7027 Thornbury Castle

Can we also put the fallacy to bed that it is partly restored. Having recently seen the loco and parts at Loughboro, some parts (not all by some way) have been cleaned up and painted, a few components sourced and some further dismantling done at best! There is still an awful long way to go before it is partly restored.

 

I believe this survey has already been done.

 

There was also some work done at Tyseley in the 70’s to it.

 

I think it would be fair to say that there were very few locos in Barry with boilers in poor condition - 61264 was one but were there any others. Most were withdrawn with residual life in them, withdrawal being more down to the phasing out of steam than for poor condition

 

32424 uses a second hand boiler but everything else is pretty much new. Tom will know more than me.

The standard class 3 tank, NER 0-4-4 tank and GER 2-4-2 tanks are, as far as I know all new

 

It's surely a fair bit shorter than any Pacific.

 

What about the coupled wheelbase?

 

Indeed it is.

The 47 is 9'3 + 6'6 + 6'6 + 7' for 13' fixed, 20' semi fixed wheelbase, 56'9.75 overall wheelbase, 66'4.25 over buffers, weight 82T.
A Duchess is 7'6 + 5'6 + 7'3 + 7'3 + 9'6, 14'6 fixed wheelbase, 62'11 overall wheelbase, 73'10.25 over buffers, weight 105 tons.
The first P2 was 8'11 + 6'6 + 6'6 + 6'6 +9'6 , 19'6 fixed, 63'6 appx overall wheelbase, 73'8.5 over buffers, weight 110 tons.

 

42854 was another, I think but, as you say, most locos were in reasonable condition when withdrawn. It was only the loss of parts and the ravages of time that made them expensive options to restore.

 

42859?

 

Of course. I got four numbers right; 80% isn’t a bad score.

 

It's inevitable I think that parts will be used where available if doing so leads to a cost saving. On 'Beachy Head' that includes the boiler, tender underframe (from two separate donors) and parts of the braking system. I suspect few people are mourning the gronk that so valiantly donated an air brake triple valve of the correct pattern ... The regulator handle is also original from 32424: not a difficult part to manufacture (unlike, say, the triple valve) but a tangible link to the loco's past.

So it's a grey area, and one I suspect with a degree of tactical blindness on the part of many people looking at it: your wanton destruction of a historic artefact might be my sensible reuse of a component that would otherwise be unused. (Recently, the Bluebell sold some wheel sets that were the last physical remains of an unknown Class 40 to a group based on the Gloucester and Warwickshire to enable them to progress construction of a tender for 76077: I'm sure somewhere there is someone lamenting the fact that those wheelsets may one day have enabled a class 40 new build project ...)

The scorecard for me goes something along the lines:

• Can the parts realistically be used to reconstruct the original? If so, that is the best option. (But note the word "realistic": 40 years unloved being shuffled around from one siding to another is not a realistic overhaul prospect).
• If not, are they of the right type to progress a different project? (That could be a new build of closely-related type; or parts donor to an existing loco). If so, that is better than being scrapped. Beachy Head's boiler fits that niche: there was no realistic prospect of anyone building a new GNR Atlantic, or using the boiler to keep an existing one running, so using on a closely-related new build where it is of essentially the correct pattern is better than the alternative, which would have been scrapping. The class 40 wheel sets that have gone to 76077 would be in a similar category.
• Could they be repurposed to make an interesting display? Options there are probably limited but if, for example, you found a knackered component that had historical value but no realistic restoration potential, I'd prefer to see it converted to an educational display than scrapped. (It would be a reasonable task to take on, but next time an inside cylinder loco gets a new set of cylinders, sectioning the old ones for display could be very informative).
• If not, probably scrap.

The issue I have with some of the GWS projects is that they don't score well against that list: for example, the Castle boiler is the wrong pattern for the intended donor. Even worse, the 8F boiler is completely unsuitable for a County and has ended up donating very little of significance to the recipient. I can't help wondering if all that they actually wanted of value was the ID and some small fragment such as to not have to do the hard yards of certifying a new boiler design.

Tom

 

You are doing yourself down: I make it that you were 99.99% accurate ...

Tom

 

Here is Thornbury Castle.....returned to Quorn, from whence its latest restoration story on the GCR commenced three years ago (Feb 2020).


See P30, post #584

 

One for the Thompson thread but it’s definitely not an A1/1…!

A1 is fine, Tornado is not different enough to the other A1s to warrant a sub classification. She's setup virtually identically to the roller bearing examples albeit with an all steel welded boiler diagram 118b rather than the steel/copper version of the diagram 118. Obvious small changes including height of chimney/shape of cab roof and the tender tank (coal/water ratio).

Truth be told, the new P2 is more likely to warrant a sub class as it's using a different boiler (albeit, a design based on the original P2 boilers), making it P2/4. However again, in reality the differences are minimal enough that utilising P2/1 is probably still reasonable (as it's based on Cock O' The North rather than Earl Marischal (P2/2) or Mons Meg/Lord President/Thane of Fife (P2/2) or Wolf of Badenoch P2/3)).