Bulleid Pacifics - Past or Present

My comments in red

 

I'm pretty sure that Taw Valley's replacement cylinder was the outside left?

Keith

 

twr12,

Thanks for this - I suppose it's inevitable to think about using 34073 as a kit of parts for this sort of fantasy steam railway. A shame, as it would be lovely to see it run again in it's own right. And I always thought that the full raved tenders were much more elegant- especially the few that lasted long enough to get the later emblem.

But in principle it's good news that there are no good engineering reasons that it couldn't be done (lack of cash not counting as an engineering issue!). Do you agree with Class8Mikado's guesstimate of £2 - £2.5m? (And I'm not clear if you have to buy your own MN as well, or whether this would include buying one of the unrestored MNs.)

Tobbes

 

Apparently the new outside cylinder for 73096 was about £35k for the casting and basic machining. Add to that the cost of detail machining.
So, A MN inside cyl would cost, what? Twice that? Its not twice the work, but say £80k to be sure.
And the drawings are in the custody of the Bulleid Pacfic Loco Owners Association (or whatever its called)
Although you would have to buy a MN to begin with, at least you would already have: frames, wheels, axleboxes, bogie, bissel, brake cylinders, coupling & con rods. None of which the A1ST had to start with.

 

Deleted

 

There was rumour a year or so ago in The Railway Magazine about an as built Merchant being built in Eastleigh but nothing more was heard about it afterwards. Or was that what you were refering to

 

Has anybody thought about just adding the air smooth streamline casing to a rebuilt Merchant Navy? Doing this you would have the original appearance of an MN, but one with all the rebuilt feature. Just like adding a body kit to a car!
Benny

 

But a rebuilt has wiggly bits on the outside and no Bulleid lover would want this!

 

We Bulleid fans don't want an MN partial look-a-like, we want the real McCoy.

 

Its been done with a Duchess so why not a Bulleid? Then we can have a complete set of "Air Smoothed" locos at York.

 

Just checking.......is the suggestion to have an air-smoothed MN with outside valve gear? The words "dog" and "breakfast" spring to mind.

 

No, as built...

 

Restreamlining the Duchess was a somewhat simpler task than recreating an air smoothed MN.

 

But 6229 was only cosmetic - the mechanical configuration didn't need to be changed.

Playing devil's advocate, would 'un-rebuilding' an MN be detremental to reliability for main-line running? Discussion on the Flying Scotsman thread suggests that it is logical to run the locomotive in the most efficient and reliable set up possible - and that the NRM retro-fitting the single chimney to FS they would be effectively shooting themselves in the foot with regards to mainline operation.

Does a similar attitude apply to the MN? I guess the answer in part depends on how much more successful the rebuilds were considered to be, if at all?

Just to clarify, I am not suggesting that original Bulleids are inferior performers, nor that the likes of 34067 are unreliable!

 

Correct - a rebuilt MN with the casing of the originals would make the argument over Scotsman running in Apple Green with twin Kylchap and deflectors seem like small beer in comparison.

My question - and it is only a question, as I don't have the £1.5m+ to make it happen - is if we got a group together to pull this off, would their actually be enough work for it to clean its nose financially? Only MNLPS seem to have consistently made it work on the big railway, and I take my hat off to their 40+ years of professionalism: assuming that you would do an unrebuilt to Main Line spec, would an original be sufficiently interesting to claim enough charter work to pay for its' 7 yearly overhauls? There's only one VSOE contract out there!

Tobbes

 

Quote Originally Posted by spindizzy View Post
Its been done with a Duchess so why not a Bulleid? Then we can have a complete set of "Air Smoothed" locos at York.

Ok i know I have made a bit of a sweeping statement and I realise there is a huge amount of work involved in getting a MN back to original condition. But how many people thought that they would see a bath tub again, and yet now there is one. To get the three streamlined locomotives at York or better still out on the main line would be quite a sight.

 

Spin,

No-one underestimates the work in getting 6229 restreamlined - from the new smokebox to working out how the whole thing went together. And it looks great, which I was pleasantly surprised by. (Not a patch on an air-smoothed MN, of course...!)

And yes, an air-smoothed MN, 6229 and an A4 with full valences on the mainline would be astonishing. Can't see the GWR mafia rushing to repeat their streamlining efforts, however....

Tobbes

 

I've just edited my post to reflect what I meant to say

 

I think so. Suffice to say, I was at the Eastleigh Works bash, and saw neither hide nor hair of such a project!

 

I think the performances of 34067 and 34092 on the main line answer the question regarding reliability so there is no reason to suggest that an original MN would be any different.