Wright writes.....

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, FarrMan said:

Was Picton open in 1987?

Yes it was, Lloyd - pity you missed it.

 

https://www.nswrailmuseum.com.au/

[LNER4479]

Another of those 'have you seen this?' posts. Seems to have been loaded up fairly recently. All filmed in colour and of interest to 'transition era' types - Clive will find plenty to excite him! Some fun for the safety elves on the wiring train too.

 

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by LNER4479

[jrg1]

3 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

I still think it would have been rather nice to have 60011, '12 and '13 preserved in the countries after which they were named.

 

Anyway, the two A4s on the other side of 'the pond' never had a subsequent 'service life' there. 

 

A pity as well that some of the Stanier 'Coronations' (other than CITY OF BIRMINGHAM) couldn't have been accommodated in where they were named after. 

 

To me, however, the one loco which should have been preserved was SILVER LINK. Unfortunately, she was one of the first A4 withdrawn. Had she survived long enough to operate in Scotland, she might have just made it. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Preservation has been rather haphazard.  Here's some that should have made it:-

60014 Silver Link

60113 Great Northern

60700

46256 Sir William A. Stanier

6004 The last Claughton

30461 LSWR Paddlebox

50455 L&Y Dreadnought

62618 The last D16

Urie King Arthur

10000 EE Diesel

10201 SR Diesel

It is gratifying to know that we will see various replicas filling the gaps.

[Clive Mortimore]

20 minutes ago, jrg1 said:

Preservation has been rather haphazard.  Here's some that should have made it:-

60014 Silver Link

60113 Great Northern

60700

46256 Sir William A. Stanier

6004 The last Claughton

30461 LSWR Paddlebox

50455 L&Y Dreadnought

62618 The last D16

Urie King Arthur

10000 EE Diesel

10201 SR Diesel

It is gratifying to know that we will see various replicas filling the gaps.

Why should your choice have been representative of our past railways? I am sure everyone who reads this thread will have their own what should have been saved. Why should anyone's choice be so?

 

We already have too many preserved locomotives than we can afford to look after, how many diesels are going to still be running in 20 years time? There will be a gradual reduction of working steam locos as time goes by.

[Jack P]

12 hours ago, manna said:

60012 CoA, was offered to the NSW Government, for Free, but they had to pay for 'Postage', it was declined on those grounds.

 

From what I understand 60013 was offered under similar circumstances to the New Zealand Govt, but like the Aussies, we didn't stump up for postage.

[MarkC]

5 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

To me, however, the one loco which should have been preserved was SILVER LINK. Unfortunately, she was one of the first A4 withdrawn. Had she survived long enough to operate in Scotland, she might have just made it. 

 

There was only going to be one A4 saved in the National Collection though - and that was Mallard.

 

As I understand it, Billy Butlin actually enquired about possibly buying Silver Link, but the Eastern Region mandarin(s) involved quoted too high a price for her, so he went to the London Midland instead...

 

Mark

[jrg1]

1 hour ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Why should your choice have been representative of our past railways? I am sure everyone who reads this thread will have their own what should have been saved. Why should anyone's choice be so?

 

We already have too many preserved locomotives than we can afford to look after, how many diesels are going to still be running in 20 years time? There will be a gradual reduction of working steam locos as time goes by.

Why shouldn't it?  They are all representative of examples of our railway engineering heritage that have been lost.

Get off your high horse-let's hear what you would consider.

[Compound2632]

21 minutes ago, jrg1 said:

Why shouldn't it?  They are all representative of examples of our railway engineering heritage that have been lost.

Get off your high horse-let's hear what you would consider.

 

One could argue* that far too many large express passenger engines from a few classes have been preserved - expensive and difficult to maintain and really overkill (both in power and weight) for most heritage railways. It would have been much more historically valuable and operationally useful to have preserved a representative range of the smaller locomotives that were still running in the 1960s. 

 

*Or at least, I will. Even on this thread!

[LNER4479]

42 minutes ago, MarkC said:

As I understand it, Billy Butlin actually enquired about possibly buying Silver Link, but the Eastern Region mandarin(s) involved quoted too high a price for her, so he went to the London Midland instead...

 

Mark

And are we LMS/LMR types jolly glad he did! Otherwise, we'd be minus 2 Duchesses, a Princess Royal and a Royal Scot ...

 

That having been said, A4s aside, the LNER has ended up as the poorest in terms of total headcount of preserved locos, mainly because only one ex-LNER loco made it to Barry scrapyard. But, there again, the class count is quite good as the LNER were more respectful of their heritage than others, the original York museum existing before the war of course.

