Preservation efforts thwarted

[caradoc]

Does anybody know what the cost of a house [say, 3bed semi in a major city] would have been in the 1965-68 period just so that we can put a £3000 asking price for a Black 5 into perspective?

 

My Mum and Dad's semi in an Oxford suburb cost £4000 in 1964. It's a bit more today !

[brack]

Can't find UK data, but the USGS published this which has scrap prices going back (page 64).

 

https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/metal_prices/metal_prices1998.pdf

 

Anyway, it gives prices of 30-45 dollars per metric ton for scrap iron and steel in the 60s and early 70s. I don't suppose our prices were that different (or we'd have been importing/exporting large amounts of scrap to the US). The exchange rate at 1970-1 was about 2.4 dollars to the pound.

[Phil Bullock]

We have to remember that there was a weight of non ferrous in there too - particularly copper in fireboxes, which originally were returned to BR by scrappies IIRC but I suspect practice had ceased by this time....worth a lot more.

 

Phil

Edited April 7, 2018 by Phil Bullock

[jjb1970]

In the modern world the price of scrap steel can be a lot less important than the cost of environmentally recycling all the nasty oils, chemicals, residues, asbestos etc that are associated with old industrial machines.

[chris p bacon]

The problem with looking at current scrap prices is that they fluctuate daily. 

 

Just recently we were taking in scrap steel and it would vary between £30 per ton to £100 a ton in a matter of a week, as ever it all depends on demand.

[brack]

Nice though it would have been to have seen more locos preserved, reality is that those we’ve actually got are probably too many and there are many that have never been steamed, some not steamed in many a year and some that never will steam. Also, there are too few locations that are appropriate for class 7/8 mainline passenger locos. Arguably some of the smaller types scrapped in the 30s/40s/50s would have been more suited to the rural preserved lines than the mainline locos that escaped Barry. It’s not a coincidence that comparatively few of the Barry MNs have been steamed whereas all the Manors have.

Agreed - looking at new builds they split into 2 camps, either big main line charter locos like tornado or more sensibly sized stuff to actually operate on preserved lines like the G5.

[LMS2968]

Do you have a primary reference to this? If you do I'd dearly like to know what it is as I haven't found anything in TNA Kew or NRM York to support this statement.

Oh Hell, the short answer is yes; the long answer is I haven't a clue where. It was something I read many years ago. I'll look, but don't hold your breath waiting!

[Mike Storey]

Does anybody know what the cost of a house [say, 3bed semi in a major city] would have been in the 1965-68 period just so that we can put a £3000 asking price for a Black 5 into perspective?

 

I can tell you exactly what it was in 1969 in North London - £7,000 which is what my parents paid for a 3 bed semi in North Finchley/Whetstone.

[Mike Storey]

My question is were any attempts or possibilities available to preserve 1 of the bullied 4DD units in their complete 4 car formation.

 

Only 2 were built so either could have been a good candidate for preservation.

 

The motor coaches from 1 unit could have been a source for motor spares and control gear and the trailer cars added to the other unit to create a 6 car double deck unit ( 6DD ).

 

Perhaps if a 4DD had been preserved it could have opened up possibilities of double deck trains running on commuter services or main line services to carry the extra passengers the railways get hammered with especially at peak travel times.

 

I know the loading gauge is restrictive when it comes to trains like that however, the railway companies could take a leaf out of the books of operators in Australia where they have double deck suburban units of 4 or 8 car formation but with a difference.

 

The carriage doors are at platform level but the lower deck is much closer to the rails so the potential would be there for double deck units or main line trains to possibly 1 day be considered.

 

One was,  but is no longer a complete set - read this http://bulleid4dddoubledeck.co.uk/history.html

 

You will also see the reasons why the trial was not considered successful, and longer trains became the future strategy instead. South West Trains and Network Rail looked again at the possibility for capacity problems into Waterloo around 10 years so ago, but reached the same conclusion.

 

Nonetheless, HS2 is being built to a larger loading gauge which will allow double-deck main line trains if/once needed, along the lines of those used abroad.

[pH]

I remember reading, about the time it was bought, that the price paid to BR for 46201 was 2160GBP.

[Arun Sharma]

I can tell you exactly what it was in 1969 in North London - £7,000 which is what my parents paid for a 3 bed semi in North Finchley/Whetstone.

So putting that into today's terms, that would be asking purchasers of a Black 5 to cough up 100x the late '60s purchase price say, £350,000. I can't think of many groups of late teens/twenty year olds who could organise rustling up that much money legally these days.

[Compound2632]

So putting that into today's terms, that would be asking purchasers of a Black 5 to cough up 100x the late '60s purchase price say, £350,000. I can't think of many groups of late teens/twenty year olds who could organise rustling up that much money legally these days.

 

Well no, because house price inflation has greatly outstripped general inflation. Using a general inflation calculator, £4,000 in 1964 would be around £80,000 today - roughly 20x.

[melmerby]

Does anybody know what the cost of a house [say, 3bed semi in a major city] would have been in the 1965-68 period just so that we can put a £3000 asking price for a Black 5 into perspective?

