Under restoration/Never steamed in preservation

Haha. Yeah... I'm baffled myself as to why I did that.

Still, great contribution Bob

 

I guess that's one case for more preserved railways... *glances at the Meon Valley Restoration thread*

 

How will that help?

 

Well, couldn't you argue that some more established railways have locos that there's little demand for amongst the common steam railway enthusiast? - and therefore they are quite far down the pecking order in the restoration queue? I see it on here all the time when people are requesting loco rosters; "I'm not travelling to <insert place here> for less than <insert place here>". ie: poor old Austeritys!

 

No - go to any line which has a large resident fleet but relatively few of them operational, and you will find the reason is a lack of resources (money / space / volunteers) to restore them, not a lack of demand for their services when operational. Spreading those locos out over a greater number of preservation schemes won't see those locos restored, simply dispersed. The only way to get them restored is for the movement as a whole to generate more cash, volunteer hours, skills etc. Anyone who could come up with an operational steam loco at the moment would likely get their hand bitten off by several railways: show me an operational steam loco anywhere in the country (especially one that is about a nominal class 1 - class 5 in size) that is getting less than an optimum amount of work simply due to lack of demand for its services?

Tom

 

Great post Tom, even if the aim of it was to completely annihilate my opinion haha. Lack of money, space, and volunteers hinders restoration, and the only way to get them restored is to generate more cash. However; new railway created by volunteers = more generated cash = more money to restore locos (Of course, an argument then is that a new railway could potentially take away volunteers/money away from another, and that's an ongoing theme in most new project threads - including saturating the market etc...). I wasn't at all saying that there were operational locos not being used! Just locos that are out of ticket that need overhauls, that potentially another group could take up.

The equation behind my remark was that 'more railways = more operational locos'.

 

No, I think "more railways = more demand for operational locos" - creating that demand doesn't magically create the resources to do anything to satisfy that demand.

It's not obvious to me that there is a large pool of untapped volunteers and / or financial donors who are inhibted from donating their time / skills / cash simply because they haven't yet found the "right" project for them. Sure, there will be one or two (though arguably, some of those might be serial procastinators), but not large numbers. So creating more demand for motive power doesn't magically generate the resources to get it restored; especially bearing in mind that no railway is truly self-sustaining from fare income alone, and all heritage railways only survive due to a large contribution of free labour and donated money in one form or another.

Tom

 

Again, good post, but again you're putting words into my mouth haha. I'm not saying magically!

I'm saying as a general rule that more railways = more operational locos. If a society creates a new railway, they're going to do everything in their power (whether buy/restore/create) to get an operational loco - one that potentially wouldn't be operational if it wasn't for the new railway (because as you said, there is more demand). I'm not saying this is 'magically' guaranteed (I'd create a new railway in my garden!), and that this happens overnight or anything, but there is a good chance of this happening.

For example; Stainmore Railway Company recently bought 9F 92219 to restore. If they restore it to operational condition, which hopefully they will, then that's one more operational loco than before. If Stainmore Railway Company didn't exist, then would this 9F ever steam?

The tragedy here is that I was just making a jokey comment because the Meon Valley thread was getting hot-headed!

 

just been reminded of a further thing that impressed me about the G&WR, pertinent to this thread.....if i got it right, 8 ex-Main Line locos present....4 in service and 2 or 3 nearly ready for service....that's a lot better than headshunts full of formerly working locos .

(PS I love austerities especially when in authentic non-BR or LNER livery)

 

Not trying to put words in your mouth at all!

I guess my point is, if someone sets up a new scheme, are you absolutely certain that it releases previously untapped resources (cash, time...) or simply redistributes a finite pool in a different way? In other words - you cite 92219 as an example. if you get it restored, more power to your collective elbow, but are you certain that in creating a better future for that loco, you haven't simply created a more uncertain future for some other loco?

