Exmoor Garratts?

There have been some hints on the rheilfford eryri Yahoo group that one (or maybe more) of the Exmoor Garratts may soon be on the move. However, the 'hinter' felt unable to tell more to us 'hintees'!

Anyone out there know anything more about NGG16s leaving Exmoor? If so, how many and where to?!!

 

Possibly. However it is probably best to wait for an announcement from any parties concerned regarding movement/purchase etc of a Garratt. Not that that will stop any speculation!

 

Just out of interest. If the FR/WHR do purchase more Exmoor Garratts in the near future? Where would they store them? To me, I think a bigger engine shed/workshop at Dinas could be the solution? Especially when the line has fully re-opened & running service trains to/from Porthmadog.

 

I think the Penrose Light Railway has bought them all and will regauge them to 10.25" !! \/

 

Things are moving on this front, don't worry!

 

Could it be related to Great Northern Steam's new narrow gauge railways they're planning to build?

 

Ooooh - tell us more!
Is there a web site?

 

I don't know much, it was in the latest Heritage Railway magazine...they just said they are planning to build two narrow gauge railways, one up north and one in the south east, as part of their massive expansion plans...I don't know if I'd get in trouble writing out that part of the article?

 

To avoid any arguments over copyright, etc, just summarise in your own words what was stated.

Chris

 

Basicly the article essentially says that they are planning to build two brand spanking new state of the art narrow gauge railways, one in the north east, and one in the south east, next to a new holiday village that is currently under construction. Thats all it says. How do you build a state of the art narrow gauge railway? And whats the difference between a holiday camp and a holiday village?

Anywho...thats all i know

 

See http://whr.bangor.ac.uk/

Nothing. The term 'holiday camp' is out of fashion, that's all.

 

Oh I suppose yea...I was thinking computer controlled things...

 

I hope whoever buys them has deep pockets, 87 was considered the best of the lot and that cost over 1/2 a million to fix.

Tim

 

Latest hint I have is that it's gonna be another NGG16 for RhE (aka WHR(C)) - this could possibly be to act as a spares loco to allow the current 4th NGG16 to be fully restored??

 

that would make sense if they want to buy one for spares and replacement boilers and bogies, does anyone know what condition 140 is in, as this is the only RHE garratt not to have steamed yet. funny this should pop up, as on sunday evening i was talking to one of the people who brought the garratts back for the robin hoods bay scheme, who remains annoyed at the local council for pulling the rug out from under their feet, after they had imported several engines into the country. if they had not, and the railway had been successful, we may be talking about a different RhE, and we would have a narrow gauge railway going strong in yorkshire!

 

Expect 140 to enter service... gradually. Starting with one of its power units under one end of no. 138 when it re-enters service later this year. I think the other power unit is still untouched. The boiler (stripped, de-scaled, protective paint, understood to only need minor work) and boiler cradle are sitting on wagons in Dinas bay platform. They'll need to be at least shunted around in the next few weeks so that NG15 no. 133 can be extracted from the far end of the same line.

 

My man on the inside says that it will be going to a Welsh railway. Now it is too big for the FR, so which WHR will it be heading to................?

 

well that makes sense, if you've got a fleet of almost identical engines its the logical thing to do to swap parts. i'm sure that's what the south africans did. but if you're swapping the boilers and power bogies around all the time, how will you define it's identity? if normally the identity is defined by the frames, which frames do you use on a garratt- the front, boiler, or back?

 

The boiler frame (but not necessarily the boiler it's carrying). As you've realised, it's all a bit arbitrary for the near-identical NGG16s from the 1958 batch (as it was in SA), indeed no. 143 is running around at the moment with the rear unit that was previously under no. 138. The older no. 87 doesn't pose a problem (yet!) as it's the only one of that batch to have come to the UK (but it does have an NGG13 boiler frame, just to complicate matters). But on the other hand K1 is K1 despite having the boiler frame from K2...

If it's any comfort, we're still far below, say, the identity complications of certain Dinorwig Hunslets (see Cliff Thomas's book for the ins and outs of what the loco we know as Maid Marian might actually have started out as).

 

Ahhh, the age old question of steam loco identity...

There is a persistent rumour amongst non-railwaymen that this information actually matters, whereas in fact it does not. Major components such as boilers have their own identity and it is these (where they exist) that were tracked by railway companies. The rest of the loco was just the components that make up a loco and were repaired and used where required. The completed loco as a whole was then given a unique identity, usually - but not always (Albert/Rood Ashton Hall, for example) - the identity associated with a set of frames. This unique identity was then used for operating and maintenance purposes until the loco returned to works for major overhaul and became just components again. The idea that the frames make an "identity" 100% positive is nonsense as these were often renewed as a matter of course.

My point is that in pre-preservation days a loco's identity did not matter, provided it was unique to that loco. There is no reason why that arrangement cannot continue.

London Transport adopted a rather different attitude to their buses, where each chassis and body had their own number. A vehicle numbered, say, RM1234 and consisting of chassis 0073543 and body B2133 would enter Aldenham Works for overhaul. Soon after, and often the same day, a newly-overhauled vehicle numbered RM1234 would leave Aldenham works having absolutely no connection with the vehicle that had just arrived. The chassis and body from the original vehicle would be separated and go through the chassis and body overhaul process, and on completion they would be married up to the next available body or chassis, and almost certainly not their original "partner". The completed vehicle would then receive an available RMxxxx number from a recently arrived vehicle when it left the works.