4920 Dumbleton Hall

Agreed mostly. My point about ‘long term sustainability’ refers, but bears repeating.

Id only add that the sustainability may increasingly require compromise on historical or presentational narrative. Thinking of an extreme hypothetical – if there are 15 extant GWR Halls and 15 Harry Potter Worlds globally prepared to take a long-term lease on one Hall each, providing income to Tyseley / Didcot / wherever, is it inherently bad to meet that demand?

A question, not a statement, and an extreme hypothetical, not a realist plan.

Simon

 

WCRC presumably were also able to provide the wherewith-all to turn it into a presentable Hogwarts Castle without drastically affecting their bread and butter business needs.

Simon

 

Plus had the contact with WB in the first place, just because they could sell to WB for price £x, doesn't necessarily say anyone could have sold to WB for price £x.

 

I suggest that we dont necessarily need museums just places to keep stuff undercover

 

I'd challenge the statement that 4920 - in particular - is "gone". All the time Harry Potter remains popular, it is likely to survive in a good quality environment. If interest wanes to the point that Warner Brothers wish to close or repurpose the theme park, the likelihood is that the assets would be disposed of - at which point, any UK-based rail enthusiast would be able to bid. You might of course find yourself up against a plutocratic Harry Potter fan who knows just the bit of memorabilia he wants for his patio in Beverley Hills, but in principle, it seems to me that the loco is currently safe, and is likely to remain so up to a point at which it is no longer required, at which any UK group could bid for it if they so desired.

As @Steve has pointed out, many UK locos have gone abroad and subsequently been repatriated: 4472, 4079, 926, 30053, Dunrobin ...

To read this thread, you'd think the loco had been sold for razor blades.

Tom

 

That leads to some questions. Were WB on the lookout for another Hall or did WCRC approach them? If they were on the lookout, what might they have offered for Dumbleton Hall in its scruffy condition? (Given their construction of a "cardboard" replica Hall for one of their exhibits, they surely would have had ample resources to give a real one a cosmetic overhaul.)

 

I believe the film industry is huge on outsourcing. All round the major studios you'll find little industrial estates of cottage industry sized companies waiting to be called in for services on one film or another. I should be astonished if WB had any kind of heavy industry capability, so if they bought a scruffy out of ticket hall for 300K they would be looking for someone to do the refurbishment and prep work. Someone like, err WCRC.
And its all very well waving numbers about, but if 300K was on site in Devon, and 1,000K was delivered on site in Japan, for example, the numbers would look a bit different. I understand it was 50K to get Pendennis back from Aus in 2000, who knows what it would be now.

 

I have no idea of the WB Procurement operation or the budgetary controls they work under.
But if I had been given a requirement to reproduce something identical to Leavsden then I would go back to my supplier for that and ask if they had another or knew where they could get me one.
From the few approaches that ended up on my Procurement desk from film or TV companies for equipment that we may have purchased, the price was not necessarily top of the requirements list.
So where would the knowledge base be in I assume Burbank or maybe in this case Japan to think, "I know I will just ring the SDR and ask how much they want for 4920"?
Then if they buy it they have to spend more time finding someone to overhaul it in their time frame, which I suspect means in the UK, WCRC, Riley, LSL or Tysley. So four or five tenders & then maybe visits to prove it is not a garden shed etc with a pretty website.
To the casual observer (me) who spent his working life in Procurement this looks like a small outsourced project.
Edit
Ii see my post crossed with the one above.

 

I suspect that a company of the scale of WB are not going to go out shopping for something as specialised as a steam locomotive, especially as they already had a close relationship with a company who could do it.

 

Could be that £1m is the gross total cost of the deal to WB including works at Carnforth and delivery to Japan by an agreed date. I should imagine expenses between the state the loco was in and getting it to its destination were considerable.

 

I may have missed it, but has there been anything approaching evidence that WB paid WCR £1m bar a piece in that oracle of truth the S*n?

 

Probably not but would not seem beyond the realms of impossibility that the cosmetic work and the logistics and shipping shipping would move it close to that. From what we have heard on here the low loaders alone in the UK would have eaten up around £12 to £15k
I think back in late 80's (so over 40 years ago) we paid near to £20K for a hardboard mock up of something marketing were thinking of putting at the back of a B747.
Sometimes the costs are just way more than you may first expect.

 

Now look here. Are you impugning the reputation of the Sun, the Sun no less, for scrupulously honest journalism?

 

5972 and 4920 are at Warner Bros Studio Tours.

The various replicas and "Hogwarts Express" ride are at Harry Potter-themed lands at Universal Studios theme parks.

The Harry Potter intellectual property is presumably licensed by WB (and JK Rowling, Bloomsbury et al) to Universal for their theme parks. Therefore I'd say the theme park stuff was handled by Universal and their contractors rather than by WB.

 

Not at all, however, they just don't strike me as an outlet that would be blessed with a plethora of sources in heritage railway circles, the simple fact that they approached Mr Smith for comment rather illustrates their lack of experience in these sort of stories.

Oh I don't disagree, also likely that in the big scheme of things that sort of cash is barely piddling in the wind for WB.

 

The bit that I don't understand - and I accept that it's all just speculation, since commercial confidence will mean that neither party comments unless to refute something *completely* outrageous - is, why would WCRC, known owners/operators of steam locos and with a generally expanding fleet, and understood to be fond of the very similar 5972 - buy an out of ticket 'Hall' and immediately sell it on, when the aforementioned 5972 is only out on a long term loan? (And by extension, we know WB are happy with that arrangement.)

 

Sorry you have lost me there totally. 5972 in the UK and 4920 in Japan at the same time means two are needed.

 

I interpreted it more as whey did they only lease 5972 to WB but outright sell 4920? Once again I suppose the starting point is that we know the sweet sum of sod all about the deal and they may well have only leased 4920 as well??

 

I they mean that 5972 is only on loan from WCRC to the WB Studio Tour at Leaveden, but WB have bought 4920 from them, rather than loaned it, for display at the Studio tour in Japan.

Wasn't 4953 put up for sale around that time, but I think the EOR have now decided to retain the loco, albeit it's an operational member of the class rather than awaiting overhaul like 4920 was.

 

It hasn’t been confirmed that WCRC even sold it let alone how much it may have ( allegedly) sold it for.
As a private business they don’t have to tell anyone either.
£300k for an out of ticket hall that the SDR wouldn’t be in a position to overhaul sounds like big money to me.