Very difficult to tell definitively I guess. In the early days of preservation, once the pioneers had shown there was a latent demand for railway preservation, then new schemes were tenable if they set up in geographically new areas: in the 1960s - however interested you were in railway preservation - if you lived in North Yorkshire, regularly volunteering in Sussex was always going to be a niche pastime! But once you reach a saturation point where any potential volunteer is within, say, 1 hour's travelling of a potential scheme, you'll get to a point where anyone with the wherewithal to actually offer their time and skills will be able to do so relatively easily. At that point, if you want to see more than the current number of locos operational at any one time (allowing for the fact that the "operational" fleet slowly circulates) then you have to find a way to expand the overall capacity of the industry, not simply move the same capacity around between projects. Certainly, there is the operational demand just across existing railways, without creating any new ones, to have more steam locos in operation than currently are available. Which can only mean that as a market, it is limited by lack of supply, not lack of demand. Therefore - in my opinion - creating new schemes is only a tenable route to increasing the overall stock of steam locos if it genuinely unleashes previously untapped capacity to restore engines.

Tom

 

Nope. Haha. My point was that new schemes can take locos that otherwise wouldn't run, because their current owners don't have the cash/desire to get them operational. You see this from time to time with 'loan' dealings (although I think this is more common with rolling stock) where another society restores the locomotive in return for running it for a while.

Also, Stainmore are building for the future (the 9F is long term!) and I'm certain in this instance that all locos have a good future ahead of them

But in some instances you're definitely right, new acquisitions create an uncertain future for other locos. But if the society has no locos to begin with, that loco is suddenly Top Dog, instead of being at the end of a long queue to overhaul (or worse - the dreaded static display).

I think sometimes the locos that get overhauled are prioritized because of their suitability to the heritage railway. When an established railway is deciding which loco to overhaul next, it may (wisely) go for one that can handle the workload efficiently. The locos it used in it's inception, when the load was small, suddenly find themselves to be insufficient. Therefore this type of loco would be suited for a new 'start up'.

There must be examples of where railways have started off with industrial locomotives, and then acquired some BR/big 4 locos, and then the industrial locos have moved on to a 'newer' railways?

 

Didn't WSR start off with a industrial loco which moved on to another railway.

 

There's lots of examples - the SVR used to use an Austerity in its early days, and the NYMR used a couple of industrials. The South Devon went through a fit of enthusiasm for Austerities for a while. In most of the cases I've cited, as well as the WSR, it was found that ex-industrials were not suited to the loadings required on long lines and they were phased out as bigger engines became available.

 

I have chopped down your post a little and picked out a few things!

1. don't have the desire to get them operational...really?? I am sure every loco owner has plenty of desire to see it in steam (to the extent that people are building new ones!), cash is usually the problem.

2. In an overhaul queue or on display...is this really a problem? I mean they aren't going for scrap and will get their turn in time, is that a bad thing? It is a very hard job balancing which locos you need in traffic and overhauling them to suit - just go and read the Bluebell Motive Power thread. But it is such an costly game that you don't want any more engines in traffic that you really need or you are wasting an expensively restored engine! We cannnot steam everything all the time and if we thought about it we would not want to!

Lastly you make a comment about locos not being restored as they are not popular with enthusiasts...I think that has little to do with it as the general public account for the lion's share of taking for any preserved railway!

Oh PS 41313 has never steamed in preservation and is presently on the IWSR.

 

I'm presuming at least one of the WSR/SVR/NYMR/SDR owned Austeritys as a society and sold them. So therefore yes - they didn't have the desire to get them operational. My original point was that more railways = more locos operational. If I was part of a heritage railway that say, owned ten locos, nine of which were extremely well matched for the line, yet one of is no longer capable because of the demand, then I wouldn't be too surprised if they sold it to a newer railway where it could be useful again.

No? Did I say it was?

I understand but I'm not against this at all... ? My point was more railways = more operational locos. I'm not saying overhaul queues are bad mate!

I think this happens. I agree that a steam engine is a steam engine to the public, but to cater to the public and the enthusiast makes sense; why wouldn't a railway do this? Heck, they're enthusiasts themselves (or they wouldn't be there) and have taste. I wasn't just making the point about the enthusiasts helping to decide what's in the queue either - surely an engine that looks like Thomas has a certain value to it. I personally like industrial locos but they're often the first to go (see examples mentioned) when a railway gets more established and more passenger appropriate motive power is sought. Newer railways help these cast aside locos to keep on living, whereas if they remained put they'd barely ever steam. Plenty of examples! It happens.

