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Locomotives that NEARLY made it

Discussion in 'Steam Traction' started by Hicks19862, Apr 22, 2020.

  1. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    I do think the loss of the LSWR carriage in the Ropley fire was a great loss because as you say there are so few LSWR coaches. It is perhaps a coach that nearly made it.
     
  2. clinker

    clinker Member

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    No, I'm afraid that that is not what happened, As I understand it, the last Claud was a Gresley/Thompson re-build, as is the B12, so was not 0f interest to the National Collection, It had been withdrawn, but was in store, I imagine that Bill Harvey had it at Norwich. A group of enthusiasts, possibly Traction Enginemen, or maybe Model Engineers had shown interest but needed money, so the obvious man to ask was Alan Bloom, BUT Alan never had much interest in inside cylindered loco's, and Clauds were a possibly His least favourite class of His least favourite type, He went along to look but didn't feel sufficiently inspired so left it at that, and the Claud Hamiltons passed into history. I think that this is available in Alans own words in 'Steam at Bressingham.'
     
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  3. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    My father-in-law to this day regrets that his father didn't buy a DeHavilland Mosquito when he could have had one for a song at the time the RNZAF was scrapping them. Many farmers bought them for the engines, burning or dumping the rest.

    Tom
     
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  4. Hicks19862

    Hicks19862 Member

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    Well I certainly had my facts muddled. Thanks for clearing that up!
     
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  5. andrewshimmin

    andrewshimmin Well-Known Member

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    I can, and often have, waxed extremely lyrical on this topic of the relative underrepresentation of certain pre grouping companies. I've banged that drum on this thread and about half a dozen others for several years... The figures are all available.
    Surprisingly, the larger companies (LNW, Midland, pre-grouping standard gauge GWR) are quite badly represented.
    The Welsh companies are indeed badly represented, as the OP says.

    Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk
     
  6. Gareth

    Gareth New Member

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    The midland is an odd one, yes on paper there are 4/5 genuine Midland locos, but if you look at Jinties and 4f's that are Midland in all but name then there's over 20.
    I do wonder why the LNWR did so poorly, was it the locos themselves as i know the Super D is an "interesting" loco to crew.

    I mentioned on another thread a new build A class (Taff Vale or Rhymney) could be a good loco for most preserved lines (No I'm not suggesting another new build. At the moment anyway...)
     
  7. Matt37401

    Matt37401 Nat Pres stalwart

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    I never had you down as an internal combustion engine man Tom. Was there a Wainwright version we never heard about?! :);)
     
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  8. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    I think it is far more germane to ask "why did the Southern companies do so well for preserved steam?" rather than "why did the MR or LNWR do badly?"

    Locomotives are just depreciating assets for railway companies: build them, use them when the residual value has gone, replace with more modern assets. As a general rule, somewhere in the region of 30 years was a decent lifespan. Given that the last genuine pre-grouping loco was built in 1922 (*), then any such loco making it much beyond the early 1950s was already doing well. That is at least ten years before significant mainstream preservation got going. For an Edwardian loco to last long enough to stand a chance of saving at some point in the 1960s, it would already be more than 50 years old and probably at least twenty years past when it should have been scrapped. A Victorian loco would be into its sixties at least.

    Hence, for all the pre-grouping survivors, there is some quirk of history to explain why they got preserved at all. Generally, that is one of:

    - Very early museum preservation by enlightened railway companies or groups (Gladstone, NER Bouch 0-6-0; slightly later LSWR T3)
    - Sold to industrial service (LBSCR E1, Taff Vale O2)
    - An operational quirk meaning late survival by means of adaptation to a niche (Terriers at Hayling Island; O2s on the Isle of Wight; Beattie Well Tanks at Wenford Bridge; Adams Radial at Lyme Regis etc).

    All of those should be seen as exceptional. The normal situation was that pre-grouping locos were simply scrapped when they were worn out and replaced with more modern designs; the LMS and GWR being particularly assiduous at that.

    (*) a few were built to regrouping designs later than that)

    Tom
     
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  9. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    I make an exception for aero engines. But I can't abide those new fangled jets ;)

    Tom
     
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  10. clinker

    clinker Member

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    Tom makes a very vallied point regarding the ages of surviving locomotives being available for preservation. I remember reading many years ago in 'The Farmers Line' (Who can remember that magazine, No prizes but which line published it?) A letter that was very much a 'Crie De Couer' about what would be the folly of buying a locomotive 'That was already sixty years old, Just think in twenty years time We will be expecting passengers to rely on a locomotive that would be eighty years old'. His point being that there were Austerities available that were only twenty years old, which would be a much better buy. Needless to say this prophesy of gloom and doom was disregarded and although the line involved now has several Austerities, which are now seventy years old. Thankfully they went ahead with the purchase of the 'sixty year old loco' (which is now about One Hundred and ten years old.
     