 

Of course, building old loco designs anew is one way to address gaps in the ranks ...

[Clive Mortimore]

28 minutes ago, jrg1 said:

Why shouldn't it?  They are all representative of examples of our railway engineering heritage that have been lost.

Get off your high horse-let's hear what you would consider.

You can stuff museums full of full of first, the last, the fasted the most powerful and some people will pay to see them but financial support form somewhere else is normally needed.

 

To get these lumps of metal to perform in their natural environment,  that is pulling trains the cost goes up. If you want steam railways you need types of locos that will economical to operate. Ones that are easy to maintain. Remember most of those paying to ride on a steam train want a ride on a steam train not worried if it was a failure like 60113 or yet another LMS 4-6-2 like 46256. An Austerity 0-6-0ST "Is like the trains great granddad travelled on". 

 

You ask what would be on my list

 

Rocket

 

Production HST.

[CF MRC]

Apologies for a bit of thread drift and happy to remove if required, but this does have a GN flavour. The Model Railway Club has made some excellent facsimiles of the ‘Kings Cross Goods Station Refreshment Club’ mugs that were found when the site was excavated a few years ago.  

https://www.themodelrailwayclub.org/shop/merchandise/kings-cross-goods-station-refreshment-club-mugs-mrc-exclusive/
Incidentally, we have sold most of our original batch of mugs.

 

We are now considering making a matching plate to hold your dunking biscuits. It would be in the same style in bone China, 8” diameter (picture shows a mock up). The quality is superb. Would there be interest in this plate?

The model of the Refreshment Club rooms is on the CF thread in the 2mm section earlier in the year.

 

 

Tim

[3rd Rail Exile]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

One could argue* that far too many large express passenger engines from a few classes have been preserved - expensive and difficult to maintain and really overkill (both in power and weight) for most heritage railways. It would have been much more historically valuable and operationally useful to have preserved a representative range of the smaller locomotives that were still running in the 1960s. 

 

*Or at least, I will. Even on this thread!

 

It is well known that it is physically impossible to have preserved too many Bulleid Pacifics . 

 

But with my sensible head on, you're quite right!

[Iain.d]

I thought I’d show my progress on what started life as a Ratio Midland Railway Brake 3rd Clerestory kit that I have modified to represent a Midland Railway 31ft 6 Wheel Third Class, 4 Compartment carriage. I accessed a drawing on the Midland Railway Society’s website for inspiration. Its not exact, but its pretty close.

 

 

It's nearly finished other than cutting the glass for the windows and bending some wire for the handrails. Its running on Bill Bedford W irons with each axle having about 1/2mm vertical movement. The centre axle is also free to move laterally on a piece of tube through which passes the axle. It seems to run happily through a set of Peco Bullhead points and some flexi track curved to about a 30in radius. The sprung buffers are made up but I won’t fit those until its painted, which may happen this weekend. The stepboard on this side seems a bit bent at the right hand end, its not in the flesh so think it a photo edit issue.

 

It’ll run as a crew carriage in a breakdown train I’m putting together so will be painted a faded black (grey), I printed up some transfers on laser printer transfer paper, and on my test piece they looked quite good. Not commercial standards, but good enough. Other stuff on the bench is also progressing, albeit slowly!

 

Kind regards,

 

Iain  

[Chamby]

Having grumbled in the past about what Edward Thompson did to the wonderful P2's, I finally succumbed this week, and bought one of Hornby's new A2/3's.   I'm very impressed with the quality of detail, she runs very smoothly and hauls well.   No part-fitting problems experienced on this one either.  Like others, I'm not sure about the shade of green: it's a bit pastier looking than my other Hornby models carrying LNER green, but it's not wrong enough to warrant a repaint and should improve with weathering.   Undoubtedly, one of their best models to date.   Just a little bit of basic modelling required to bring her into late 1940's condition.

 

I was delighted to find that Fox's etched nameplates included a 'curly 6' smokebox number alternative, very thorough of them.

 

 

 

 

I don't know if 60500 ever made it to Leicester back in the day, but she'll be visiting occasionally from now on!

 

Phil

 

 

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by Chamby
removed extra photo

[Steven B]

If locos should be preserved in the location they're named after then perhaps 4468 should be next to a duck-pond in Doncaster?

 

Steven B.

