Avon Valley based LMS 4F 4123 (BR 44123).

Not quite sure why you quoted my post - I agree with what you say and it wasn't me who suggested it should run on the S&D, in fact I was trying to bring some realism to the suggestion!

@Steve As regards my remarks about a longer run being better for the loco, I was thinking more in terms of wear to the motion from frequent start-stop-reversals and boiler cycles of maybe only one day in steam at a time.


Keith

 

Sorry Keith - I was not getting at you, but your post seemed to highlight the theme of current posts which talk about where the loco could operate long before the more basic need to find funds to restore it in the first place.

I doubt that the comparison of costs between restoring 44123 and the two Ivatt's at Cranmore is valid. The latter were largely complete and had seemingly been well conserved under cover over the years. The poor old 4F on the other hand appears to have been rusting away in a dismantled state for several decades. I'm sure that restoration is feasable but at what cost and where are the funds to come from?

Peter

 

You did say 'pay' which implies a financial return. However, to address your intended comment, whilst there is a school of thought that the thermal cycle of putting a boiler into steam is detrimental to it from a fatigue aspect (and no doubt true) I don't think anyone has or can put a value to this. Most boilers that have been properly repaired will go the full period before a major strip down so we don't have a figure for a number of cycles between repairs and are unlikely to evolve such a figure.
As for wear on the valve gear, I would suggest that this is essentially proportionate to the number of wheel revolutions and the number of locomotive reversals has no noticeable effect on wear, and thus cost.

 

Thanks Steve, perhaps I didn't phrase my original message properly. Thanks also for your comments about boiler cycles and motion wear.


Keith

 

I think the comments being made here are somewhat unfair. If you look at what there is on their website it is clear that they are progressing with the tender and doing it to a high standard, albeit slowly, and collecting parts for the loco as well as looking after the loco to prevent further deterioration. It would seem to be being done on a shoestring, perhaps if all the assembled know-it-alls on here made some generous donations things would speed up! I hasten to add I have no connection with the project, just an interested observer.

 

Hi guys.

Seems there has been a lot of chit chat about 44123 in my absence.

I think I should clarify a few points.

Ownership is and always has been in the hands of the 18 or so people who paid for the engine back in 1982. These people have always been the legal owners of 44123.

The "current" LM Society, has nothing in common with the LM Society which was started in 1982, in a pup in Petersfield. hat was the winding up meeting of the Fowler 3f and 4f societies, and combined all the owned stock at that time, but the individual owners were always the owners. The LM Society was simply to promote the group and raise funds.

In 1985 we were invited to leave the MHR by JB, and his gang.

After looking around we settled on Bitton as our new home.

As time went by it became obvious that Mike would not help out on either of the two engines, and the resulting disputes split the group.

After Mike passed away, Jim gave me all the society records, which showed Mike had sold off several item of our groups stock, to avoid paying parking fees, to other Bitton members, without consulting the owners. This was contrary to the Sale of Goods Act, and the sums involved, a clear joke. LMS hand crane sold for £25!

Now I move on to the current situation.

44123's tender was scrapped, and a new one has been progressing at a snails pace for at least 10 years
The old LM Society [1982] Never had any AGM's after about 1986, so no officers were elected. The New LM Society [????] has not had and meetings of any kind, and offices were appointed by Mike. They invited owners to go to Bitton, but I advised them not to go as it would give them creditabillity.

That's is where we are.

I have a full list of owners and the persentages of shares owned. I am looking into various options, which I will be putting to the owners.

I hope that answers the questions about 44123.

As I know all the owners bar one, our former Chairman, who thinks he's still in charge. want to secure the engines future, and see it steam in thier lifetime. Bitton says 2030 is their target, which is a joke. all the owners will be dead by then, and the people working on the engine will be in their 60+, so unless we leave it to turn to rust at Bitton, we must find a new home, by giving it, or sellling it.

Just remember Bitton had 8F 48173, Sir Fred Pile, 3F 47324, 80XXX tank, and their own Black 5. All history
.

