Atomic Systems

oldrocker wrote:That's what I object to. The all pervading FS as some sort of Holy Grail of Steam!

I shouldn't worry. Tornado will soon take over that role!

Seriously though, like it or not, for some reason the press sit up and take notice when 4472 is involved. All publicity for our movement is good publicity, so why look a gift horse in the mouth.

As for the Grange/County...[Sarcasm]Yes, that's a great idea. Because if there's one thing that railway preservation really doesn't have enough of, it's GWR 4-6-0s![/Sarcasm]

(Seriously, I do support the Grange/County projects...because they're built from bits of other GWR 4-6-0s )

AndyUK wrote:

dorlan wrote:

TheAmateurBasher wrote:You either love or hate her, but the iconic LNER A3 4-6-2 Pacific 4472 Flying Scotsman is back, after it's rather lengthy and expensive overhaul.<snip>

Flying Scotsman's return delayed by cracks!

Just caught up on the BBC piece at the link. Strikes me as odd that having had the loco in almost as many pieces as they could get it during the overhaul that the cracks weren't found until a few weeks ago. Also having found them why go to the time and expense of finishing off the job when some of it will surely have to be undone to fix the cracks?

Andy L

It's likely the boiler and the wheels will be off depends where the cracks are i suppose. To be honest and frank sound like somethings been missed somewhere.

AndyUK wrote:

dorlan wrote:

TheAmateurBasher wrote:You either love or hate her, but the iconic LNER A3 4-6-2 Pacific 4472 Flying Scotsman is back, after it's rather lengthy and expensive overhaul.<snip>

Flying Scotsman's return delayed by cracks!

Just caught up on the BBC piece at the link. Strikes me as odd that having had the loco in almost as many pieces as they could get it during the overhaul that the cracks weren't found until a few weeks ago. Also having found them why go to the time and expense of finishing off the job when some of it will surely have to be undone to fix the cracks?

Andy L

Funnily enough I was at the NRM (my only visit since they asset stripped the old museum in London) when they had FS in pieces. I'm sure I have a picture of the frame stripped down and primered somewhere. That'll have an Exif date and details. Seems odd it got to this level of completion before flaws were discovered?

As for the loco "fanz" aspect I think the point is that nowadays nowt gets attention or support without being elevated to a superficial "star/celebrity status" and there's no doubting that's why funding gets allocated and realistically, in todays world, that means spread more thinly elsewhere.

Any rail fan will want as much as possible preserved but as with cars "Ferrari" might be known to all but "Cortina/Mondeo/Cavalier etc.etc." will have been actually owned and operated by the many. Beaulieu might have many supercars but any truely representative car museum must have it's Model T's, Anglia's, Austin Sevens, Fiat 500's etc. to represent what cars are about?

Geoff

The Scotsman is now being prepared for a boiler lift, lets hope this will be the last time the boiler will be off its frames until 2023 at least...

a

oldrocker wrote:That's what I object to. The all pervading FS as some sort of Holy Grail of Steam!

Cut it up and melt down the bits to provide materials for the Grange or County !

I am more of an LMS person, not particular LNER I mean, but in my opinion FS, as a representative of the A3 class perhaps, is THE steam locomotive for many people around the world. That is how many people think a steam locomotive should look like. Holy Grail is perhaps a bit overdone but she IS famous, having travelled around the world (USA, Australia) and I know The Royal Scot has been around too and the USA trip of FS almost meant FS being cut up in the States (perhaps something to your liking..just joking ). Anyway, I think FS should be around forever and, don't get me wrong, so should be all steam engines that are still around; hopefully there will always be people around who can and will support this financially. I think there is a lot other old iron lying around that could be melted down for materials to get a Grange or County class back on the tracks.
Interesting discussion this is; for me, I am looking forward to the Patriot that is resurrecting from scratch as we speak. Somebody way back forgot to preserve one, what a pity that was.
Cheers
Jos

