Isle of Wight Steam Railway

After overhaul, is she due to go back to haven street?

 

Not linked to 46447, but WightWanderer (or Jack, who also now does videos for the IoWSR's YouTube channel), released a video on Invincible the other day and mentions that the railway is hosting a consultation on August 26th, with it's volunteers and members, regarding the future of the loco.

 

There’s a crowdfunder for it: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/46447

 

I wonder if this is being handled very well by the ESR? The Isle of Wight has issued a statement to its members to the effect that the ESR has jumped the gun by making the proposal public before any formal agreement has been reached. Interestingly the ESR doesn't appear to have made any contact with their own membership on the subject. Left hand and right hand?

 

No official announcement from the ESR, no mention on their website or on Facebook. Most unusual. <BJ>

 

Off piste a bit ,but this reminds me of a curious incident in the late 80's when I was deck-crew on the Sealink (as was) Fishbourne to Pompey run. Now at that time we had 4 vessels of the same design, all sister ships to the still running St Faith (and importantly to this dit, duties were rotated weekly ) Now this involved the St Helen, we were just ready to leave Fishbourne with the 2.30pm sailing when a regular Artic hurtled into the port and we just squeezed him onboard and sailed. On arrival at Pompey we cleared the load then called him on, off he started then loud crunch as he got wedged under the elevated Mezzanine deck. Everyone perplexed as he just didn't fit. As I say he was a regular, every Wednesday bringing over the Ford spares for the main dealers, using the same rig every time and never a problem, been doing it for over 5 years.
Now I believe it was the mate who asked him if he would deflate all 12 tyres to drive through, he got short shrift on that idea and so we ended up reversing out, spinning 180 so he could reverse off. We then found out that St Helen's stowed Mezz deck, as built, sat a few inches lower than the other 3 boats. So for five years to-ing and fro-ing every Wednesday this chap had never been on the Helen, the odds of that were quite remote, and got even remoter when it turns out he was booked on the 3pm trip but had finished up a bit earlier than usual and made ours by the skin of his teeth.

 

Many years ago, when we bought the ten PMVs from BR for the four wheel carriage project they came via Red Funnel from Southampton to East Cowes. They were too high to go under the superstructure. The method Red Funnel used was to load the ship as usual at Southampton via the stern but leave a space at the bow end. They then turned the ship before loading the PMV on its trailer. The became quite slick about it.

 

Steam and diesel locos, and carriages (including 41298, 41313, 46447 and a class 33) have been going backwards and forwards across the Solent to the IOWSR for years, on low loaders on the normal vehicle ferries. That is also how the class 484s arrived in the island.

 

Not a great surprise if true. The IOWSR will clearly never have any use for 46447 (other than perhaps for spare parts for the tank versions.)

Are there any conditions attached to the original donation of the locos by the Ivatt Trust that would prevent this happening?