  11. Jimc

    Jimc Part of the furniture

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    Isn't the answer to that simply that the Southern was investing as much as it possibly could into electric propulsion, and while the GWR were renewing their fleet with cheaper to run modern steam, the SR was renewing their fleet with cheaper to run electrics and carrying on with the best of the older locos?
     
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  12. johnofwessex

    johnofwessex Resident of Nat Pres

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    What line and what loco??
     
  13. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    Yes, that was my point - it is the large number of pre-grouping survivors of the Southern constituents that should be seen as exceptional, not the relative lack of those from the MR / LNWR etc - but frequently the question is asked the other way round. In other words, people ask "why did the LNWR do so badly?" when in fact they did about as well as you would expect: it is that the LSWR etc did very well.

    Tom
     
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  14. ghost

    ghost Part of the furniture

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    KESR I would guess. As to the loco - no idea, I would've said a Terrier, but the dates don't fit

    Keith
     
  15. torgormaig

    torgormaig Part of the furniture Friend

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    This one perhaps?
    mini_66-4-23 P.jpg

    Peter
     
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  16. John Petley

    John Petley Part of the furniture

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    LNWR and Midland I would agree with, but below is my off-the-top-of-my head list of pre-grouping GWR locos:
    2516
    2807
    2818
    2857
    2859
    2873 (admittedly in bits)
    2874
    3440/3717
    4003
    4247
    4248
    4253
    4270
    4277
    5322
    and perhaps one or two others I have forgotten!

    I would not therefore really regard the GWR as an under-represented company as far as pre-grouping locos although most of these are Churchward locos from the early 1900s. There's not much of the work of Dean or his predecessors
     
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  17. clinker

    clinker Member

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    Congratulations to Ghost and Torgormaig, You have both recieved the priceless prize of Congratulations from Me. The frightening thing to Me is how time flies, but even fifty years ago, when railway preservation had gained a foothold (although not on the mainline yet) that a member of a preservation society could have considered a P class to be somehow 'unworthy', He must have been a totally impracticle individual with no faith in His succesors. Mind You, if some-one had told Me the sort of restoration work that would be carried out nowadays I'd have wondered where He thought the skills were going to come from. Just as an aside, about the same time I saw an 8mm movie at a K&ESR AGM entitled 'Saved from the Scrap Line' about the rescue of the two USA tanks, does any-one know if it is still about? or better still available? (Sory about the thread drift)
     
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  18. toplight

    toplight Well-Known Member

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    I would love a steam roller or a Mosquito but people don't end up buying these things because of the practically of doing so. Where will you put it, how to pay for it, for what is just a toy. The council needed a steam roller to repair roads, my dad would have been buying it just to chuff around and have some fun, likewise a Mosquito.

    I think the biggest missing thing in Diesel preservation is none of the Midland Pullman trains being saved. Such an iconic and pioneering train, yet none preserved. They were only withdrawn in the early 1970s and some languished in Bristol until 1973 only being scrapped in 1974. They contained Asbestos which may partly be the reason. Why did nobody save one ?

    Well we have the same situation now with the HST. A iconic train where they are all being withdrawn and soon no doubt scrapping of them will start, but will I go out and buy one ? well of course I wont. Will anyone else ? Yet now you could pick and choose which one is best, get lots of spare parts easily etc. At least the NRM have obtained the first power car.

    In 30 to 50 years people will probably feel all nostalgic about them and think, why didn't someone buy one when they had the chance ?
     
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  19. MattA

    MattA Member

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    So what do people make of pre-grouping designs that were built to the same design e.g. N7 69621, the NNR's Y7, etc. (or lightly modified e.g. Southern S15s, LMS 4Fs, various GWR locos) after the grouping? Do you count them as pre-grouping engines? Or not? Or taken on a case-by-case basis?
     
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  20. torgormaig

    torgormaig Part of the furniture Friend

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    It is easy to look back at 1960s preservation through 21st century eyes. In the '60s a P Class was considered no more sexy in preservation terms than an austerity saddle tank and I can see where your correspondant was coming from. There was a lot to be said for a good austerity with loads of life left in it as opposed to a life expired P, which 556 was at that time.

    The fact that any of the Ps survived is one of the flukes of preservation. The Bluebell purchased two of them very early on and did so rather reluctantly as there was nothing else available at the time. More Terriers would have been preferred but they were still in everyday service (and in 1960 would remain so for another three years) whereas the Ps were surpless to requirement. In those embryonic days you did not set out to save clapped out wrecks for future use, rather you aimed for locos with some life left in them. You therefore, if possible, went for locos that were withdrawn as surplus rather than ones that were life expired. None of us in those days could have forseen what an outstanding success railway preservation would become.

    Peter
     

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