Oldest Working Loco

Brilliant!

 

You could say the same of River Irt on R&ER which at 122 years old would fit in the same category.

 

Sorry I've come late to this thread. What about the longest serving tender loco on BR and its forerunners? 65033 which started the thread off did 73 years. 30567 managed 76 years, 1883-1959. Did any others exceed that?

I've always thought that to get 60 years out of the T9s on the sort of work they did was pretty good going.

 

Deleted.

Memo to self. Before trying to be a smart-arse, read the thing properly!

 

Is not the intention of the original poster to only count revenue service life, not that in preservation? While many here have talked up the preservation life of various locomotives, it shouldn't count because their purpose is somewhat different. Life in preservation is life in the entertainment industry, every locomotive in preservation is essentially a toy which we play with.

Have a serious think about it before you apply your respective blowtorches at me. 8^)

 

But you then have to

But you then have to define 'preservation'. For argument, you could say that the locos on the Torbay & Dartmouth are not preserved but are earning their daily keep. The fact that the Railway operates its services with steam locomotives is irrelevant; that is their choice of motive power. It is a commercial company operating for profit and (hopefully) paying a dividend. Then you also have the likes of the Snowdon Mountain Railway, Brecon Mountain Railway, Vale of Rheidol Railway.......Even WCRC.

 

Right, apply blow torch

It's an interesting point, but you get into certain logical inconsistencies trying to make a distinction between preserved and "not preserved" usage.

For example, I can think of one currently extant locomotive whose ownership history went:

Pre grouping company
Government (in the form of the Royal Naval Ordnance Department)
A private railway
One of the Big 4 companies
Government again (in the form of British Railways)
A private railway (as a preservation company)

So that begs the question, why the first private railway (which owned the loco for about a quarter of a century, but for some of that time laid up out of service) counts as part of the "original service life of the loco", but the second private railway (which owned the locomotive for more than half a century, and has seen the loco put in more years in service traffic than any of the previous owners except the first) is not part of the "original service life of the loco"? The only really significant difference I'd suggest is that the current owner (a "preserved railway") would recognise the historical significance and therefore not take steps to realise the asset value in scrap once the loco was no longer able to be put n remunerative service, whereas the first private owner sold the loco on when they had the chance. But fundamentally, in either company the purpose of having the loco includes making money for the owner.

You also get into difficulties counting time with locos that have been retained by the original owners, but run for "heritage" rather than "traffic" purposes: there were numerous such locos on BR in the 1950s / 1960s (T9, Caley Single, City of Truro, Jones Goods etc). How long would you say the active service life of City of Truro is / was? Built by the GWR in 1903; in service until 1931 (so 28 years) when it was donated to the LNER for their museum; then restored for service in 1957 by BR and ran unil 1961; then periodic steamings since. So on the one hand she ran 28 years in revenue service, but on the other, she was still in steam for the successor company to her original owner 58 years after construction!

Tom

 

Tom the engine you are on about the Adams Radial Tank I don't consider the first use as private as private, as the EKR was on a railway working on a public railway which didn't form part or the big four railways. You could say the same about the A1X engines which worked the KESR as well then. Private railways to me should be where they are for the fun of the owners only.

 

This might be a useful distinction which probably works for all locos except for those few built specifically for tourist attractions or museums.
Is the locomotive primarily used for its original purpose (as a machine for pulling trains)? Or is it now primarily a public attraction/exhibit (either in its own right or as part of a heritage railway/museum/tour operation)? Both roles may involve pulling trains but there is a fairly obvious difference.

 

So where does that leave something like 'Dunrobin'? Did it ever run in service at all, using that definition?


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She was loaned to the HR during WW1 and to the Navy during WW2, and saw service as a shunter at Invergordon, Rosyth, and Dalmuir.

There's a pdf of a Heritage Railway article about the loco on the Beamish website: http://beamishtransportonline.co.uk/downloads/articles/

 

I'm not sure I really see the difference. With the exception of a very small number of lines (such as the Fawley Hill Railway), all railways are run to make money for their owners: that applies just as much to a preserved railway now as to the EKR or KESR between the wars. The fact that the owners of a preserved railway may choose to reinvest any surplus money back in the railway rather than take it out as a dividend doesn't alter the fact that such railways have to make money: fun alone doesn't pay the bills.

Tom

 

Ah but, unlike a commercial operation, most preserved railways do not exist primarily to make money. Their primary purpose is to Preserve. Money is just one of the things they need to make that possible (volunteer labour is usually another).

 

Playing devil's advocate for a moment, you could say the same about the Talyllyn under Sir Henry Haydn Jones, or about many of Colonel Stevens' lines. I'd be surprised if the KESR ever made Stevens a penny. And then there were the various estate and hospital railways, which while serving a purpose were never intended to earn money.

 

Yes I agree. There have always been motivations other than money in this world. And KESR carried on after Stephens' death though with WH Austen acting as Receiver. It would be interesting to know why the creditors (including the SR) didn't pull the plug as no doubt they would today.

Hospital railways were simply things considered necessary (like beds or straitjackets) at the time for the efficient running of the hospitals concerned, and they disappeared when that was no longer true.

 

Contrary to the what is often parroted by apologists for quick buck free market thinking, corporations often do not, in fact, operate for the purpose of making money, but to fulfil the purpose for which they were incorporated: making bread or providing a transport service or professional expertise.
Of course they would much prefer to make a good return on their outlay, but that is not why most are founded nor the only motivation for their directors and executives.
In any case, many railway companies spent most of their loves to making money! So were they commercial or not?