Churchward County Project

"the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk" (with apologies to GWF Hegel)

(Ironically Minerva was a LNWR Prince of Wales)

 

.... "Owl" was a South Devon Rly broad gauge 0-4-0WT loco way back when ...... and the name now graces a 15" gauge loco at Kirklees.

 

I believe that the Minerva Class was also a precursor to the LSWR Beattie Well tanks according to wiki.

 

Fitted with a hooter?

Paul H

 

It should be - Kirklees market themselves strongly to families and the kiddies would love it!

 

The South Devon loco may be an 0-4-0WT but the Kirklees loco is a 2-whit-2 I believe ...

Tom (here all week folks...)

 

Why WASN'T there a 'Minerva' on the GWR broad gauge? Was there a page missing from Daniel Gooch's classical encyclopedia?

 

Dead right. A "Caeser" class 0-6-0 (or "Ariadne" or "Caliph" class - could anyone clarify please? All three names get a mention!).

I rather like the "Hawthorn" class 2-4-0 name "Slaughter", but that's probably just me! In any event, they renamed it "Avonside" ..... though this probably just reflected Slaughter, Grüning Company being rebranded on registration under the new Companies Act.

(There was a ward at the Royal Sussex County Hospital named to commemorate one Solomon Defflis, habitually know to all as 'Defflis'. It was renamed 'Solomon Ward' in the early 1990's after some old biddy got her knickers in a twist when she thought she was told hubby was on the 'death list'!)

 

It could be that no-one felt the Goddess of War was a suitable source of a locomotive name. Or was William Martley the only one at Swindon with a sense of humour which he took with him to Longhedge.

Thinking more about it, a witty name is is a better reason for a newbuild than some which have been put forward. Martley's stuff went well and would be about the right size for a tourist line also. Anybody want to build a "Harpy" or an "Enigma"?

PH

 

Quite right, I just took the previous posts at face value and assumed there wasn't one.

"Minerva" was a Standard Goods 0-6-0 (originally of the Ariadne class though later on all the goods 0-6-0s of varying dimensions were lumped together as the Caesar class. Caliph was a later loco of the series and the Standard Goods locos were at some point also referred to by that name).

 

Good news! The trust has 3840's first component, a vaccum brake control valve. More info on the valve here: http://www.churchwardcounty.org.uk/2018/02/01/first-new-component-for-county-of-montgomery/

 

Makes a change from a smokebox door I suppose.

PH

 

271 with 258 crossed out?

 

It doesn't appear to be "new" to me"!

 

Ejector number not loco number.

 

It all makes you wonder what if anything "we" are collectively preserving. Is this a preservation movement (which would imply museum type approach to me) or are we a "re-creation" movement. They're not mutually exclusive of course, but I too really worry when the "re-creation" activities change, modify or destroy the ability to "preserve" an original artifact. That can't be "wise" to reply to an early question.

 

i think Preservation is a mis-nomer as it's turned out. What is being done is just another phase of the story of Railways. It's Evolution if you like. So long as a few locos and artifacts are kept Preserved by Museums to tell the story, then it hardly matters whether original locos are used and rebuilt as necessary or new locos built, they'll all turn out much the same in 50 years time, well-loved old machines.
What I'm not keen on is the way some Railways are moving towards being Tourist Attractions first and Preservation Societies second.

 

Whilst agreeing with you to a very large extent, this point has been at the nub of everything since (at least) the preservation era Ffesterbahn's first rebuild of "Merddin Emrys" over 50 years ago, which led to the formation of the FR Heritage Group.

So what is the difference between a 'preserved' and a 'heritage' line? With new-builds galore, it's not even possible to describe many locations as purely 'working museums' and keep a straight face.

If individual lines can't agree on a common definition of what they're about, I'd suggest that the rest of us haven't got a hope in hell!

The last stop on my rambling is to note that living languages evolve and ours is currently doing so at a rate of knots as, for the vast bulk of English speakers worldwide, ours is not their first language. It's a demonstrable fact that the definition of (most noticably) many adjectives is a lot more fluid than most think and always has been. Even if we could all agree on one phrase, let alone one word describing what our railways are about, you can guarantee that would itself become contentious in fairly short order.

For so long as I can still get a cup of tea when I ask for a cup of tea, my blood pressure will remain within acceptable parameters.

 

I think I have to agree with Paul Hitch on the argument that they should be classed more as tourist railways. There are not many that you could call "Preserved" by the definition. Maybe Tourist railways running heritage stock.

But running them 100% as they were, aka a full preserved set-up, and you wouldn't survive long. You need to find the extra income streams to keep the quantity of railways open that we have in the UK.

 

Correct, Gav 106, running one exactly as it was, with either a two coach push pull or a two car DMU, wouldn’t have the capacity. Also, the very basic facilities at small stations wouldn’t appeal either