Edited May 7, 2021 by Steven B

[Northmoor]

5 hours ago, jrg1 said:

Preservation has been rather haphazard.  Here's some that should have made it:-

60014 Silver Link

60113 Great Northern

60700

46256 Sir William A. Stanier

6004 The last Claughton

30461 LSWR Paddlebox

50455 L&Y Dreadnought

62618 The last D16

Urie King Arthur

10000 EE Diesel

10201 SR Diesel

It is gratifying to know that we will see various replicas filling the gaps.

The LNER has fared badly in preservation, as others have said, because Woodhams bought almost none of them.  However, the influence of the Barry yard is such that without it, the LNER would be by far the best represented of the Big Four.  The broad range of GWR types remaining in existence is largely due to Barry, but the Southern and LMS survivors tend to be dominated by larger types (too many Bullied Pacifics, not enough 'N's, 'U's and none of the various LMS Class 4 tanks).  To an extent it reflects what was still in service when Dai was expanding, which was in the latter days of steam.

It is lovely to dream what might have survived had a scrapyard like Drapers decided to set a few locos aside; although the owner did of course keep 5305, we could have had preservation dominated by WDs, as they scrapped about a quarter of them.... 

I can recommend this great site for dreaming like this:

https://www.brdatabase.info/sites.php?page=scrapyards&action=list

 

[Tony Wright]

2 hours ago, Chamby said:

Having grumbled in the past about what Edward Thompson did to the wonderful P2's, I finally succumbed this week, and bought one of Hornby's new A2/3's.   I'm very impressed with the quality of detail, she runs very smoothly and hauls well.   No part-fitting problems experienced on this one either.  Like others, I'm not sure about the shade of green: it's a bit pastier looking than my other Hornby models carrying LNER green, but it's not wrong enough to warrant a repaint and should improve with weathering.   Undoubtedly, one of their best models to date.   Just a little bit of basic modelling required to bring her into late 1940's condition.

 

I was delighted to find that Fox's etched nameplates included a 'curly 6' smokebox number alternative, very thorough of them.

 

 

 

 

I don't know if 60500 ever made it to Leicester back in the day, but she'll be visiting occasionally from now on!

 

Phil

 

 

 

It looks good Phil,

 

Is it as-supplied by Hornby, or have you altered it?

 

If the former, Hornby has put the front numberplate in the wrong place - on the top hingestrap. If it's your work, you've done the same. 

 

The numberplates on the non-streamlined LNER big locos were only lowered to the top hingestraps from about 1956. Previously (in the main) they were fixed above the crossrail and below the top lamp bracket (some had the crossrail and numberplate transposed). Some A3s never had theirs lowered, as did all but six of the V2s. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Edited May 7, 2021 by Tony Wright
to add something

[Tony Wright]

1 hour ago, Northmoor said:

The LNER has fared badly in preservation, as others have said, because Woodhams bought almost none of them.  However, the influence of the Barry yard is such that without it, the LNER would be by far the best represented of the Big Four.  The broad range of GWR types remaining in existence is largely due to Barry, but the Southern and LMS survivors tend to be dominated by larger types (too many Bullied Pacifics, not enough 'N's, 'U's and none of the various LMS Class 4 tanks).  To an extent it reflects what was still in service when Dai was expanding, which was in the latter days of steam.

It is lovely to dream what might have survived had a scrapyard like Drapers decided to set a few locos aside; although the owner did of course keep 5305, we could have had preservation dominated by WDs, as they scrapped about a quarter of them.... 

I can recommend this great site for dreaming like this:

https://www.brdatabase.info/sites.php?page=scrapyards&action=list

 

It might be apocryphal, but I did read somewhere (or at least, I think I did) that Alderman Draper asked one of his foremen if they should keep one of the locos they had in for scrapping. And, if so, which was the best? Thus, 'yet another' Black Five was preserved. In the Hull yard at the same time (but obviously in poorer condition) were A1s (including at least one with roller bearings) and B16s. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Tony Wright]

4 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

You can stuff museums full of full of first, the last, the fasted the most powerful and some people will pay to see them but financial support form somewhere else is normally needed.

 

To get these lumps of metal to perform in their natural environment,  that is pulling trains the cost goes up. If you want steam railways you need types of locos that will economical to operate. Ones that are easy to maintain. Remember most of those paying to ride on a steam train want a ride on a steam train not worried if it was a failure like 60113 or yet another LMS 4-6-2 like 46256. An Austerity 0-6-0ST "Is like the trains great granddad travelled on". 

 

You ask what would be on my list

 

Rocket

 

Production HST.

May I quote you on this, please, Clive?

