Current and Proposed New-Builds

Nah, leave it to the French.

Plenty to choose from there! Drummond 'Castle' please, perfect loco for many preserved lines and would look totally authentic in LSWR livery too. We don't have enough Jones Goods 4-6-0s either, pretty sure the KESR and Bluebell would like one each... ;-)

 

One downside when considering any long extinct pre-grouping classes is the lack of any matching stock permissible for mainline use. The 'teak' 4TC caused enough froth, but could you imagine the reaction to a rake of (say) Caley liveried MKII's?

 

TBH I hadn't considered taking the Castle main-line, although I guess it would technically be possible. I hadn't heard about the 4TC, bloody horrendous!

How did they manage in the older preservation era when stuff like old GWR wooden-bodied carriages went main-line?

 

The title of this thread is Current and Proposed New-Builds but almost all the discussion is about additional projects that might, or mostly might not, ever get started.

How reasonable is it to contemplate such projects at all, other than as pure WIBN? Insofar as some of them might be at all realistic, what are the chances of getting the preliminary work started, assembling management teams, searching for drawings, etc?

And what about all the existing projects? Most have their own threads, some very active some largely dormant. To some extent that may reflect the respective speed or slowness of progress on those projects. But might we perhaps have some sort of overview? Not just a summary of and links to the various projects, as at newbuildsteam.com, but gathering it together? How many people are actively working, as volunteers or paid, across all these projects? How fast is money coming in and how fast is it being spent? What scope is there for attracting even more money? (Even the P2 project, which is going great guns, is still well short of the total needed.) If more money can be found, are there the manpower and engineering facilities to use it? How many of the existing projects may be completed within, say, another two years? How many within five or ten years?

Sorry, bit of a ramble there, but let's see what it provokes.

 

The end of all-timber bodied stock on the mainline had been on the cards since the horrendous Harrow and Wealdstone crash. Another incident at Barnes in 1955 occured before the BTC issued it's "30 Year Rule", which would have meant the entire Southern PP fleet being scrapped pretty much overnight.

As late as the turn of the 60's the Southern Region was obliged to create 20 replacement pull-push sets, from Maunsell steel panelled stock, for locations where branch services traversed electrified or mainline metals when official patience with ancient wooden bodied stock finally ran out. Though the Marples/Beeching cuts still lay in the future, I doubt the costs were recouped during the short time before steam (and many of the lines) succumbed.

The Isle of Wight lines "got away with it" until the end of steam on the grounds none were anywhere near a mainline or juice rail and the maximum island speed limit was 40mph in any case. As @gwalkeriow pointed out on another thread a while back, it was the lack of suitable loco hauled stock which was the main reason the plan to transfer 83xxx tanks to the IoW to replace the (by then very tired) O2's didn't proceed. With the closure of Ventnor Tunnel along with the rest of the line south of Shanklin, I wonder how close "Restriction O" (Hastings line) stock came to fitting the bill? I'm guessing the curve at Ryde Esplanade was probably why that wasn't an option as much as cost.

The majority of 'Big Four' stock had of course been replaced with MKI's by the end of steam, though quite a few later examples made it into the 1970's (and bloody awful they looked in 'modern image' livery too IMO). With the 30 Year rule in force, none can have been left, in ordinary service, by the end of 1977.

Edited to clarify status of late PP conversion of Maunsell stock

 

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Wasn't there some GWR wooden stock running on the main line in the 70s/80s?

 

The Great Western Society Vintage Train. I saw it - diesel hauled at Temple Meads C1980

 

And the Severn Valley GWR train, which always seems to get forgotten.

 

It would have to be built in France. Some enthusiasts in the UK would support such a project but it would be many years before it might come about. But given the state of preservation in France I would have to say it will never happen. At one level I cannot help but think that Chapelon was extremely shabbily treated both by some of the companies that he worked for and by those responsible for the selection of steam era examples for preservation. The recreation of one of his finest designs might be a well deserved apology for the deliberate and wilful destruction of the originals. But the establishment apologise? No. Obstruct a group that wished to act in its stead? Quite possibly.

 

So when, and why, did the two GWR wooden trains get forced off the main line? What would preclude their return now, assuming they would be available and in good condition?

 

To answer the first part and add to the thread drift, the SVR's GWR rake of 10 ran between 1976 and 1978. I think BR then introduced an annual inspection fee per carriage which meant it was no longer commercially viable. There is some info on their use on the SVR Wiki:

https://www.svrwiki.com/The_Severn_...rriages_used_on_the_main_line_in_preservation

 

On rolling stock, I would have thought that pre nationalisation rolling stock was phased out in the 60s, largely because there was no longer any need for them. The Beeching cuts got rid of secondary services which they would have been cascaded to, and any such services which survived tended to be given over to DMUs.

If you include EMUs though, quite a lot of pre nationalisation designs survived considerably longer, the Bulleid designed 4EPBs ran for Network South East until 1995, whereas loco hauled stock had gone by the early 70s, a handful of LMS coaches received blue/grey, as did a small number of ex GWR Hawksworth ones, but the last ones of all were some Gresley and Thompson buffet cars which lasted until 77/8.

PS I actually thought they looked OK in blue/grey!

 

Crash worthiness. Restrictions apply even on Mark Is: from memory coupling and stewarding in lieu of central door locking. I had heard wooden bodied passenger vehicles were prohibited, but it is all from memory and a long time ago.

Patrick

 

Same applied to the GWS train in 1980. Compulsory lift & inspection for each vehicle at £5k a go. £50k was deemed too high a price.

 

Unfortunatly a great deal of the BR work of the 9F's was within the capability of a smaller engine as well. Building a hundred of them and another 200 O1's/Stanier 8f's/2884's would have been more sensible.

 

I would. I think they are Gresley's most handsome locos as well, especially in their last days when they had lost their boosters.

 

I did mention the Skye Bogies a way back. Very different from anything else likely to be in steam, very highly regarded by enginemen as well as enthusiasts, and small wheels to give a reasonable pulling power on all but the most arduous preserved lines. No mainline running anticipated, of course.

 

Erm, slight problem with your analysis there because ALL Maunsell (and Bulleid stock) was also wooden bodied. As were most designs by Stanier, Greasley, Thompson, Collett, Hacksworth, etc

Do not confuse steel paneling on top of a wooden frame with genuine 'all metal' coaches. Until the arival of the BR Mk1 it the bulk of UK coaching stock continued to use wood for its structural parts regardless of how 'modern' they may have looked on the outside.

 

NER/Lner D23, "Waterbury". Nice locos that lasted a while.