O & K 2ft Gauge Loco for Auction

An interesting piece of railwayana in the next GWRA Auction is 2' Gauge O & K Loco Elsa No 7122 Ex Zimbabwe Railways. See link Railwayana Auctions - Next Major Railwayana and Railway Auction

 

As I recall this loco was at Preston steam center a couple of years ago or so, the story I was told is that it needs a new boiler, which I has to be the best part of £50,000+.

This is the very reason for setting up the loco group as I can see this sort of thing happening more often as steam and diesel locos need repair's or the owners die.

 

Nice loco.

 

'Nice' in the sense you like the look of it? I suspect its not a 'nice' restoration project, looks well worn and battered, albeit with a coat of paint. . Which is OK if you really like it and want to spend lots of money on it. But I fear it will end up stood somewhere for a long time and then come on the market again. Bear in mind you can buy a new Quarry Hunslet for something like £150,000.

 

.............. but people (including Graham Lee!) still restore clapped out old locos when they could build a new one. It's all to do with finishing up with something with some history to it I suspect. Why would Graham have bought the quarry Hunslets from the USA otherwise? He's probably got kits of parts for another two or three quarry Hunslets if he just wanted a couple more.

 

As the man from Amberly said to me, buying it is the entry fee, I just hope you have got deep pockets.

 

Elsa no longer appears on the auction website - presumably she's been withdrawn from sale? Anyone know for sure?

 

Probably at Statfold Barn by now!

 

Not us!

Henry

SBR

 

Sometimes the power of the Internet can be both good and bad, I don't know the reason why Else has been withdrawn from the auction, but I guess it will be one of the following reasons
A) he has had an offer for her outside of the auction, B) he has decided to keep it or C) there isn't any interest in it at the price he wants.

Having seen the price of how much some of these imported locos are being offer for sale for and how much it will cost to get them back into steam I do wonder if the market has been flooded at present?

I can see that in time we may end up with museums full of static NG locos and stock not being used because we don't have the railways for them to run on, there is a railway site in Holland where the building is crammed full of NG locos and rolling stock, but they don't have a cat in hell chance of restoring it all as they also don't have the man power to do the work, sad really in one sense, but also it is good to see the equipment as it left the industrial setting it used to work in.

 

But has anyone?

 

That i do not know, but i do know several of the kerr stuart "Wren" types they have produced have been sold, one at Amerton and another at Kew Bridge museum i belive.

 

Not as far as I know. It does rather beg the question why not, though. I certainly would, if I wanted a working loco for a tourist line.

After all, these are genuine Hunslets, like another member of the class, just a bit newer.

No, I have no involvement with the people who make them, but I did see Jack Lane when it visited the WHHR and it seemed a splendid piece of work.

 

Both Statfold and Jack Lane were built (ostensibly!) for speculative sale , but in all honesty we soon fell in love with them both so the efforts to sell have been very half-hearted!

We do have 2 more "on the shelf" in kit form though.

Selling them now would be like selling one of the children !!

Henry

SBR