How well represented the different railway companies are in preservation

Regarding different types, we have had a previous discussion on te. topic: http://www.national-preservation.com/posts/1408727/
The outcome of that was the following:

 

Another way of looking at this might be what omissions have the biggest impact today. A Beyer Peacock tank from the Isle of Wight Central Railway and something from the M&GNR for the North Norfolk would be interesting.

 

I'm pretty shocked that the NER doesn't even make it onto the original list of pre-grouping companies, given it was huge!

The S&D isn't a separate company, being the Stockton and Darlington, it became part of the NER. If your on about the S&DJR then that needs to be listed as such - its never been the S&D and its more than frustrating when people go on about this line with such reverence. Personally I think its nowt compared with Stainmore...

However.

The figures on this will prove interesting, although to then factor them into engines that are conserved (plinthed), preserved (stored) and operational would also give interesting results for comparison. This will also hit on the way that preservation and its movement panned out. Barry (which is much documented) was the saving grace for a lot of motive power now in use in preservation, but it will also skew the results you eventually compile and compare.

Another interesting note will be that the NER was already preserving their own locomotives and stock, which is why then then NRM was started fewer late NER engines were saved than you might expect as the LNER had to recommend engines from other areas to balance numbers. If that were not the case I would think more such as the J21, Q6 would have slipped into the National Collection via the for running LNER museum, but the latter was put together more on something close to a quota rather than merit.

Hope that's of help as this could prove interesting to follow.

 

I'm still unsure what your 13 LNER locos are.
Undoubtedly 6 x A4, 1 x B1, 1 x K4, 1 x D49, 1 x V2, 1 x Y1 = 11
Then we have examples of constituent designs built after grouping: 1 x A3, 1 x Y7
Then we have LNER/constituent designs built after Nationalisation*: 1 x A1, 1 x A2, 1 x B1, 1 x K1, 1x J72
(*in one case rather a long time after)
Then we have a pair of original J94s and at least one S160 which ran on the LNER.
I have probably missed some. What actually counts?

 

For transparency, there is the full pre-grouping table of numbers:


This results in the following "proportions":


The the "top ten" worst represented are as follows:

Taking total number preserved:


Taking the "core era" only, i.e. excluding very early locos and locos built after grouping to pre-grouping designs:


Including those built after grouping, but excluding the very early locos:


Notes as to what is included, excluded, etc., in the first table.

Main conclusions on railways badly represented:
- Barry, Cambrian, Rhymney and Midland & Great Northern have no preserved locos at all.
- GCR, LNWR, NBR, Caley and GSWR in particular very badly represented.
- Ignoring very early locos the Furness also has no preserved locos from the "core era" and the LNWR is even worse represented.
- Ignoring locos built post grouping, the Midland is also badly represented.
And on the positive side:
- Smaller companies do relatively well with even one or two locos preserved (SDJR, NLR, TVR, NSR, Highland, GNSR)
- Including the early locos, the Furness does well for a small company.

Considering the companies absorbed by each of the Big Four, the Southern-absorbed companies are much better represented than any of the others (noting that the LBSCR is skewed by the large number of Terriers). Interestingly despite the NER/LNER museum, the LNER-absorbed companies on average do slightly-worse than the LMS-absorbed companies. The GWR constituents do worst, although that story is complicated by lack of a clean break at grouping.

 

On the GWR group the 45XX should be taken off as the three preserved ones were built in 1924. Also you are missing the 42XX class X 5. See the other topic for the other 4 missing preserved South Wales group engines from this list..

Looking again you are causing confusion with the words core and number preserved, as if you include the LMS 3F T a modified design engine with the MR 3F T, in the number preserved you should include the GWR 4575, 2884, 5205, 48XX (14XX), 58XX, 16XX , 57XX, 7750, 72XX, 64XX and 74XX as all these classes are as close related (modernised) to the pre 1922 GWR classes as the MR and LMS 3F T are to each other.

 

To further complicate things though the two preserved S&D locos are identical, BUT 4F's & Jinties that both ran on the line in the days when it had its own loco fleet ARE preserved as is the Sentinel 'Joyce' at Midsomer Norton which while it is ex Croydon Gasworks is to the same design as those supplied to the S&D.................

Takes pedant hat off....................

 

See the other topic for the other 4 missing preserved South Wales group engines from this list..

