Current and Proposed New-Builds

Is it just me, or does this thread have a tendency to gravitate towards LNER big stuff?

 

That cap fits though doesn't it...

 

Given that LNER large locomotives are woefully under-represented compared to ex-SR and GWR locomotives, is it any surprise? I mean - one V2, one A3, four A4s, one A2. And not all of those will run in the future - by my reckoning, three (2x A4, 1x V2). I'm not counting Tornado as it's a new build. Now, how many Bulleid Pacifics, how many GWR 4-6-0s by comparison?

 

Are you pedant-fishing here?

 

Only two Princesses and three Duchesses, one of which has never run in preservation. two Scots, four Jubilees, no Patriots (Unknown Warrior is new build, using the same criteria of Tornado),

 

*Cough* black fives *cough*

 

No shortage of Black 5s and 8fs though

 

One less 8F following 48518. You can never have too many Black 5s and 8Fs anyway..... Bit of a lack of WD 2-8-0s though

 

No - I'm talking about engines with a UK base. Yes, I know there's six A4s but within the next year or two, there will only be two runners.

Apologies for omitting the B1s.

 

Quite. A Black 5 is hardly a small loco.

 

Take cylinders, motion, axles boiler. New frames wheels tanks cab bunker .. Lovely job. Honest guv. You

Something I've mused over but only if I kept it non mainline. Less expense and would look good at gcr.

 

I think if anything this shows how much BS the 'only interested in big engines' accusation is. The selection of locos available reflects an almost random pattern scrapping and preservation. We have tons of Bullied Pacifics, a few S15s, but only one LN, one KA, no K, a Q, a Q1 and 2 M7s, a fair few Terriers but no Z etc. We have halls, manors, castles, prairies and panniers, but no County, Grange, moguls are fewer and only one working tender 0-6-0. Lots of Black 5s, but only 5 LMS pacifics, 3 crabs in theory but 1 in reality, and so on and so forth. There are massive gaps in the collection for every railway company where any number of locos would fill a historical gap in telling the story of locomotive development, or because the loco would be ideally suited and historically appropriate to a line or region.

 

The livery debate is the most subjective, biased and stubborn debate we have in railways.

Apple green remains a personal favourite livery of course - as a self confessed LNER enthusiast - but the BR dark green reminds me of holding my father’s hand as a five year old in happier times on a station platform in Wales, gazing up at what I thought was the most beautiful sight in the world. The first steam locomotive I ever saw, and her number was 60103 and her name was Flying Scotsman.

Forgive me, but sometimes even a dreary livery can look bright and shiny when viewed through the rose tinted lens of a child’s memories.

 

Three LNER 4-6-0s vs how many SR,GWR or LMS 4-6-0s. It is not as if the LNER didn’t have any.

 

Really you do have issues of things like the Ivatt and Riddles designs later on. The 2-6-0/2-6-2t design was ideally suited to replace many of the older designs that still lurked around in hidden corners, regional and branch lines and a lot of the pre-grouping/grouping tanks would vanish in steady numbers as a result. The "big issue" seems to be the inability to quite eliminate the express engines of the Big Four as design-wise the Standards never seemed to quite manage it.

 

you've got the measure of me, then!
First locomotive I remember seeing was the VoR tanks in BR rail blue in 1974. It would take some very rosy specs to want that re-created.

 

Perhaps you could say that most regions skipped the standards replacing the express engines as they ended up being replaced by diesels.

Although, ironically, there are not that many br standards preserved really ie no 77xxx, 82xxx, 84xxx

 

Oh a REALLY big Castle then?!

 

I recall being fascinated by them upon seeing them in my 1974 Locoshed book.

I would travel to see one!

 

Ahh, but imagine if your first steam locomotive experience was 4472 in the most splendid apple green, just as it was for a certain small boy in Australia.....

I look at her now and think, "Of all the greens on God's green earth, WHY?!!"