Bulleid Pacifics - Past or Present

Thank You for your input Tom, much appreciated as ever.

Richard.

 

D.L Bradley reporrted in his exhaustive "locomotives of the Southern Railway Part 2" Severe frame fracturing was a common failing of both rebuilds and non-rebuilds especially between the rear bogie wheels and leading coupled wheels pg 102

 

The light pacifics did have a history of frame fractures once they got some miles under their belts, behind the trailing horns, with some concern expressed over this in early 1962. From Rogers:

"The trouble was brought to light after unmodified No 34033, Chard, was released to traffic following a general repair, and was found after inspection at Bournemouth Motive Power Depot to have a fractured frame behind the left trailing horn. Previously, on 14 December 1961, an unmodified engine, No 34067 Tangmere, had been accepted for Intermediate repair, and examination of the main frames disclosed a fracture behind the right trailing horn which had not been reported by Salisbury Motive Power Depot. As a result of these failures a survey was made of the Frame Record Cards of the other 'West Country' class engines, and it was found that 14 of the modified and 27 of the unmodified had had fractured trailing end frames repaired by welding. Of the modified engines, three had had two fractures and one three. The record of the unmodified engines was worse, for eight had had two fractures, six had had three, two had had four and one had had five."

In the interests of balance, I should probably note that in 1962 it was inherently rather more likely that a modified light Pacific had had a fairly recent major overhaul, so the difference in cracking records is not necessarily down to inherent differences.

 

For those of us who aren't signed up to that site, whilst it would clearly be wrong to snaffle images from the site there should be no objection to telling us what they are scrapping/have scrapped.

 

It requires a bit of scrolling but Andrew's smugmug has been consistent in whats in the scrap line: https://andrewstransport.smugmug.com/Northwesttrains/North-West-trains-2022/i-dh5JPgd

 

Even if the photo dates are a month ahead...

 

From the limited pictures I have seen of the scrapping it appears to be taking place to the west of the site behind the buildings that fron onto the WCML.

I've not been past much recently but for a long time 34073's remains were on the east side of one of the buildings adjacent to the wcml and readily visible if one knew where to look, and the frames did recently regain a boiler.

 

Moving on from not so positive news to something more positive, it's now looking that 34058 is now to be restored under agreement with SLL, i would assume its going to move to Herston works in the not to distant future, this partnership with Southern Locomotives, might be beneficial to both MHR, and SLL, and could see mutually agreeable co operation between Swanage railway, SLL, and MHR, It certainly might help to sort out the problem with loco availability, if one of the SLL engines could become MHR based and at the moment, they have more available than the Swanage needs, in an round about way, it could help to solve the 34105 problem, if MHRHT were to swop its shareholding in 34105 for another SLL locomotive, then agreement can be reached for that ones future operation.

 

Thank you .

 

I'm a little confused on the situation of 34058, does the MHR have an agreement for SLL to restore it for them or has the MHR transferred ownership to SLL? I assumed it was the former, but reading the current issue of Trackside, the way the SLL feature is worded it suggests it's the latter?

 

Yes, I was also confused by this. The first report on this agreement said that 34058 was going to be restored by SLL for use on both the SR and Watercress Line with the latter having priority use of the loco.
The second report reads as though the Watercress Line has donated the loco to SLL with no mention of the Watercress Line getting any use of 34058.

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It would be very strange to in effect give away a loco and a large amount of components, without having something, in return, unless the MHR is in effect saying it has no desire to restore or run 34058, and that giving it to SLL,is in the best interests of the loco, but then if that was the case, what is now MHR loco policy obviously 35005 is due to return late this year/ early next and such is the shortage of motive power its likily that there would need to be a loan of something. this year.

 

As I understand it 34058 is being put into the custodianship of SLL. They will restore the loco which comes with over 90% of parts to complete the restoration and over £200,000 in a protected fund account. It will then run for 10 years at the MHR.

As for the future beyond that I guess we will find out in due course. One possibility is that WLHRT may become a shareholder in SLL with this collaboration in return for 34058 entering into the SLL stable and thus have some influence in future locomotive policy but I have no idea if this is indeed the case.

It is also worth noting that in the December 2022 chairman's update on the SLL website he points to the fact that the collaboration with the MHR could include all the Bulleids that both organisations own and that the agreement will help both parties going forward into the future.

What is certain is that SLL are diversifying their operations across Swanage, Spa Valley and the MHR, which makes sense as they have too many operational Bulleids for the Swanage Railway alone.

 

And a large whad of cash. I think WLHRT members would take a very dim view of such a large giveaway, without something back in return. The total value of the loco even in its unrestored state, components and cash in the bank must be something like £500,000+ alone. The motion components according to Simon Troy are worth over £100,000 in value on their own, which is why 34058 now takes priority over 34010 in being outshopped first.

 

As long as the MHR motive power needs are taken into consideration, Such an idea could work, out in everyone's favour, It might be a convenient way to side step the problems over 34105, If the MHRHT can turn its shareholding into shares in SLL, that might open the way for the majority shareholder in that loco to agree to talks with SLL over the engine, and as its then no longer tied to any one railway, it would enable its use over any of the lines SLL may decide to offer it to,

 

This seems like a strange deal for SLL, or maybe I have misunderstood what has been mentioned above.
If SLL get custodianship of 34058 with the spares and £200k, they then have to restore the loco and it goes back to the MHR for its nominal 10 year boiler certificate. So what benefit does SLL get from the deal? Surely it will cost them money as the restoration is likely to cost more than £200k. At the end of 10 years, in theory the loco could be returned to the MHR and SLL would have no loco and a hole in their finances to the detriment of their fully owned locos.
Or am I missing something?

 

Without knowing the detail of the agreement we can only speculate and I would speculate that SLL receives a hire fee for the use of the loco, either on a daily or mileage basis. What happens at the end of 10 years, someone else can speculate on.

 

The SLL website Latest News page has been updated today, with news about our growing fleet. https://southern-locomotives.co.uk/News/news.html

 

This is something that I’m really pleased to see. I worked with Mike Vout for more than 10 years on 34058 and saw firsthand the attention to detail and workmanship that Mike put into the new parts we manufactured for the engine. For instance, if anyone sees an original BoB shield, there not flat, they curve to the original casing. The new nameplate back plate we made has this curve so the shield sits flush. Photos show the new running plates and the nameplate and crest fitted in September 1990 for the 50th Battle of Britain anniversary.

 

Since 34058 never run with the correct shields after being rebuilt back in November 1960. Should the loco continue to run with 34068 Kenley shields once it returns to steam. If the loco keeps the incorrect shields this would creat another point of interest.

thanks