Newbuild Claughton

Randomly while searching for paintings of Patriots I came across this website.

No idea if it's real or not. http://www.lmsnewbuild.co.uk/about

Anyone else ever heard of it?

 

No but the grammar on the website is about on a par with that which you could find in Steam Railway News. I'd forgotten about that newspaper.

 

My first reaction was that it was a pi$$-take as well. However, for one of the retirees mentioned it would not be his first 'hair-brained' new-build scheme. Some years after he left Steamport I had to go through some of the paperwork which contained a request to Horwich works for a quote for a set of Dreadnought frame plates!
Ray.

 

History certainly suggests the said individual G Walker was a great visionary many many years ahead of the rest of the game with a scheme to build a new Patriot in the late 70's/early 80's, the idea to assemble a railtour set of mk1's privately owned and the founding of a bi weekly preservation newspaper. Sadly none of these really got of the ground.

But fast forward to 2017 and we have a new build patriot heading towards completion, rakes of privately owned mk1 coaching stock being used for railtours and Railway Herald a weekly internet preservation news publication.

Visionaries are often mocked by their contemporaries for their hair brained ideas and schemes but without these people railway preservation would be way behind where it is today.

With regard to a new build Claughton I can see no merit in building one they weren't a success first time round and if you are going to improve the design you would end up with something like a patriot....

 

Was that after he had finished building a new Patriot ?

Bob.

 

No, that was before the Patriot IIRC but after repatriating the ROD from Oz. - or was it before???? Remember him bending wingrails over a bonfire and 'planing' point blades from scrap bull-head using the oxy? The guy certainly was persistent.
Cheers,
Ray.

 

No, I'm of the view that it's fake news. If someone were to build a Claughton it would be your group that would do it. (and they could too given sufficient funding I'm sure!)

 

Er looks to me like an 'improved' Claughton, not a straight new build

 

Assuming this is genuine - and I hope it isn't - then the model seems to be 6004. This loco was rebuilt with the large boiler subsequently used on the Baby Scots, but retained piston valves and Walshaert's gear.

This engine lasted until 1949, by far the last of the class, and while it is a shame it wasn't preserved, the fact remains that it wasn't. They were better engines than history gives them credit, but had a lot of built in design faults. The powers that were on the LMS throughout the 1920s and even 1930s failed to find solutions to their various mechanical woes, and I don't see a new build doing any better.

 

Isn't there an improved Claughton being built at Llangollen at the moment?

 

I would actually like to see one and, as has been said, the Patriot group would be the ones to do it. Some parts were the same, boiler, wheels and leading bogie. Don't think anything else was. A similar situation to 71000 in a way, where design faults were corrected by the preservation group

 

Reading the history of the Claughtons on their website I would say this was a scam to attract money. It was certainly not written by anyone who has a grip on the history of the Claughtons. There are other worthy newbuild projects to donate your hard earned cash to.

 

Not much more than the boiler, actually. Only the first two Baby Scots retained the LNWR wheels, and the bogie was changed part way through their production. I believe the new build uses the later bogie rather than FWW's radial truck.

I believe the reverser wheel and whistle were retained, though!

The Claughton's problems were far more deep rooted than 71000's, and no-one ever figured out how to get a reliable oil feed to the trailing axleboxes. There isn't room between the frames and firebox. so you'd need a bit more than a new set of cams and ashpan.

 

The website is suspect. The blog section contains some stuff from a Julie Ashworth which has nothing to do with railways at all, there are some photos of pipes and the interior of a Mark 1 TSO.

 

Looking at it again, there are no names or a physical address to contact them........................

 

"Caveat Emptor" seems to be appropriate with this site, methinks. There's definitely a whiff of rattus rattus about it...

 

It's got an email address but nothing more

 

Like I said, it's fake. Let's move on and focus on new-builds that are actually happening.

 

There's a piece in the latest bulletin on the New Build Steam website. The view expressed seems to be the viability of a new Claughton is up in the air. Here's the url. The 6004 bit is at the end.

https://newbuildsteam.com/2017/08/13/news-round-up-4-2017/

An attractive, if not unduly successful, loco. Bowen-Cooke was, apparently, looking to "take the Claughton's in hand" at the time of his death. Given the design flaws evident in this near-miss, unless some of Bowen-Cooke's thinking on how improvement was to be acheived has survived the intervening century.... and could be judged to produce some marked improvement.... I fail to see what would be gained by such a project.

No. It just won't do. IMHO, if we want something rather more ... remarkable ... than just another souped-up mainliner, may I commend Mr Brunel's 0-4-6-4-0 (or whatever the hell the appropriate Whyte notation might be!) "Thunderer"?

https://m.facebook.com/DidcotRailwa...18065/1834803193213227/?type=3&__tn__=*s*sH-R

It would certainly qualify as 'different' and the slight lack of adhesive weight shouldn't be too much of an issue on the Didcot BG demo line (Quickly puts on tin helmet). Any takers?

 

The confusion between Steamtown, Carnforth and Steamport, Southport, lives on, I see!