GWR 813 ( PTR 28) ?

 

The long lasting nature of the Churchward 8 coupled classes does rather distort the list. Early standard 2-6-2s and 4-6-0s seem to have been largely end of life by the late 50s, and I think only one was preserved (Lode Star) but the 8 coupled locomotives didn't really start to go until 1958/9, so many survived into the Barry era. If you exclude those the GWR list looks very thin indeed. Its striking, for instance, that the GWS has only two GWR designed/built pre grouping locomotives.

A division at pre World War 1 might be interesting, but one can go on adding categories indefinitely, and what we have above is a good piece of work and does the job.

 

And not forgetting the three GCR 8Ks (well, RODs) in Australia, two of which were built at Gorton.

 

The elephant in the room for the GWR is the lack (for obvious reasons) of Broad Gauge in preservation - one, arguably two originals, of which one (Tiny) is decidely atypical; and the other (North Star) is decidedly early. At least there have been new builds to part-fill the gap.

Given a bit of WIBN-ery about seeing where new builds might fill significant gaps in preservation; and assuming that a standard gauge loco has more chance of success and running than a broad gauge one, a GWR 0-6-0ST convertible, running as standard gauge but showing ancestry to a broad gauge loco would see me much more likely to extract wallet than yet another 20th century 4-6-0 ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GWR_1...ce_20_May_1892_(1256_and_3557)_20-05-1892.jpg and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GWR_1076_Class#/media/File:Hakin_Docks_Station.jpg

Tom

 

If a group intended to have a sustained go at pre Churchward GWR locomotives the Stella group might be interesting: 3201 2-4-0, 2361 0-6-0, 3501 2-4-0T and 1661 0-6-0S/PT. All double framed, fitted with P class (Dean Goods/5700) boilers, the same cylinders and motion and 5ft 2in wheels. The only issue is that the 2-4-0T had a very short life before being converted to tender engines and the 0-6-0S/PT don't seem to have been well regarded (a good number were sold off, some returning at the grouping!).

Some of the 2-4-0s did indeed start life on the broad gauge.

http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrwe2848.htm
http://www.gwr813.org/Cardiff31.htm

 

Two out of four not bad, GWR 1378 Margaret was sold in 1910 so didn't form part of big four GWR, BP&GVR No2 Pontyberem was sold in 1914 before this railway become part of the GWR so never on the GWR book.

So the four are with the three so far listed first.
PTR 26 GWR 813 sold 1934
Cardiff No 5 GWR 1338 the only non GWR engine to be sold by BR into preservation.
ADR Trojan GWR 1340 sold 1934

And the missing one.

P&M 6 GWR 921 sold 1928

 

Thanks everyone for your comments. A few remarks from me:
1. GWR minor constituents were left out because I generally didn't include railway with less than 100 locos at grouping (a couple with 99 were included, and SDJR for interest).. However, having even a single preserved loco, given their small fleet size, will catapult these lines into "well represented" territory.
2. GWR preserved pre-grouping numbers: always going to be an oddball, due to long effectively continuous Swindon legacy of loco design from before the end of the broad gauge until after nationalisation. I'm afraid I rushed this one as a result, and made some errors (some are in notes but not in numbers) - if anyone will hazard better numbers, happy to use them. Doubt it will change much in terms of headlines.
3. I detached a couple of late acquisitions from their parents (NLR and LTSR), may have got the numbers wrong.
4. Locos built to pre-group designs after grouping: always going to be difficult. It mainly affects LSWR (S15 and N15) which is well represented anyway, GWR (fairly well represented anyway) and Midland (makes a huge difference if LMS Jinties and 4F included). As to new class/same class, each case is different and debatable, hence why I did all the totals and rankings with and without. The Midland is the key here: without them shockingly badly represented (especially since M&GN and S&DJR were effectively extensions of Midland loco).

As to which "representation" numbers are most important/significant (with/without early or later locos), that is down to personal opinion.

I am, however, surprised at much discussion of GWR, but none of the lines with bad representation: is this because they have few fans in the preservation world? If so, which way does the causality go?

 

New Build! New Build! New Build!

Tom

 

If you're going to go that far back with the GWR, don't forget (what's left of) OW&W 34/GWR 252.

 

also of course Tiny was originally SDR rather than GWR - although as with many of the SW railways you can argue about how much they were ever outside the Swindon orbit.