7027 Thornbury Castle

This is where railway preservation is peculiar though. The first complication is that an out of ticket locomotive on display and accessible only to those buying tickets is revenue earning. The second is that very many lines have locomotives that are neither running on display nor under overhaul, and one logical thing to do would be to sell/scrap them and put the money and/or reuseable parts towards overhauling/restoring the rest of the fleet. However much of this thread is of people objecting to almost precisely that.

 

I agree when you are talking about locos that are genuinely out of traffic and on display - they are still delivering value if part of your raisin d’être is to be a museum type attraction. The issue is once an overhaul starts: at that point, you have cash tied up in the overhaul that delivers no value until the loco is outshopped. Depends who is paying, of course, but that makes a project that is worked on, say, one day per week over a long period very expensive in terms of the resources it ties up.

Tom

 

Yes indeed, but again its complicated... If one is renting workshop space then a one/two day a week project is horrendously expensive. OTOH if the space is just sitting there with no other revenue earning opportunity then isn't it just an inevitable cost? But too often one day a week use of the space means that other stock is out in the weather deteriorating... And there are intermediate cases: at Didcot, for example, whilst the heavy engineering is most definitely in parts of the building inaccessible to the public, there is normally limited public access to the long term projects 7202 and 1014, and one may even look over the barriers and see some other work in the distance. I think its something that could be made more of. Most visitors have never seen heavy engineering in action. Is there a place for a modern equivalent of Swindon's Works Tours? If it could be managed without disruption and without compromising safety then there might be ticket sales. Don't the Severn Valley do something on those lines?
I don't have a good photo showing the scenario, but from 2011 here is 7202 under restoration and on display - you can just see the white barrier prohibiting access at the end. And of course, though its not in the picture, there is an opportunity for contributions...

 

Time is rarely costed. The assumption is that heritage railways can trade time for cost without penalty. They can’t. A longer project will be more expensive (inflation space costs etc etc). Sometimes the trade off has to be made to match fundraising capacity with the spend, but it isn’t a free trade.

 

Or 3612, for that matter.

 

I quite agree and this is something that's been discussed in multiple threads over time and is of particular interest for me. There are often visits I make to HRs, mainly during galas, where the projects that the railway or groups & where owners encourage contributions, are shut behind barriers because the scarce resources may be utilised elsewhere to enable giving visitors a behind-barriers-view of projects - such as 1014, 7202 etc. The workshop door has not been raised at Didcot for some of the Events I've attended in recent times. I also think some HRs have focused on delivering a train ride to families (which I've made much use of over the years) rather than also those interested in the restoration / build side of things.

I see many railways starting to recognise this and the different markets they need to deliver to with regard to displaying out-of-ticket engines and stock in on-site museums or having a viewing gallery for workshop activities (Grosmont, Bo'ness, Ropley immediately spring to mind). There are other railways where seeing engineering progress is less accessible (or on set non-gala dates) and only visible via regular online news blogs - I follow 4150, 82045, 72010, 76077 and others as good examples of keeping supporters updated. Credit to Boscastle group at GCR Loughborough for realising that they will hopefully get greater interest and donations for their engine under overhaul if it is towed into view rather that inaccessible behind shutters.

 

I think there are two separate arguments here. One is about visibility, and one about speed, but they aren't the same. Regardless of how visible a project is, my view is that once you have committed to doing it, doing so quickly will ultimately be less costly than doing so in a protracted fashion.

Tom

 

I firmly believe that is true in many cases.

 

I do believe it's a well known issue, and is largely responsible why the Bedouin people shy away from major boiler repair jobs......



Chris

 

I'd tend to agree- a project moving forward at a good, sustained pace instills confidence too in those who may be funding or donating to it.

I'd be more likely to stick my hand in my pocket for a project that I can see is spending money sensibly and making progress as it gives confidence it will be finished.

