7027 Thornbury Castle

Sure they will consider any half reasonable offer for the loco. minus its boiler.
Suspect for the whole thing less consideration will be given to anything that doesn't advance the 47xx boiler fund 'considerably'
Does 47xx already have a Tender?

 

Well indeed, that is how you would game it...

 

Anyone would think there was a potentially extremely fractious AGM coming up...

Reading that rather ambiguous statement, hang on, so its the GWS buying her now?

 

I suspect there is one knocking about at Didcot that could be used. The one with Thornbury is a Hawksworth one so would not be historically accurate.

 

That surely has to be the big advantage of Didcot, that things like tenders can be treated as per steam days, and swapped as required between engines? (Albeit maybe people will be a little chary of lending stuff to this group after recent events)

 

When’s that ever stopped them?

Tom

 

Thats it then, 6 months for people to put their money where their mouth is!!

 

Absolutely, this is exactly why I said at the start of all this about getting something off the ground as a back up plan.... A precious month gone so time is of the essence for this golden opportunity.

 

Reading between the lines, there are two things I think are interesting in the article.

The first is that the GWS essentially soliciting offers for Thornbury Castle. So despite earlier protestations, that is as clear an admission as you can get that they own it, i.e. it is absolutely a GWS issue, not some separate group nothing to do with the GWS.

The second point:

Clive Hetherington, Chief Executive of the Great Western Society has said that the board will hold the parts of 7027 Thornbury Castle that are in good condition for the next 6 months.

In this time, the society will consider offers from properly funded groups for all or parts of 7027 Thornbury Castle, which could enable a rebuild of Thornbury Castle if viable.
​

So what happens if there is no credible offer after six months? I think the board have wedged themselves between a rock and a hard place - will we really get the board of the GWS being responsible for saying "we tried, no offers forthcoming, we are going to cut up an example of a late-model Castle". Or - more likely - will they have to find a face-saving way to dump it in the undergrowth?

I get the fact that if you are trying to see some movement, you need a deadline - you can't just say "we are open to offers" but with no real push for resolution. But putting on the deadline does force you to ask the question about what happens if no offer arises. Or - suppose they get two offers, one from a heritage railway with good credentials offering them a nominal £1; and one from a scrap man offering the scrap value? Would you rather be responsible as the board that consigned it to scrap, or the board that bought a locomotive using charitable funds and then later sold it on for less than they originally paid?

Tom

 

Tom, I know you have problems telling GW engines apart but 7027 is a Castle not a Hall as you alluded to in the second paragraph of your post, I understand where your coming from though as ‘don’t all Western engines look the same’

 

The statement doesn’t commit GWS to any particular course of action after 6 months. Only that the parts won’t be used for the 47xx or otherwise disposed of within that time.

“will consider offers from properly funded groups for all or parts of 7027 Thornbury Castle, which could enable a rebuild of Thornbury Castle if viable” is a pretty vague statement but at least it confirms that a sale of 7027 including boiler, is not ruled out.

 

I think the other interesting thing is that they have apparently rebuilt her as a Hall??

 

There is no statement on whether the 4709 group are retaining the boiler and the rest of the locomotive is being sold. I think that clarification needs to be made before any group puts forward a plan to purchase.

 

Indeed, so to me it seems now is the time for less who said/did what and going round in all the same circles as the last 60 pages and more forward planning. 6 months is a short time but what an opportunity.

 

To my mind “all or parts of 7027” clearly means offers for the whole loco, including boiler, may be considered.

 

Oops! Having said that - we are several Halls down due to various conversions. How much work would it be to use the residual parts from 7027 to recreate one of the “lost” Halls? Surely could be sketched out in the space remaining on the GWS fag packet?

Tom

 

As 4709 will have a value, and charity law applies to asset disposals (think of interminable discussions on the WSR thread...), there will be an effective floor on any offer they wish to consider of at least the amount paid for 7027. At that, presumably not cheap, value, this also leaves the option firmly open to say that no viable offers of sufficient value were received, which would give licence to the 4709 mob to carry on as before.

Possibly, though I'd also suggest that any bid would need to be very clear as to what was included, and not. The availability of a parts list will be a good indication of the credibility of the sale offer.

 

Let's hope so, because then we should see a statement from the 4709 regarding the boiler's use in due course.

 

One suspects that the 4709 group currently have sore knuckles and will be rather more careful with their press releases.