Hi Jos,

I think you've hit one nail on the head here. Railway Preservation in the UK is probably (?) THE best in the world? I chatted with some guy's at the Florida Gulf Coast Museum http://www.frrm.org/index1.php about this and their efforts. The huge advantage for this type of activity we in the UK and much of Europe have is that we are very small geographically and very densly populated too. That concentrates money, effort, interested parties etc. into a viable travelling distance of many projects. Put all those assets in a small geographic location and you'd have to ask why? if there wasn't the success that groups here have achieved. Put that together with a network that will tolerate main line operations by preserved stock and loco's, a "Light Rail Order" that allows operations limited to 25 m.p.h. on our many preserved lines and you have a perhaps unique opportunity? Plus of course there are plenty of "Nuts like us" here in the UK to support the efforts .

It's not surprising that in the US they too have certain "icons" preserved like "Big Boy" and the 40DD diesel. However, as I've read in the past, they struggle with steam running because the paranoia over compensation claims has lead to massive insurance premiums and a reluctance to pass/certify boilers because of the one in a million chance that one might explode?! When you look at the famous classes of US steam like PRR's K4's and even the ubiquotous E class passenger diesels there are very few surviving and many not in running order. Perhaps the US habit of running stuff into the ground and then reusing components in refurbished or rebuilt classes, a fine example of recycling before anyone had coined the phrase, they didn't have the opportunities for preservation that we in the UK had? Many UK preserved loco's were hardly started on their life in commercial use when they were retired. I'd put FS up there with Big Boy. It's an icon for steam locomotives but compared with what really earned the money in the LNER, LMS competition of the inter war years it's actually just one of quite a few classes that took part.

It's perhaps more credit to the publicists than the restorers? That's NOT to degrade the restorers efforts!!!! Let's remeber that the restorers devote their skills to ANY project. You don't get involved without a love of your subject. It's just that the publicity surrounding the early restorations of FS came when much of the UK preservation was in it's infancy and as such was very successful. Perhaps why many folk are a tads cynical about the Hype is that it's just one loco. If you look at the Swanage Railway they didn't just preserve a loco. They rebuilt from the very ground up an ENTIRE branch line, track stations, stock et al. In my book a far greater achievement but with far less hype?

I guess we suffer from today's lazy media for that hype. The enthusiast press reports every placing of every bolt on most projects so the broader media hardly have to do much work to assemble informed and interesting story about any rail matter but they resort to tabloid simplification etc just to get a headline.

Geoff

The GWR and LMS also had a policy of reusing serviceable components and assemblies from older locos in new designs, especially when the new design was an evolution of an older one. As an extreme case, the GWR "Dukedog" was essentially the best parts of a "Duke" and a "Bulldog" welded together, but it is also often common to see, in lists of locos, that a couple of dozen of the first built have some quirk in the wheelbase of the bogie because it was scavenged from a predecessor. The various pannier and prairie tanks also had a huge number of parts in common, to the point where a particular chassis might come in with a small boiler, large wheels and autotrain fittings, and go out after overhaul with a larger boiler, smaller wheels and no autotrain fittings - or vice versa.

More recently, most of the 3rd-rail EMU types reused at least some of the traction equipment from some predecessor to some degree, due to the extreme longevity and standard design of English Electric motors and so on. The 442s, which are still available for service, scavenged the traction equipment wholesale from the older 4REP units. Now there is a pre-war unit being rebuilt using traction equipment from a Mk1-bodied EMU.

Arguably, the "rebuilt" Merchant Navy and BoB classes are new designs using rather a lot of the old, Bulleid designed ones. They certainly look nothing alike.

So, on the whole, a reduce-reuse-recycle policy doesn't really correlate well to lack of preservation. But if the equipment is completely worn out and run down, then preservation becomes much harder - some of the early preservation successes, which got the movement going in the first place, relied on fortuitous availability of more-or-less freshly overhauled locos which were going for scrap long before the end of their working lives. Much of the later success relied on Dai Woodham's scrapyard, with more and more challenging projects being taken on as overhaul techniques and finances improved.