The night owl project does not instill that confidence (ignoring the various other issues) nor sadly does the patriot any more.

Wheras the likes of Clan Line, 76077 both show a clarity of planning, thinking and spending.

Chris

 

It is not obvious that operating Tornado yields a positive return (based on the accounts) so it would be interesting to know what their business model is projecting.

 

I think there's little doubt about that, but can you think of many projects that aren't going as fast as their labour/finance/facilities permit?

 

No. But I can think of many projects that are under resourced in one or more areas and as a result in trouble. Not project ever went exactly to first plan. But those that were better planned, better managed and put in place a realistic set of resources up front are the ones which generally will achieve their objectives. These loco projects are too big and complex for the “let’s jump in and see what happens, we don’t need a plan and realistic resources” approach

 

Sure, but where do you draw the line between ridiculous optimism, which is situation normal and got the heritage movement to where it is today, and hopeless optimism? I support the 4253 restoration, which according to my calculations is on year 13 of their 9 year project plan, and that one is a model of planning and management compared to some.

 

I don’t think ridiculous optimism is what got is where we are. The projects that most impress me are (in no order):
1. The TR being saved
2. The restoration of Duke of Gloucester
3. The WHR
4. The Ddaullt loop and deviation
5. The A1
6. Beachy Head
7. The carriage fleet on the IoWR
8. The Alton auto signalling system
9. The GWSR slip repair
To name 9. All of them very well planned in fact. Each only looked like optimism initially to those not familiar with the depth of planning. Each delivered by ensuring resources were identified and used realistically.

Hopeless projects simply don’t have the depth of thought needed and therefore contain fundamental flaw, or go through too many massive changes of direction. Eg night owl and patriot. The latter might still pull it off because they have shifted their goals appropriately, the night owl we can all see has just an unrealistic base proposition. It this fails to gather to it increasing credibility.

The night owl basic philosophy seems to be to build something because one wasn’t preserved and we’d like a 1:1 scale model. That just doesn’t cut it and the compromises just hack off a large section of those (like me) that would otherwise be supportive. It is ill conceived. There is no good reason to do the project as it is set out.

 

............and it will be of no practical use if completed.

 

Whereas, if they had proceeded with the plan to use their spare no. 1 boiler, with or without disguising it by oversize cladding, they would have had a fairly authentic loco for display at Didcot and for occasional visits to heritage lines. They would have had the expense of refurbishing the boiler but would have saved the expense of buying and refurbishing Thornbury's. It would have remained possible in principle to have a new no.7 built at some future date and then either to keep the no.1 as a spare for one of their other locos or to sell it to one of the many other owners of GW locos with no.1 boilers.
Edit: inserted missing word "to" before "one".

 

Or maybe it would have made more sense to accept that the 47xx's have all gone, and restored the 28xx that was dismantled to provide the parts that aren't being used.

As an aside, is there a photo of 4701 when fitted with the no.1 boiler? this would at least give an idea of what it looked like, centre height of boiler above rails etc. as there could well be many more ways 0f 'Getting it wrong'

 

Not the best view, but you get a rough idea: The Engineer

I'm pretty sure that one of Mike Rutherford's books (Halls, Granges & Manors/Castles and Kings at Work) has a very rare photo of it in service. Unfortunately I don't have a copy to hand, otherwise I might've included a sneaky phone pic.

Meanwhile the GWS accounts arrived the other day. As of 31.01.23, 4709 £97k in the red, having spent £270k. 1014 £5k in the red, having transferred £13k to 4709 (?!)

'Expenditure on 4709 included the acquisition of component parts from 7027 and full and final settlement of these amounts will be made in the coming financial year.'

I should add that the accounts have yet to be approved by the GWS membership, not that I would expect anything to the contrary to happen.

Happy days!

 

Is there any indication as to where the money to cover the 97k has come from (bar the bit from the county fund - why has that been done?), has the GWS ultimately bailed them out to cover it as they requested?