7027 Thornbury Castle

There is an interesting article in the latest Trackside magazine about the "County" 4-4-0 project which also highlights the various projects that the GWS have already succeeded in achieving. In many cases they have repurposed parts from other locomotives. I do wonder if part of the problem here is that the boiler is from a "prestige" Castle and is going on a "humble" freight engine. Would it have raised quite as much angst if it were the other way round?
(I do also accept the argument that it is not quite the correct boiler, but the vast majority of people will not notice any difference in the appearance).
It would appear that the County project is also at arms length from the GWS.

 

Ask any LNER enthusiast how they felt about the only remaining Doncaster built 8F being broken up for spares.

 

This LMS enthusiast wasn't happy about it either

 

It’s just another 8F, why does it matter where it was built, after a few overhauls it will have a lot of non original parts, including the boiler

 

That's an interesting point. Was that particular boiler built in Doncaster?

 

I suspect I'd feel better disposed to the GWS/4709 if it were facilitating a real 47xx, rather than having tthe wrong boiler - the same is true for the 10xx County-that-sn't-quite.

 

The rationale for using the 8f boiler was to save money over a brand new boiler, but once they knew how much of it they would need to replace, and therefore how little money they would save while getting only a 225 psi boiler, they should have bitten the bullet and planned for a new one after all. Whether the 8f might ever have been restored in its own right is an open question. The boiler would still have needed a lot of patching up.

 

The point now, is that what is left of the 8f is scattered to the four winds, had everything except the scrapped frames and hybridised boiler been 'stored' safely then a finer engineer than it would apear that anyone in the home counties west of London can find 'Could' recreate the 8f.

 

The same can be said about Thornbury Castle. It's just another Castle etc........

 

It is just another Castle that would have been overhauled, done its 10 years service and then dumped awaiting funds. Having said that it’s a pity that the restoration wasn’t completed in view of the work already done. For the record 48518’s boiler was its fourth, Crewe built no 10499 fitted at a heavy intermediate overhaul in 1959

 

8Fs were one of the few locos I do remember seeing at work on BR. 48518 should not have gone in the scrap parts bin

 

So taking (a few good bits of) the boiler for the County did not in itself make much difference to the possibility of restoring a Doncaster-built 8f. This does not mean that I think the GWS did the right thing. I agree that what comes out will be a County lookalike, only about as powerful as a Hall.

 

The alternative was probably for it to remain as an unrestored pile of scrap for decades.

 

the potential to restore it would still be there though, as it would still exist

 

Well once the boiler is gone, you've made any future restoration an awful lot harder and vastly more expensive with speccing materials, getting various approvals for a new build boiler never mind the actual cost of building it!

 

One could argue that 35028 is 'just another MN'
You also have no evidence to suggest that once restored 7027 would have been dumped at the end of 10 years.

 

John, I’m a bit disappointed in that response.

It matters because the Doncaster built 8Fs represented one of the railway’s war success stories, which was cooperation and determination on the part of the various works to support the war effort.

The Doncaster built 8Fs, and the Brighton ones, were part of this effort. Doncaster works had given over nearly ninety percent of their foundry capacity over to munitions and other tech for the war effort: the fact they managed to turn out so many 8Fs was frankly remarkable.

I know that it’s fashionable to think of locomotive types originating on other railways as something very tribal, but the cooperation of the big four undoubtedly did much good for Britain, and the Doncaster 8F represented a part of that.

If I had the experiences I’ve had now when the 8F was being mooted for losing its boiler, I would have said and done something at the time.

Unfortunately it’s too late to save the 8F. A big opportunity missed.

 

Strong disagree. The problem was that the provenance of the 8F wasn’t widely known and (IMO) the use of the boiler became something of a fait accomplis. Echoes of todays story with Thornbury frankly.

 

This LNER enthusiast is wondering what makes a Doncaster 8-built 8F of any real significance - was it different in any way to other 8Fs? Personally speaking, I don't think it was worth getting over-excited about, it wasn't recognisable in any way, shape or form as a product of Doncaster, even if it was! .

This might be a statement worthy of consideration if it was clearer just what work had been done. As far as I can tell, what was done was mostly inexpensive but labour absorbing work - dismantling and cleaning and painting of parts. I don't see much evidence of purchase of many missing items apart from some unmachined rod forgings and perhaps a tender tank. Some groundwork had been done but the vast majority of the time and expense needed to complete it lay in the future.

More useful engines - eg a large prairie and Std 4 2-6-0 were cut up at Barry and mostly lost for good well into the preservation era with a lot less fuss.

 

But if we take your position that a locomotive's pre-preservation identity is essentially meaningless considering swapping of parts etc. (a position I don't entirely agree with) then what connection to Doncaster can we say for sure 48518 had?