My parents bought a 3 bed semi in south Birmingham in 1966/67 for around £4000

I live half a mile from there in a similar house (But detached) built by the same builder and ones in our road go for about £350,000 in today's market, the semis are around £300,000, that's a 75x increase!

 

Keith

[ady77014]

34023 Blackmore Vale was brought for £1900 in 1967. But Bulleid Pacifics didn't have copper fireboxes...

[coachmann]

I looked at a new-built bungallow in 1965 in north Wales.....£2000,00 without garage. Wages were around £12.00 week, well below what I had been used to in Cottonopolis. 4-star petrol was 4s 9d per gallon.

Edited April 7, 2018 by coachmann

[newbryford]

I looked at a new-built bungallow in 1965 in north Wales.....£2000,00 without garage. Wages were around £12.00 week, well below what I had been used to in Cottonopolis. 4-star petrol was 4s 9d per gallon.

 

You were lucky to have a car...

 

(Cue MP's Yorkshireman sketch)

 

Cheers,

Mick

[298]

Arguably some of the smaller types scrapped in the 30s/40s/50s would have been more suited to the rural preserved lines than the mainline locos that escaped Barry. It’s not a coincidence that comparatively few of the Barry MNs have been steamed whereas all the Manors have.

If you look at the list of locos that were scrapped at Barry (as I did after visiting this week), there are a few that would have been nice to have now, and a lot of 43xx and 94xx cut in the earlier years that certainly would have been useful and are under represented in preservation.

Edited April 7, 2018 by 298

[Phil Bullock]

One of the 54xx or 61xx might have been nice....

 

Phil

[DavidR]

If it's any help, I bought a semi on Hagley Road West, Quinton, B'ham for £3995 in 1970.

[Compound2632]

If it's any help, I bought a semi on Hagley Road West, Quinton, B'ham for £3995 in 1970.

 

Almost certainly not a helpful remark for anyone looking to buy a semi in suburban Brum these days...

 

Interesting, though, that it was on a par with Oxford prices at the time!

Edited April 8, 2018 by Compound2632

[great central]

If it's any help, I bought a semi on Hagley Road West, Quinton, B'ham for £3995 in 1970.

To put that into context, I started work in 1970 as an apprentice telephone engineer, and oddly enough spent a week on a course in Brum, lodged at a B&B on the Hagley Road.

My wages before deductions were £7/15/0 a week, that's £7.75 for younger readers. I earn that in about half an hour now!

 

As an aside that B&B was where an almost pathological hatred of Tom Jones came from. Woman in charge was a huge fan and had his songs on 8 track player until she shut the bar around 02.00 most nights, right under my bedroom. Aarrgghh!!

[chris p bacon]

As an aside that B&B was where an almost pathological hatred of Tom Jones came from. Woman in charge was a huge fan and had his songs on 8 track player until she shut the bar around 02.00 most nights, right under my bedroom. Aarrgghh!!

 

 

For that area .......'It's not unusual'........

[Davey]

To put that into context, I started work in 1970 as an apprentice telephone engineer, and oddly enough spent a week on a course in Brum, lodged at a B&B on the Hagley Road.

My wages before deductions were £7/15/0 a week, that's £7.75 for younger readers. I earn that in about half an hour now!

 

As an aside that B&B was where an almost pathological hatred of Tom Jones came from. Woman in charge was a huge fan and had his songs on 8 track player until she shut the bar around 02.00 most nights, right under my bedroom. Aarrgghh!!

 

Bet you were longing for 'The Green, Green Grass of home'!

 

Davey

[009 micro modeller]

Agreed - looking at new builds they split into 2 camps, either big main line charter locos like tornado or more sensibly sized stuff to actually operate on preserved lines like the G5.

Probably you want the same number of locos there actually are but more variety than is provided by those that were preserved. However, some new builds seem to be classes scrapped long before preservation started.

[Edwin_m]

I believe the original intention of the (what is now the) Great Central Railway was to take over the whole of the route between Nottingham Victoria and Leicester Central.  They started in the early 1970s just between Loughborough and Rothley, as BR were removing track and bridges around them.

 

Perhaps it is a good thing they didn't take over the whole route, as how would a volunteer group, even if they did have then the same level of support of local councils that they have now, cope with the responsibility and expense of the very extensive civil engineering of embankments, viaducts and bridges on the routes north of Leicester and south of Nottingham?

BR needed to keep the northern half for freight access to the gypsum facilities and the army depot at Ruddington.  This was initially by using the GN connection to Nottingham Victoria and reversing at Weekday Cross, in which case the GCR could have come as far north as somewhere around Rushcliffe Halt.  But BR then put in the connection at Loughborough so the freight came in from the south, allowing closure north of Ruddington but blocking any access by the GCR north of Loughborough.  I do agree that the section from Ruddington to Nottingham, with major steel bridges over the Trent and the Midland line, would have been a huge challenge - the city council would probably have been anti too, as they wanted to re-claim the considerable area taken up by the GC for housing in the Meadows area.