 

So that sorts out the ownership but whose actually working on the loco then?

 

The remains of Mike's group, about 5 or 6. who I know, but seem to think own 44123, which they clearly don't!

They seem to think the money they have put in, is more than the purchase price of the engine in 82, but there seem to be no accounts of what has been spent, other than made up bills to cover expences like petrol, and paint.

Remember the scrapping of the original tender shows as nothing in the books, which would have been several k.

This whole mess needs to be sorted, along with the illegal sale of rolling stock.

 

The question in my mind therefore is, if this is true, what are the owners planning to do about it? Steam engines are never going to make their owners rich and therefore surely ownership is about taking on responsibility for upkeep and, in this case, restoration. Then you can at least own something of benefit, rather than a hulk of rusting metal. If the owners are not the people to have entrusted the engine to the LM Society, and are unhappy about speed of progress etc., then what are you planning to do to improve matters, other than just having a row about who the legal owners are?

 

He said earlier, give or sell the loco ,to someone presumably able to restore it. It seems to me the LM society you refer to does not actually exist as a body.

 

So why not get on and do that? I know what was said earlier but this is hardly a situation that has just emerged - from what I can see this has been going on for years, if not decades. We're also only hearing one voice, who has alleges criminal offences have been committed by others (a serious matter which would amount to defamation if its untrue), and whose previous input on this site includes long rants about how the Mid Hants Railway has been ruined.

 

The problem is that nothing can be done until the question of LEGAL ownership is established and - once established - anything sold by the presumed owners - as against the legal owners - needs to be reclaimed. If I read the previous correctly one of the parties is now deceased and the evidence of written documentation is incomplete hence this sounds like an expensive mess to clear up with the locomotive potentially bearing the brunt of the pressure by being lost to preservation.

An unseemly mess and I hope the parties involved can come to some agreement without going to law - as that will take up sufficient funds to destroy the locomotive's future.

 

Surely it would only be theft if those parts were personally owned. If he was simply storing them and they were joint owned by the locomotive owners, or even this 4F society it would all be perfectly legitimate. And if his estate just wanted the metal off the property and donated it to the locomotive owners or a society that would be legitimate too. Judging by the apparent mess of ownership you allege, it may be that the estate wasn't that clear about who they were handing the parts over to, but if they didn't believe them to be part of the estate or just wanted out of the complications they probably didn't much care either.

It all sounds like the sort of horrible mess that makes our learned 'friends' rich at our expense. Moral: boring and hasslesome as the paperwork may be, its still wise to keep up with it.

 

There's no point discussing this with anonymous people on here who probably have no involvement at all and no basis to have an opinion. It's totally clear to me how a person can be getting on with their life in the belief that a loco is in good hands only to return to the scene after a long absence and find this isn't the case. Moves to remedy this are being made it seems,going to take a while I think.

 

I wouldn't even want to start guessing the intricacies of ownership - especially as record keeping all round seems less than ideal. From a purely outside but local to Bitton perspective, there does seem to be regular progress on 4123 from what is shown on their social media profiles - albeit horribly slow in terms of the overall picture of getting the thing finished 36 years after it was removed from Barry. At the current rate of progress 2030 looks optimistic - albeit maybe there is more done on the actual loco than meets the eye.

But then that seems to fit with an organisation that never really seems to know what its doing other than playing trains. There's no clear historical restoration strategy in terms of recreating a Midland line deep into GWR territory (although I suspect that possibly is part of the problem in that its the "wrong colour" for many around it. Reading the reports in the accounts is almost laughable in terms of seeing progress - the Avonside seems to have the same "we're getting there" theme every year - but with very little sign of movement on what is a pretty simple loco that has been under overhaul for around 20 years! It seems to survive on a range of hired in locos that it runs into the ground until their owners take them away for overhaul.

In theory as I drive past it every day to get to work it would be an ideal place to volunteer - however at present I'd be wary of touching it with the business end of a shunting pole!