Issue 112 - Wilcock's Thin Red Line article on 4 A4s line up

I'm not going to address every point you make Ross and neither am I going to defend the NRM’s pricing policy….

The fact remains… if you want something badly enough, one way or another, you will get it….
Slaging the NRM off on a public forum wont make it any cheaper or make the “product” any more appealing to you.

 

And your point is ..............

Sorry - when an organisation miscalculates as badly as this then they must be prepared for the response.

One staff member at the NRM participates in this forum. One would hope that he has drawn this thread to the attention of his managers for a formal response to the more reasoned points that have appeared on here.

The way to avoid being "slagged off" is not to make silly decisions in the first place.

I would think that if £10 - £15 a head with proper event management to permit viewing and photography on a conveyor belt system and there would have been none of this - but this price excludes couples and families alike and sits very uncomfortably with the NRM's principal duty which is to educate, not exclude!

 

As stated a few posts above Frank....

 

Do not take silence for not listening, but I am only a small part of a big organisation and also a curator rather than part of the commercial team. Nevertheless, people are aware of this and the other thread.

 

Thanks Anthony - given your employee status I can't ask for more than that!

But my disgust at your employer's commercial decision is unfathomable

 

Whatever my thoughts about the pricing, am I the only one who read the article and thought there's a journalist throwing the teddies because just possibly he asked for a free press-pass and was knocked back? Whether this happened or not the man writes like a small angry child at times and some of you lot are rising to the bait admirably. To put it simply, if you don't like the presentation or the content on offer or have a moral problem with charging, vote with your feet, go somewhere else, support something you really care about elsewhere. There'll be enough people at the bunfight and probably some mag will have a poster so save your blood pressure and do something better with your time.

 

I know it wouldn't change anything(I did say that in the post but oh well) and I know if I wanted it enough I'd go. But when there are empolyees of the Museum on here I would at least like to think that at least some of the opinion is listianed to even if it wasn't mine. I'm not the only one complaining am I?

I think I'll just purchase a poster or simillar afterwards from the NRM shop. I'd much rather spend a fiver on a decent shot of the lineup then 32.50 on me getting rubbish shots!

Anyway there is no point in me winging on every single thread! I think I've made my opinion heard now!

 

Just playing devil's advocate here, but surely the space availabel to allow people into the area where the A4's will be lined up is a bit restricted i.e. the track immediately in front of the workshop annexe. The premium price would reflect ont he fact that it will be difficult to get large quantities of people in there in the first place.

Regards,

Dan

 

Haven't they got to get a trainload of people into that very small area for free, (i.e. they have paid the train fare)?

 

I really can't see what the fuss is.

I would pay over £100 to see all 4 A4s together and the bonus is that three of them work!

£32.50 is not even anywhere near the cost of a decent run on the mainline these days and is nearing the cost of a good day out on a preserved railway.

To witness such a historic occassion makes the price of the venue worth it alone.

£32.50 is a cheap price to pay for history!

 

And there speaks the voice of the single man

 

With all the fuss about the 3 A4 line-up, I'm surprised no-one has commented on the other A4 related part of David Wilcock's column this month, his efforts to get 60008 and 60010 repatriated. I'm assuming that a jfreelance ournalist's income is probably not going to suffice here so he probably has no plans to to the job himself. That being the case, he might consider that there are those out there who do have the personal wherewithal to make a serious bid, and that his blundering in might jeopardise that? I know of at least one serious bid that is quietly going on and I hope that this has not been set back by this idiot.

 

Go back to August 1968 - There was a similar outcry when B.R. announced the price of 15 guineas for the 'last' steam train. This was a far greater rip-off than the current York one.

Bob.

 

Four engines - Lime Street, Victoria, Carlisle, and back

The last B R steam train and no-one could take that away - not sure where you would put £15.75 in August 1968 now, but RPI makes it £203.10 - still makes £34.13 to stand in a yard silly.

As for re-patriating A4s - purrrlease!!!!

 

Found a great site with A4 pictures including these of 60008 out in the snow!:[attachment=1:18txri5d]60008_Full_Frontal.jpg[/attachment:18txri5d][attachment=0:18txri5d]60008_UP.JPG[/attachment:18txri5d]

The site is:
http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/gb/steam/LNER/A4/pix.html

 

Lovely shots, Green Five.

Absolutely right. Anybody at Green Bay or Delson who read that article would I think have been quite justified in telling British preservationists to go and stuff themselves. It was mean spirited, cheap, and counterproductive, and demanding that No. 8 not only be repatriated but also renamed was the icing on the cake; why shouldn't a British locomotive be named after an American president? After all, an American frigate is named after a British PM.

The two North American A4s were not 'stolen' from us by rapacious colonials; they were donated by the British people to the Canadian and American people, they are well looked after, and they are undercover. Should their present owners wish to allow them to return home then that would be wonderful, but making bad tempered demands for their repatriation is hardly going to make British preservation any friends. The same is true for 'Waddon', 'Dunrobin', 'King of the Scarlets', 'The Major', 'Longmoor' and all the other British locomotives currently held in collections overseas. If their owners want to sell or donate them to British buyers then they will do so, but bullying, hectoring, and silly anti-Americanism would not have worked with 'Repton' and it will not work now. I also doubt whether Mr. Wilcock would regard American demands for the repatriation of every USA tank in the UK with equanimity.

Around twenty years ago, the East Kent Railway's house magazine carried an article on Adams radial tank No. 488 which ended with the words 'Can we have it back please?'. This earned the EKR a telling off in 'Bluebell News', and quite rightly, but that article's tone was nothing compared with Mr. Wilcock's demands on the US National Railroad Museum and the Canadian Railway Museum. I somehow doubt whether he would have taken the same line in requesting that, say, 'Hartland' be moved to a former SR heritage line, or perhaps more aptly that 'Bittern' be based upon LNER metals. After all, the principle's no different. Why should an LNER loco in Quebec or Wisconsin be any more objectionable to Mr. Wilcock than an LNER loco in Hampshire?