West Somerset Railway General Discussion

That's a bold statement, especially given the annual accounts. I hope he's right - but it has the whiff of a chairman's vote of confidence in the club manager.

 

I would be quite happy to have 53808 on display at Bath Green Park Station for a number of years to publicise the SDRT (say 5 years). I would be equally happy to have it at Shillingstone.

 

As they have most of the money and the main income source of the trust is the locomotives, why are you so obsessed with not just getting on with the overhaul, which is only going to get more expensive and (probably less achievable due to the passing of nostalgic donors) with time?

 

Because I think myself that having the loco 53808 back in steam is only one part of the SDRT. For much of the SDRT’s existence 53808 hasn’t been in steam hauling trains.

You could equally argue the case that Stepney on the Bluebell is so much a part of the Bluebell Line that it should always continuously be overhauled and rebuilt so to be in steam and running and hauling trains.

I think the IOWSR has a similar mentality to O2 ‘Calbourne’ ie get it running in steam and hauling trains. The only retirement or respite it has had is due to the cost of expensive repairs. I’ve never got my head round this. Put it on display like Caerphilly Castle and The Dean Goods.

The SDRT was established years ago to record and preserve the memory of the S&D. It was incidental and subsequent that it bought 53808 as a wreck from the scrapyard. And it isn’t the only member of the class to survive.