A new-build BR Standard Class 3 is planned.

Evening folks.

Please let me say a few words regarding the New Build Standard Class 3.

For sometime now there has been talks between a few friends about the lack of a 77xxx loco. Sadly for a while it was just talk, however at the beginning of August after lots a thought and serious discussions we decied to start the group and to test the water. I am pleased to say 99% of comments and responses we have receive have proved to in support of our plans. We have been long involved with Heritage Railways, but on the building side of it and the guard side of things too.

Currently we have had members from the British Railways Standard Locomotive Owners Group, The 82045 Steam Locomotive Trust, 72010 'Hengist' and also from the Chairman of the Patriot Project, who have all shown their support for this project and have offered if needed any advice we may need.

We have taken membership for the British Railways Standard Locomotive Owners Group, so as to make use of their extensive plans, moulds and advice that will prove useful to us.

I agree that this is not a project that is to be taken sitting down, it will no doubt cause endless sleepless night now and in the future, eat every penny that we have and cause a few of us to loose more hair than we can ill afford to loose. But this missing link will hopefully prove fruitful.

We also accept that our website isn't all whistles and bells yet, but may I add that it is temporary website and by the end of August we should have improved on that. Various things are in hand at the moment including setting up of a bank account and creating a package for membership and agreeing on a membership fee. But as we are all full-time workers on shifts and work on the mainline railway things for now will get done when we have chance to do them, for example I'm doing this after almost a 16 hour day at work and the prospect of having to get up at 04.00 in the morning and do the same. I have heard of people saying we should have waited until we were in a position to have everything ready for a launch, but we personally felt that we needed to get out there as soon as possible rather than someone else jump in. But all we ask is that you can please bare with us, after all this is one of the biggest ventures of our lives and we will give all we have got to ensure that this is a success. But we also need the support of the general public and Steam fans alike, so please there is no better advert than word of mouth. Please tell your friends and lets make the future build of a 77xxx a success.

 

Having said my last post on this topic would be the last, I am afraid you have raised the devil again! Please see my earlier thoughts as to whether the skills to build large/medium boilers from scratch still exist, at least in this country. "Tornado" had some problems with its Meiringen built boiler, although not in the league of those suffered by the Australian machine. The "A.1" is managed by proper businessmen who made sure it got back into service with the absolute minimum of delay.

Until someone actually gets on and builds a new medium/big boiler in this country, no-one will know the answer to this particular question. Might I suggest it would be in the interest of this new group to see how 82045 gets on in this regard not to mention actually helping them to achieve this first.

PH

 

For once I agree with your sentiments. The 82045 Trust, as we would all expect, already have contacts, quotations and forward planning concerning the boiler, it really is not a question of 'if' but 'when'. Remember that 82045 is being constructed on a decided model for progress. I understand more detailed news will be released next year.

Your comments concerning outside working are also received with thanks. The engineering team have now spent more than three years working in all weathers, with the working gang only being unable to operate on four occasions - and on these the road conditions were responsible !

 

Can you please tell us where you think the problems would occur in building a new steam locomotive boiler in this country?

 

it's basically a big steel tube, it can't be that difficult to construct surely?

 

Front barrel section, no problem whatsoever. Taper barrel section, four already done at LNWR and one for 80097 by the Std 4 Group at Bury. All of these were for various Standard 4s, so two for Std 3s should not be a problem

 

Quite simple. It has been fifty years or so since a new medium/large locomotive boiler has been built from scratch in this country. It matters little what you are doing, whether on land, sea or air; the necessary skills will atrophy if they are not used.

In the U.S.A. when Amtrak came along, they found this out. New railroad passenger cars were needed and it was so long since the last ones had been manufactured there was no-one around who knew what to do. They had plenty of experience in overhauls and rebuilds. Manufacturing ab initio proved to be a different matter. This is why IMHO the "newbuilders" need to get and finish something both to experience the inevitable problems on the boilermaking front and to avoid the situation whereby "Fred in his shed" gets distracted from one half completed project to start another.

PH

 

Really this arguement is quite silly. New boilers are built all the time, just not complete locomotive boilers in the larger sizes. As has been said, all the components that make up a locomotive boiler have been made recently, just not for one single unit. If there wasn't the capability to make the components, then there would be a real issue, but its proven that there is. Its just a case of building all the individual bits and assembling them together.
Daniel

 

We will see- sometime!

PH

 

To all intents and purposes 4472's boiler is more new than old. There is little doubt that a large boiler can be made here in the UK
but as the order books for overhauling are pretty full - demand outstrips supply which affects two of the the three determining factors ;
Cost, & Leadtime and (possibly) whether there is a body prepared to certify the end product. All three had a bearing on 60163 decision, but the greatest of these was i suspect cost ...

As the last of the original steam men leave us and the current crop of apprentices grows up and demands the kind of wages they should expect for an in demand skilled position Boiler work is not going to get any cheaper or quicker...but at least it will still be available .

Good luck.

 

By the time a boiler is needed for the 77xxx, the 82045 group will have managed to get one built, either in the UK or abroad. (A1 Trust went abroad, why shouldn't another group if they can't get one made in the UK?) Until then, the 72021 group and their donors will no doubt continue in the hope of success and the knowledge of possible failure, just like any other heritage start up.

"One thing at a time" may indeed be a prudent mantra for an individual, but makes no sense when applied to the overall heritage scene. Heritage groups are dispersed across the country, divided both by geography and specific interest. Whilst they will try to help each other if possible, it is unreasonable to expect one group to put their ambitions on hold whilst another group elsewhere complete a related project.

