reckoned the Duchesses were good for 130mph as they were, given the East Coast racing ground to play with...

 

One of these built to British loading guage would do me! Fabulous machines

http://johnleyland736.mediaobject.co.uk/p62028758.html

 

If that's so, then imagine any LMS Type 1 boilered, large-firebox Stanier 8P working at up to 250 psi, but with Stanier's heroically simple multi-valve steam feed powering a turbine of modern blade profile and materials. This drives a gear with a reduction ratio significantly less than the 34:1 needed for the original on 6202, because 5ft drivers revolve over 20% faster for the same speed than 6'6" ones do. The various associated weight savings, and the extra axle offered by a 4-8-2, would up the tractive effort. Freed from their reciprocating motion, the drivers' rpm would be limited only by the build quality of the various bearings and materials of the gears and driving rod. Hammer blow would not be an issue, so from the point of view of the track owner, there would be no bar to sustained 90 mph running.
Such a beast quite literally needs speed to work efficiently. Now imagine one, of course equipped with air brakes and all the usual train control devices, going down Stoke Bank with only 4 Mk3s on.

 

I have a never ending list of new builds I would love to see running, but I will highlight my particular favourites:

Fowler 2-6-4 Tank
A5 and A8 Tanks
Standard 3 2-6-0
Midland 2P 4-4-0
B16/3 4-6-0
Claud Hamilton 4-4-0 and so on and so forth.

I would also love to see another V2 built, for if Green Arrow never steams again.

 

But wouldn't that mean making a new cylinder block? Just the problem with Green Arrow.

 

Ah - but needn't be a monobloc ............

 

How much commonality is there between a V1/3 tank and a V2 ? (if any)

 

Put me down for a P2 Mikado, its the only way most of us will ever see one of these incredible locos. It would have restricted route availability, but would be fine for blasting up and down the ECML.

The A1 guys could build it at Darlington (A lot of parts in common with Tornado, just more wheels) and call it 'Cock of the Northeast'.

I put this idea to Mark Allatt on one of Tornado's trains (like he's never heard that one before) and he said 'Fine, if youve got £3 Million or so to spare!'. Paging a beardy millionaire train owner......

 

Fairy tales might not be ! The lineside rumour mill suggests that it might be worth looking to arrange a standing order to support a new-build project that is currenly being discussed but for which no public announcement has yet been made - but then how reliable is the "lineside rumour mill" ?

 

It ain't no rumour Fred

I stood next to Tornado talking it over with their chief engineer as a very public "next project"

 

Nothing more than the wheel arrangement I think.

 

Pretty much an open secret now. Of course there's the A1 to maintain, but to maintain the income stream when Tornado's 7 years are up you need a second engine . And I'd hazard a guess that the P2 bits that aren't the same as the A1 would be as per the A2 - smaller wheels and also the motion (remember the P2 were butchered by Thompson into the prototype A2's), unless you go rotary poppet of course, when D of G could be a useful source of patterns, drgs etc. I wouldn't see the ECML as the obvious stamping ground though - more suited to Shap and the S&C, and what about those mole-hills down in Devon?

My cheque book is ready and waiting!