Flying Scotsman

Never heard this "story" before....

Sent from my XQ-BT52 using Tapatalk

 

That would need some further explanation since both 4472 and 60052 were running in 1965. But does anyone know the story of 60052's scrapping at St Margaret's shed? That seems unusual. Were some parts acquired for/by Mr Pegler?

 

Br Database says that while it was withdrawn off St Margarets, it wasn't scrapped there. It says 'Sold to P W McLellan, Langloan for scrap 20/6/66'. The story regarding 60103/60052 strikes me as nonsense.

 

Flying Scotsman ran between Swanage and Harmans Cross stations and attracted record crowds [and urgently needed profits] in the Summer of 1994.
The picture is not sufficiently clear to me to make out who is on the footplate. Roland Kennington might have been pictured - but I don't think so as he tended to use either a boiler suit [like Alan Pegler used to do] or a set of NSW railway overalls he was given whilst the loco was in Australia.
I, along with many other SR drivers, drove the loco and found it very responsive.
The low loaders brought engine and tender from the Nene Valley Railway arriving in Swanage on Friday 15th July and left from the newly opened road/rail siding at Norden in September but, unfortunately, I did not keep a note of the leaving date.
I believe the lorries may have taken engine and tender to the Llangollen Railway although I'm not entirely certain of that.

 

There have been various stories about the originality of Flying Scotsman over the years. ISTR that, during its major rebuild after the bodged job at NRM, it's original number was found stamped on parts of the brass window surrounds. Many parts may have been taken from other locos over the years, a la "Trigger's Broom", but I think it is unlikely that all of the brass cab window surrounds would have been changed.

 

IMO that story is complete and utter rubbish. 4472 was running around in private ownership while 60052 was still strutting its stuff on behalf of British railways

 

It has sometimes been suggested that no part of FS is original from the day it first rolled out of the works, but we now have a suggestion that at least some of the brass window surrounds qualify.

 

See this post from @torgormaig

https://national-preservation.com/t...ingle-chimney-poll.424568/page-4#post-1059258

I’m sure at one point he put a picture up as well but I can’t find it.

Tom

 

How 'original' was any loco after its first service?

When a loco went into the works and a faulty part was discovered, or a replacement needed for planned maintenance, then a part was simply taken off a shelf from the inventory of repaired/re-serviced bits and pieces that were there at the time, maybe new bits, maybe 2nd, 3rd or 4th hand.

Ask the average punter what is the most identifying feature of a steam engine. Chances are, they'll say it's the boiler. It's a big lump. Flying Scotsman had 14 different boilers during its service life from 1923 to 1963, and it never used the same boiler twice, less than 3 years per boiler on average. Boilers would be reused by other locos as they came in. Same with other components. When these people moan about a loco 'not being original', which bit is it that they are using for their benchmark of originality?

It's beyond tiresome.

 

Agreed. I remember well going round Doncaster Works aged thirteen , seeing a boiler with 60089 chalked on it and being told by some older spotters 'you can't count that'. Very tiresome.

But in any case that is different from a claim that 60103 was swapped for 60052 as with 46100/42.

 

Here's the picture Tom - one brass window slide stamped 1472. It's not much but it is about as original as you can get

Peter

 

Either you’ve got a fantastic memory with incredible recall or you maintain an equally fantastic reference book.

 

Wiki tells us that Alan Pegler purchased the outside cylinders off 60041 Salmon Trout. I have read elsewhere that Scotsman's RH cylinder was replaced during it's preserved life.

 

Some people would restore an entire loco on the basis of that. . .

 

Some people have restored entire Spitfires on the basis of a data plate....

 

Beat me to it.

 

Or rather built a new one around the data plate, courtesy of Airframe Assemblies usually.

 

It's a dodge to get around registration regulations - for some reason it's easier to register a replica aircraft if it can claim an 'existing' identity off the back of a data plate rather than register as a 'new' one.

For the sake of the Spitfire owners I'm glad the authorities are willing to take this lenient view, whereas in reality everyone knows these original Spitfires ceased to exist, for ever, when they crashed beyond repair.

Rather like the so-called 'accountant's rebuilds' where if the CME wanted to fund new locos from his revenue budget rather than from capital the accounting rules allowed this if he gave them the identities of the old-ones they directly replaced (of course the accountants knew, it wasn't done to 'fool' anybody).

 

It's the memory thing

Tom

 

"Accountants' rebuilds" gets somewhat derided as a concept in railway circles, but I think it made a lot of sense. Essentially the companies had "renewal" accounts and "capital" accounts. The renewal account was to "make as new again". That could range anywhere from replacing a boiler to constructing an essentially new locomotive incorporating some original parts, or even just building a new locomotive. The key concept though was that the overall stock of locomotives didn't increase. If you wanted to increase the stock, then that new construction was capital expenditure.

Of course, you get into some grey areas: firstly, if you renewed an 1860's 2-2-2 express loco with an 1890's 4-4-0, at one level you are exactly where you started - you have a new express passenger loco; at another level the 4-4-0 is perhaps twice the size and capability of the 2-2-2, so it is hardly a like-for-like swap. It was also not unknown for the loco ostensibly being replaced to continue in existence, at which point it would be renumbered into a separate "duplicate" list of stock, since its place in the "capital list" had been taken. By the 1920s, the GWR at least based the nominal replacement value of such renewals on the empty weight of the locomotive: an increase resulted in a ‘betterment’ in value that had to be approved by the Board, but which might only be a small amount of the total value of the locomotive. As an example, old four cylinder ‘Star’ class 4-6-0s could be renewed as ‘Castle’ class locomotives with a bigger boiler; the extra value or ‘betterment’ was justified on the lower predicted maintenance cost of the Castle on account of needing to be worked below its ultimate steaming capacity. Similarly, there was a "betterment" to be found to renew an old 43xx 2-6-0 as a larger 'Grange' 4-6-0, but the cost was still less than building a new locomotive.

Tom