Accounting for Steam Locomotives (ex Flying Scotsman thread)

Never heard this "story" before....

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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.

 

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).

 

"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

 

Nearly all (or all?) steam locos built by the Big 4, including Flying Scotsman, the other Gresley Pacifics, the Duchesses, Kings, Merchants Navies etc were treated as renewals, costs being debited to P&L as may have been adjusted by transfers in any year to or from the Renewal Fund. "rebuild" was not an accounting concept although it appeared on some worksplates. Although one sees comments about this treatment being mandated by legislation, I have never found any legislation that does this but am happy to be corrected (mandating an accounting treatment which involves somewhat subjective inputs would be tricky) and I think it was controlled by the chief accountant. As Tom says, in theory one could identify a "betterment" component to go to capital expenditure but I suspect in the majority of cases that was put in the too much effort category. Of course for most of the Big 4s existence, it suited the directors to be able to say to the shareholders that they could not pay any greater dividend as they were distributing all of their distributable profits (which was true). It is also worth bearing in mind that one driver of the Grouping was to achieve economies so in theory the combined railway groups should not have needed to increase the capital invested, although the Big 4 had plenty of demands for new non-renewal outlays in technology and infrastructure, new modes of traction etc.

 

Isn't this a version of the "Evening Star" fairy story?

 

I think you'll find that in the case of the Star to Castle rebuilds, the cylinders were enlarged proportionately more than the boilers. The cylinders would also tend to become even larger. A Castle is not simply a Star with a larger boiler. The frames were extended to accommodate a larger grate and a side window cab.

 

I agree there is little or no doubt about the provenance of Evening Star & Flying Scotsman. However there are other cases, some in the National Collection.

NRM used to have information sheets online about various locos. Gone now. The one for the GNR Atlantic numbered ‘251’ went into some detail of the loco’s 1947 assembly for preservation from available components at the Plant (and the poor steaming on a trial trip which led to fitting of dummy superheater headers for the loco’s one and only railtour in 1953).

It also said the Doncaster philosophy was the identity of a loco is the number on the cabside.

 

You're missing the point. I'm not saying that a Castle is just a Star with a larger boiler. Rather, that the Castles were designed to do the same work as a Star but, because they needed to be pushed less hard to do so, then the predicted maintenance costs per mile were lower and that gave the cost justification for the "betterment" that needed to be found to allow a Star to be renewed as a somewhat larger Castle.

Tom

 

Did this vary a lot between the big four?

 

I think the same held for the SR.

I've mentioned before a case where you can demonstrably show that to be the case, at least in BR(S) days: In a couple of cases, pairs of "long frame" and "short frame" M7s went into the works together, and what emerged was a "long frame" M7 bearing the "short frame" identity; plus a nominally scrapped loco with the "long frame" number but in which, for the frames at least, it was a short set that had been scrapped.

Presumably the locos were disassembled and the best sets of components were built up into one new loco and a pile of bits left over as spares or for scrapping. The long frames were used because those were the ones that could be converted into push-pull locos (having the additional space at the front for the air tanks in from of the cylinders). Why Eastleigh then chose to give the loco the identity of the "other" set of frames is unrecorded, but I suspect it was because they were not just recording mileage for a loco, but were treating frames, cylinders, boilers, fireboxes and crank axles (at least) as separate components with mileages recorded against each, and the identity of the loco then just happened to be what was written on the file that gathered all those component maintenance records together.

Tom

 

I wonder how this squares with locos having good or poor reputations. For example I have it in mind that 35002 and 60001 were regarded as relatively weak locos. Is that just folklore?

 

This is what you wrote:

"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."

If you enlarge the cylinders proportionately more than the boiler, this is not necessarily the case, to say the least.

The Castles were designed to pull heavier loads than the Stars, not just to replace them.

 

You are missing the point that the locos were designed to do the same work.

If you have two locos of comparable design doing the same work, they will need approximately equivalent steam consumption to the job. But the Castle, with its bigger boiler, can generate that much steam while operating further from its maximum possible output, and that lowers the long-term boiler maintenance required. That is the cost saving that justified the business case for the betterment.

The bigger cylinders just allow it to work at slightly shorter cut off for the same power output. Of course, they also allow it to work at a bigger power output if required, and no doubt they did. But the cost justification wasn't about building a more capable loco, it was about building one of the same capability at lower maintenance cost.

Tom

 

I have highlighted your incorrect assumption. The Castles were designed for hauling heavier loads than the Stars, not just to supplement them, a consequence of the increasing traffic on the GWR after WW1, in common with the other UK railway companies.

Even if this weren't the case, I'm not sure that a larger locomotive would be built just to save on maintenance! A boiler would still be washed out after the same number of days in steam. Water treatment would be a much cheaper and more effective option. In France machines equipped with the TIA managed to travel sometimes more than a million kilometers without intervention on the boiler.

 

In his book "Swindon Steam", Ken Cook, the GWR's assistant works manager at the time, records that the Star renewals as Castles were done because they considered there would be a saving on boiler maintenance. I imagine that he was focussed on overhaul costs.

Cook has a fair bit to say about the renewal fund in that book. Worth reading.