 

'or yet another LMS 4-6-2 like 46256'

 

There was only one other LMS 4-6-2 like 46256 (actually not built by that company), and that was 46257. 

 

Despite my partisanship, I'd say that the two Ivatt 'Princess Coronations' were, without doubt, the finest express passenger locomotives to ever run in this country. Most definitely, in my opinion, 46256 should have been preserved. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by Tony Wright
typo error

[LNER4479]

7 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

The numberplates on the non-streamlined LNER big locos were only lowered to the top hingestraps from about 1956. Previously (in the main) they were fixed above the crossrail and below the top lamp bracket (some had the crossrail and numberplate transposed). Some A3s never had theirs lowered, as did all but six of the V2s. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Am I right in saying that the lowering of the smokebox numbers was a consequence of lowering the top lamp bracket, done to reduce the risk of enginemen getting too close to the overhead wires? This meant there was no room between the lowered lamp bracket and the smokebox handrail, hence the repositioning.

 

The LMR, of course, moved their top lamp brackets down further still, to an offset position on the smokebox door, so didn't need to reposition the smokebox numberplates.

[LNER4479]

2 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

Despite my partisanship, I'd say that the two Ivatt 'Princess Coronations' were, without doubt, the finest express passenger locomotives to ever run in this country. Most definitely, in my opinion, 46256 should have been preserved. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

 

Hear, hear! Well said that man! Unquestionably, one of the greatest - if not THE greatest - 'tragedies' in terms of locos that should have been saved (there, that'll get them writing in their droves), if nothing else to honour one of the country's greatest locomotive engineers. Sir Bill himself was still alive at the time of this desecration, very sad.

 

She was still reputedly gleaming like a new pin in the scrapyard. The men in the yard couldn't believe they were being told to take the axe to it

 

If ever I win the lottery ...

[MikeParkin65]

38 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

It might be apocryphal, but I did read somewhere (or at least, I think I did) that Alderman Draper asked one of his foremen if they should keep one of the locos they had in for scrapping. And, if so, which was the best? Thus, 'yet another' Black Five was preserved. In the Hull yard at the same time (but obviously in poorer condition) were A1s (including at least one with roller bearings) and B16s. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

The story as I understand it is Albert decided to preserve the cleanest in the yard at the time. 45305 wasn’t withdrawn until 1968 and sadly by then the choices were only from a motley collection of LMS 5’s and 8fs. The A1’s and B16’s from York were long gone by then. 

Edited May 7, 2021 by MikeParkin65

[65179]

2 hours ago, Northmoor said:

...  The broad range of GWR types remaining in existence is largely due to Barry, but the Southern and LMS survivors tend to be dominated by larger types (too many Bullied Pacifics, not enough 'N's, 'U's and none of the various LMS Class 4 tanks). 

 

 

It's not quite that bad for the LMS tanks, we do have 42073,  42085 and the Stanier 3 cylinder beastie whose number escapes me.

 

Simon

Edited May 7, 2021 by 65179

[Clive Mortimore]

44 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

May I quote you on this, please, Clive?

 

'or yet another LMS 4-6-2 like 46256'

 

There was only one other LMS 4-6-2 like 46256 (actually not built by that company), and that was 46257. 

 

Despite my partisanship, I'd say that the two Ivatt 'Princess Coronations' were, without doubt, the finest express passenger locomotives to ever run in this country. Most definitely, in my opinion, 46256 should have been preserved. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

 

You can Tony.

 

"Who was Sir William Stainer, dad?"

"Some bloke who died along time ago" or if lucky "When you get on the train Google his name".

 

As puffer nutters we can and do get excited (or disappointed) at which locomotive is pulling our train. Do the vast majority of the public, who are looking for a few hours to entertain the kids, a steam train is a steam train, even better if it has a face on the front.

 

We can all muse over which locomotives should not been scraped, it is too late.  We can even contribute to projects to build new steam locos should we wish hopefully see them running before we say good bye to life.

 

Can I add to my list of what should be saved of Rocket and an HST, a new steam loco, a replica Percy, he would bring in the crowds at any persevered railway.

 

A few years ago Tornado was going over the viaduct at Chelmsford. The lady who I was chatting with looked up and said " Isn't it nice to see one of the old steam engines". She looked very confused when I said it was newer than any of the other trains she might see that day.

[MarkC]

1 hour ago, 65179 said:

 

It's not quite that bad for the LMS tanks, we do have 42073,  42085 and the Stanier 3 cylinder beastie whose number escapes me.

 

Simon

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