Tornado

Oh dear...if I had a few million I'd be building one. I think it would be in great demand. There was something about the J50, which I can't put my finger on, that endeared me to them.

 

Quite - what we have in preservation (of ex-BR stock) is very strongly influenced by what went through Barry. Large express locos like Blackmore Vale or Clan Line that went direct to preservation from BR usage are comparatively rare.

Years ago I also did an analysis of leaving dates from Barry that showed fairly definitively that the smaller locos wents first: as numbers of those dried up the medium locos went, and the big locos went last.

So I don’t think the charge that early preservationists preferred large locos stacks up. The real problem was that by the late 60s even “small” locos were typically a class 4 or thereabouts. Comparatively few class 2 or smaller went to Barry. So the big miss is really that by time preservation got going, many of the really ideal locos for most lines (unsaturated pre-grouping class 1-2) had been scrapped a decade earlier.

Tom

 

Where d I send my money?

 

Off the top of my head, a few Terriers and P's from the Southern, 1338, 1363, 1369, 1420,1442, 1450,1466 & 9400 from the GWR, 47383, 41708 and 51218 from the LMS and 68846 and 68153 (54) from the LNER. All the other small ex BR locos came from other sources. (4555 is relatively big!)
No doubt the list will now grow rapidly.