 

This is the real problem. Fine if you are building a model to run round your own garden.

PH

 

I think you are assuming that everyone is equally interested in all possible projects - but that's not true.

For example, I'd like to see a Brighton Atlantic running, preferably at a place near enough that I can make frequent visits, and I resource a project (in cash and other ways) accordingly. With all respect to other newbuild projects, I couldn't really care less about a Hawksworth County, or a LNER G5, or, for that matter, an Ivatt Diesel. So if all the "new builders" got together and said (for example), "if you stop work on Beachy Head and all chip in to the G5 until it is finished, we promise we'll all chip in to Beachy Head afterwards", I'd just stop paying anything. It wouldn't get the G5 built any quicker, but would just delay the Atlantic, and ultimately reduce the total resources available to the total preservation movement. And that's not to mention the question of skilled resources. While I am sure that any new build you care to mention could always cope with more skilled people, there must be hundreds of people nationwide actually doing real physical engineering on these projects. It's impractical to think that all those people could be efficiently utilised on just a single project to speed it up, and then redeploy to the next project. Where would they all stand, for one thing?

That's not to say that all projects should be supported blindly: there is clearly a certain level of delusion around (two separate "projects" for a new build Dean Goods for example) but many of those are just vapourware and I suspect aren't doing a lot of harm, except perhaps to the reputation of a few people on FaceBook. But simply saying "please get one finished" isn't massively realistic either. Far better to look at each project, and make a rational assessment of whether it is going forward or stalled.

The fact that, taken as a whole, there is a broad spread of development in projects ranging from those at feasibility stage (LNER P2, for example) through those in the early stages of build (Hengist, perhaps) to those nearing the final straight (e.g. GW Saint, LNER G5, Beachy Head - which after all has frames, wheels, cylinders, motion and boiler all substantially complete or in existence) all the way through to actually running (Tornado, Rail Motor, the various early replicas) I'd take as a sign of maturity of the industry, not a sign of weakness.

Tom

 

The projects which are recreating locos that existed in living memory are more likely to attract funding than those of the Edwardian era & earlier.
Look at 'Tornado' & 'The Unknown Warrior' as examples of 'attractive' projects & compare them to the likes of the 'Bloomer' project.

Bob.

 

I don't believe that is necessarily true. For example, no steam locomotive ran in living memory for people my age (at least not mainline), so there is no reason based on youthful memory why, for people of my age, a more modern loco should necessarily be more attractive than an older one. As I've said before, my interest in railway heritage is in recreating things I never saw, not in recreating things I did see. Which is why I am interested in pre-grouping steam, not BR blue and sectorisation-livery diesels and 3rd rail EMUs. I suspect I am not unique in that view.

Also, just on pure numbers, look at the number of new builds that are actually running, or have run:

Several Rocket replicas
Sans Pareil
Braithwaite and Ericcson Novelty
Steam Elephant
Catch me who can
Planet
Firefly
Iron Duke
Steam Railmotor
Tornado

Only one of those is of a prototype that ran within living memory of anyone alive at the time they were built. OK, you can argue that all except Tornado are relatively "small", but I suspect that, at today's prices, the collective investment in working replicas of "old" locos is greater than that in Tornado. So I believe there is plenty of appetite for "old" new builds as well as "new" new builds.

Tom

 

The design itself is pretty well suited to preserved railways; class 3MT engine, 5'3" wheels. It is a tender engine, so perhaps less suited than a 3MT tank but even so the tender has a cutout for backward running, and this should't be a major issue. So that's one of the main criteria cleared.

The second main question is where are you going to run it when finished? Which preserved line is going to give you backing? I suggest this should probably be in the NE or Scotland. I think this is a pretty important question, and it shouldn't be seen in isolation from the first question. That is, if you can't find anywhere suitable to run, then your efforts might be better directed elsewhere (for example into a bigger engine design better suited to the NYMR).

 

Preserved lines could most certainly make use of a Std 3MT. Easy to prepare, easy to dispose of and without age related problems. I suspect that for all of us who post on this forum some of our favourites survived and some did not and naturally we would like to see an example of the ones that got away. I wouldn't like to guess at the size of the list if all members submitted their particular dreams. So we have groups of people with a common favourite trying to realize a dream, there are others who wish to re-create machines from beyond living memory - and 4mm to the foot just will not satisfy. A major part of my interest is preserving steam as a spectacle on the mainline with the concern that our preserved specimens will not remain suitable for very much longer so I want something very new in the extreme.
You could take the view that money spent on new builds would be better spent on restoring and conserving what we have. Well money is finite. But this World of Preservation is as much one of the heart as of the head and people give what they choose to what their project of choice (how unlike taxation).
Some of the dreams will fade away, some may even become nightmares but some will be realized - though the time involved could prove a little wearing. Their will be some money wasted no doubt about it but we do not direct the spending of others. The building of "Tornado" shows that dreams can be made into reality, it just doesn't happen overnight.
Preservation is a cottage industry that does not have a central works that could produce new builds quickly and with some economy of scale.

 

They were designed to run tender first if necessary, the full back cab with vision cutouts providing quite a lot of protection for the crews. The increased coal and water capacity over a tank version would also be useful.

Since everyone has been saying how suitable this type of loco is for heritage railways, it seems likely that somewhere to run it will be the least of their problems. It could masquerade as 77014 down at the MHR anytime.

 

Where it runs would be up to what railways want to have it... Bo'ness, East Lancs, NYMR, Wensleydale, KWVR? basically anywhere...