60019 Bittern

All the info is in the members section of the Sir Nigel Gresley Loco Trust website. I'm sure there'll be a press release shortly though. Good news for everyone - SNG volunteers have another A4 to overhaul, keeping them busy before No. 7 needs another overhaul, and LSL get a loco overhauled without taking up space at Crewe (the boiler will be done there though). As most of the SNG overhaul team were north east based, it'll be handy having a base closer to home than Crewe.

 

The announcement for members does present it as benefitting everyone, and I think that is a far assessment.

 

It will be interesting to see where "somewhere in Yorkshire" proves to be! If I was forced to make a guess I think I would say CTL Seal.

 

It's not, it's LSL's own site in North Yorkshire. It's not rail connected either.

 

It's a good job I'm not a gambling man then!

 

Ctl seal wouldnt make much sense they are primarily fabricators and assemblers, Dis -assembly of a loco for cleaning and testing and fettling up just takes up room without actually requiring much by way of that kind of work....

 

..... but they might learn a lot from watching the re-assembly process (and gain machining work along the way). Also, I thought I'd read that CTL want to bring in more work, and as there aren't likely to be many more new-builds, gaining a foothold in the overhaul business would make sense.

 

Is bittern been fitted with 4472s old a4 boiler or the one it had

 

No, it does not carry that boiler. It still has the one it had when it was withdrawn from service by BR.

 

The A4 boiler won’t fit the Peppercorn A2 in any event. The diagram 107 boiler was only fitted to the A4s, A3s and Great Northern.

 

It’s a long time since I looked it up but the last time I did, Bittern was an A4.

 

I'm going mad in my old age Steve, I thought I was on the Blue Peter thread

 

Suggesting you're all at sea at the moment - perchance ?

 

I think discussion would be a lot easier had the LNER (1) not insisted on applying the same class name to different types (ahem - A1, A2) while at the same time (2) not applied three different class names to one type (A1, A3, A10…)

Tom

 

He's not - but I am

 

They didn't Tom. They were very consistant in their designation of different types - A=4-6-2, B=4-6-0, C=4-4-2, D=4-4-0 etc - what could be simpler? Certainly a much better designation system than any of the other "Big Four". After all how many As, A1s, A1xs etc did the Southern have?

Peter

 

It’s an interesting one because I’ve always found the LNERs dedicated method of classifying locomotives to be very logical (ie assigning a letter to a wheelbase arrangement and the number which follows normally given as the next development of that type).

I used to think A1, A3 and A4 could have been one class; after writing my book on Gresley I’m not so sure. There’s a lot more of the original W1 in the A4s design than was thought previously, for example.

 

Yes, but then they broke the system . Hence why the same loco number could be at various times an A1, A3 or A10; and locos of multiple generations were classed A1 and A2!

Tom

 

Don’t know what you are on about!

We all know this is what an A class looks like:



And this is the well-known Bulleid Q1





Tom

 

Only an A1 could become an A10 or an A3, an A3 as built was always an A3

Flying Scotsman was one such locomotive that was A1, then an A10, then an A3...