7027 Thornbury Castle

In some places the answer could depend which window you look out of.

 

As Katherine Graham, the former publisher of the Washington Post, used to say, "News is what someone somewhere wants suppressed. Everything else is advertising."

 

True. But it's in discussions like these that any gaps between what is being reported and reality may emerge, and from where it may be possible to assess the quality of said magazines.

As a declaration of interest, the only railway magazines I take are Backtrack and Modern Railways, neither of which are of relevance to this discussion.

 

Maybe. But in on line discussions you also see supposition presented as fact, wilful misinformation, well-intentioned misunderstanding, misinterpration and even, I fear, sometimes deliberate peddling of lies for the purpose of gaining a reaction.
I never forget many years ago a vicious flame war breaking out in an anonymous work intranet forum. This was back in the 90s I think. I tracked down the participants (which I'd told management I couldn't do!) only to find out both of the abuse flinging participants were the same person!

 

One other thought about the press. 'Loose talk' can have unintended consequences.
Many years ago a friend of mine was in negotiation with a scrap yard to buy a wagon. I don't know what the wagon was but I believe it was a rare Southern Railway something-or-other. The deal was virtually done, but the scrappy was a bit hesitant as the wagon had been sold to him with a destruction order on it. I think they intended to obliterate all numbers and pull a bit of a fast one until the powers-that-be in BR had forgotten about it.
Then, one of the railway mags picked up on it sitting in the scrap yard and printed something like "how can we let this rare Southern Railway wagon get scrapped?".
So of course, with the radar now firmly on this wagon, the scrappy immediately cut it up.
My friend never did buy a wagon.

In the sad case of 7027 I can't work out if the press know something we don't, or are trying to peddle a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hopefully they will have no influence on the outcome whatsoever, but who knows. Personally, since the incident alluded to in my previous posting, I ignore them completely.

 

There is an issue which applies to almost all news outlets though which is that with the arrival of The Internet ie free news there are fewer journalists on 'paid for' publications which means those left have less time - if any to investigate stories and find out what is really going on

 

Wasn't there a similar issue many years back between areas of the specialist media and Mr Smith regarding their preemptive and incorrect reporting scuppering a potential purchase of 46115?

As for your final point I think you missed 'sensationalised reporting with deliberately controversial views to gain clicks/response, which appears to have rather backfired in this case?



Sent from my SM-A125F using Tapatalk

 

How many pages has it taken you to work that out? I think I made it a while ago!

 

Is that the appeal for an unknown amount of money to buy something which its new owner may not actually want to sell, and then move it to an unknown location and get an unknown group to volunteers to set up an unspecified organisation to restore it with an unknown source of additional money?

I'd be happy to give a fiver ...

 

Which part are they actually going to use from the boiler

 

The wrong part….

 

Are the GWS, hoping to buy just the boiler, or the entire loco, because it's just so very confusing exactly what it is they purchased, or hope to purchase, when the 4709 group say vendor, is that the GWS, or Mr Gregory? they talk of lots, i can only think this is the various parts of the locomotive.

 

Unfortunately I'm quite skeptical that 7027 is likely to be saved now.

Given the recovery from Covid and the current financial climate, increased costs etc, who- or what railway has the surplus available to chuck at buying another loco that requires a fairly substantial rebuild.

Its a shame, as I'm loathe to see her broken up and lost but I'm struggling to see another outcome currently.

As I said upthread- it would amazing to see her bought to become the flagship of one of the more up-and-coming lines.

Chris

 

So everyone is waiting with their "fiver" but no one is actually putting themselves forward to organise it?

 

We’ve got to be realistic, while we have perfectly good locomotives awaiting funding for a further 10 year overhaul why put good money to restore another pile of scrap for 10 years and then to be shunted into a siding for perhaps decades?

 

How is that different to what the GWS/47xx group will do?

One way you get a genuine 1950's built Castle, the other a bodged 47xx lookalike, sitting in your siding. My "fiver" is available only for the former.

 

Without a plan for funding future overhauls it isn’t any different