Ribble Steam Railway - Industrial Steam Gala - 24/25 March 2018

A selection of pictures and video from the Saturday of the Ribble Steam Railway's March Steam Gala... http://preservedrailway.weebly.com/ribble-steam-railway2

MSC No.32 Gothenburg is visiting from the East Lancs Railway and operating alongside home based Linda, Grant Riche No.272 and Courageous, timetable can be found here: https://ribblesteam.org.uk/news/spring-steam-gala-march-24th-25th/
If you get the chance go and visit today. Loadings seemed good yesterday, so hopefully a successful weekend for them.

 

25/03/2018 - MSC Tank 32 "Gothenberg" in Thomas the tank garb on loan from the ELR running at the Ribble Steam railway Industrial Gala (taken with phone camera)

 

It might be “Garb” but it’s what keeps her running and more money for heritage lines. Plus overhauls are not cheap these days.

 

Looks like a Caledonian esque livery to me... Can't wait to see 42085 back in Caledonian blue

 

Well you know what the solution to that nostalgic desire is, now, don't you .......... ? ️

 

When were they ever?!

 

They will get even more expensive when we have to start building new boilers to replace the worn out ones.

 

You do know we already do that? Over the last 25 years quite a number of smaller locos have had new boilers (I think the first new build SG loco boiler in the UK since Hunslet's closed was the one for Freshwater built by Israel Newton in the mid 90s, there have been quite a few since), and a lot of larger boilers have had successive boiler overhauls which have seen 80-90% of the original material replaced.

I'm more familiar with the industrial loco scene than larger stuff, but if you look at what's currently left of the the boilers of Windle or Waleswood at the moment, you'll see what I mean!

 

I think the current livery is a pretty good compromise. Yes, it’s blue, but with no face, black and white lininh and the 32 and GOTHENBURG plates, it could be a genuine industrial livery.

 

I know some smaller locomotives have had new boilers and it will be more expensive to build bigger boilers to for larger locomotives. When the boilers of the larger locomotives start to expire there will be a big queue of building new boilers.

 

I think you've misunderstood some of the point of my post above.

Essentially, as boilers get bigger, the likelihood of a full replacement being economical reduces. I've been involved in building replacements for several narrow-gauge boilers where the originals were repairable, as a basic cost/benefit analysis basically said that it wasn't worth paying 90% of the cost of a new boiler to repair an existing one.

As boilers get bigger, building a new boiler becomes increasingly unlikely to be economic - it makes more sense to salvage the good bits that exist, and replace the rest. Quite a lot of larger boilers are very much Grandfather's hammer on this basis, with many having had new front tubeplates, barrel stages, throatplates, backheads, outer firebox sides, inner firebox plates etc spread over two or three overhauls... and often if you add it all up, you find about the only original bit left from BR days is the dome!

I may be about to be proven wrong, but I don't envisage a sudden flood of demand for new large loco boilers - it's much more likely that the current practice of replacing parts as required will continue.