If I was part of a GWR branch line railway who had a strong desire for correct 'as it was' preservation, and we acquired all of the appropriate GWR rolling stock and motive power, I'd always be in favour of using that over 'alien' alternatives from other lines, even if they were used to get the ball rolling at the inception. This has happened a lot in preservation, where then newer railways get the stock that isn't needed any more and it gets a new breath of life.

 

I think Sidmouth summed up why so many locos haven't steamed in another thread. By saying "we are coming to the end of the golden age of preservation". If you look around different railways there a lots of locos stored waiting to steam for the first time or waiting for another overhaul. I don't think opening up more railways will reduce the amount of locos waiting to enter workshops. Surely the biggest issue is the rising cost of overhauling locos and the decrease in volunteers willing to invest their time to help overhaul these locos. I hear and see some railways don't get the volunteer workforce any more. Then you look at the cost of overhauling locos which will continue to increase. Which surely doesn't help some groups trying to overhaul their loco. A larger groups owning a loco or a railway owning a loco will be able to over come the increasing costs. I think some of the smaller loco groups will need to join together or find new ways to funding the overhaul of their loco. Surely the best way would be for a preserved railway to pay loco steaming fees in advance of the loco entering service.

 

Everybody seems to be asking about where locos are going to come from, but what about the coaches ?
A good mark one could cost £15-£20k, & a wreck would be beyond the capability of many established preserved lines.

Bob.

 

Read my post again - all these lines (and you could add the KWVR to the list) ran Austerities or similar, but found them unsuitable for their needs. In most cases they had to get them into working order before they could use them. As has been pointed out many times before on this forum, Austerities were designed as heavy duty shunters- they were powerful but not intended for lengthy workings and were not suited to them. They did not have the boiler capacity and shot wheelbase and small wheels do not go hand in hand with being kind to track or bearings at 25mph.

 

This is a good point. The heritage railway movement was largely built on the availability of cheap Mk1s with plenty of life left in them. Those days are gone and the railway that have good examples hang onto them - if they let anything go it is the far gone examples. Where railways are trying to free up choked siding space it is the no-hopers that they are trying to offload, and the nascent lines are going to find life even more of an uphill struggle if that is all that is available to them. alternative sources, such as grounded wooden coach bodies are no better, they represent another money pit even if suitable underframes are available. Moreover, as Sleepermonster has mentioned, for most new born lines, just sourcing track materials is way harder and more expensive than it once was.

I've said this before, but it is worth stressing that heritage railways are a prime example of the rich getting richer. Collections of locos and carriages are tending to coalsce at the bigger railways. It is extremely rare for locos to be sold or moved from an established line to a nascent one, but not uncommon to see movements in the opposite direction - think of the 56XX and Hall from the Swindon & Cricklade, for example.. The Churnet Valley/Moorland and City also illustrates this point. As yet they haven't attracted any big engines, and indeed seem to have lost the 4F and Standard 4 tank that were there. What might be termed the semi-established lines, such as Weardale, Wensleydale and Mid Norfolk haven't attracted any permanent residents although all have good runs and have introduced steam services. The Standard 2 2-6-0 from Darlington moved, not to the nearby Weardale or Wensleydale, but to the Great Central. The same situation is true even in the industrial loco scene, which could be regarded as the entry level, where lines such as Foxfield seem very acquisitive.

So, actually, I don't see new lines as being particularly beneficial to the overall overhaul queue, its the second tier of established but smaller lines - Embsay and Peak Rail for example that will provide lifelines to such engines.

 

I don't understand why you've quoted me to say that - we're agreeing! If you look at everything I've typed I'm sure I've mentioned that they were unsuitable, I just didn't go into it. People have the tendency to quote, so I'm going to drastically limit what I say now. No more jokey sentences here...