FAO R Burbank

From the GCR weekly newsletter:

Would Mr R Burbank, or anyone who knows his whereabouts, please contact Tony Sparks on tony.sparks1 at virgin.net or ring 07896 937555.Mr Burbank is, or was, the registered owner of wagon no. 45055, lying at Swithland. If no contact is received within 90 days of this notice, the GCR reserves the right to take action in respect of this vehicle.
Tony Sparks

 

Yes I saw that too.

It looks as though the GCR are having a clearout, fair play to them.

Too many preserved Railways have junk taking up siding space with so called owners who have not the slightest interest in ever restoring them not giving someone else the chance to do so.

Rant over, though I do think it is a fair point.

Regards
Chris:

 

Said wagon is, it must be said, not in the best of health. It's a Caledonian Railway 15T 'pig iron' wagon from c.1905, one of 3 survivors (all on the GCR and all in various states of decay, though one does see occasional use). Assuming this process leads to it's disposal, would the SRPS or anyone similar be interested? If anyone wants to PM me, I did take lots of photos of these a few years ago.

To be honest, you could conserve what remains in a dry environment or you could build a very expensive replica with not many original parts.

These are very technically interesting vehicles as they have pressed steel underframes. Unfortunately this is also their achilles heel as the pressed steel sections are now rotting through in places. But it would be a shame if there was ultimately no survivor of this method of construction.

45056 is slightly more original as it retains the pressed steel solebars too - the other two have had these replaced with rolled steel sections at some point, which must have been a fairly major rebuild!

I should add that I do not know R Burbank or his whereabouts! And even if I did, restoring this wagon is beyond me, I'm afraid...