But even in preservation, a project becomes far more viable if it can actually perform a useful function. So we have the likes of the Ffestiniog Railway, which has been able to operate a 13-mile railway to sufficient commercial advantage to be able to finance the rebuilding (and extension) of the Welsh Highland Railway, complete with a veritable *fleet* of working, standardised steam locos to run it. They were even willing to contemplate restarting freight operations related to the infamous spoil tips, which were foiled by the ironic unavailability of sufficient harbour facilities in the modern era. (Presumably, the extra paths required to run freight trains alongside the normal service would have been provided by the passing loops at Dduallt and Rhyd Ddu.)

Kromaatikse wrote:More recently, most of the 3rd-rail EMU types reused at least some of the traction equipment from some predecessor to some degree, due to the extreme longevity and standard design of English Electric motors and so on. The 442s, which are still available for service, scavenged the traction equipment wholesale from the older 4REP units. Now there is a pre-war unit being rebuilt using traction equipment from a Mk1-bodied EMU.

Going off topic, but Adrian Shooter brought up this topic when he spoke to the Marlow and District Railway Society a few years ago. He told us that in a few years before, he'd visited a workshop on the ex-Southern Region and examined some traction motors freshly overhauled and about to be put back into a unit. They were date-stamped 1917...!

Railway Preservation in the UK is probably (?) THE best in the world? I chatted with some guy's at the Florida Gulf Coast Museum http://www.frrm.org/index1.php about this and their efforts. The huge advantage for this type of activity we in the UK and much of Europe have is that we are very small geographically and very densly populated too. That concentrates money, effort, interested parties etc. into a viable travelling distance of many projects. Put all those assets in a small geographic location and you'd have to ask why? if there wasn't the success that groups here have achieved. Put that together with a network that will tolerate main line operations by preserved stock and loco's, a "Light Rail Order" that allows operations limited to 25 m.p.h. on our many preserved lines and you have a perhaps unique opportunity? Plus of course there are plenty of "Nuts like us" here in the UK to support the efforts .

Very true. However, the downside is that concentrating so many of the world's railway enthusiasts into one island can lead to a rather insular mentality. There's no shortage of people who keep saying that we should restore 46235 or repatriate 60008 and 60010, classes already represented in Britain. But there are many unique engines rusting away in foreign fields that they haven't even bothered to find out about. Take that Portuguese 4-6-0 I've mentioned earlier; I've done some research these last few days and discovered that only one survives. It's diffiuclt even to find up-to-date information about her, but at last report she was rusting in a siding, looking as bad as some of the worst Barry wrecks. Who in Britain is going to do anything about it?

Back on topic...

lateagain wrote:Any rail fan will want as much as possible preserved but as with cars "Ferrari" might be known to all but "Cortina/Mondeo/Cavalier etc.etc." will have been actually owned and operated by the many. Beaulieu might have many supercars but any truely representative car museum must have it's Model T's, Anglia's, Austin Sevens, Fiat 500's etc. to represent what cars are about?

Yes, you're quite right - and the founders of the national collection have often been criticised for preserving far more Edwardian 4-4-0s than 0-6-0s! Fortunately, though, preservation's "private sector" has helped to redress that balance.
Yes, it can be argued that Scotsman is diverting attention from other projects, but that's not entirely the NRM's fault. The trouble is, the media "hype" surrounding 4472 has become self-sustaining.

Put yourself in York's shoes. If they hadn't decided to bid for her in 2004, they'd have run the risk of letting her go abroad - and if that had happened, there would have been an outcry, not just from enthusiasts but from Joe Public. Of course, some enthusiasts immediately said "don't let York buy her, they'll only stuff and mount her!" So, York had to give a public pledge that they would keep her running once they'd bought her. Now they are bound to fulfil that promise - because if they don't, they'll face another outcry from thousands of disgruntled donors - myself included - who all gave money in the expecation that it would keep the engine running. That's the said truth about museums: they are subject to an awful lot of politics.

So, while her celebrity status is mixed blessing, we have to try to make the best of it. At the end of the day, if 4472 visits Swanage and attracts a thousand extra visitors to the railway, thanks to free publicity in the local media, then she's done the railway a great service.

As for myself, as a kid I was very effectively seduced by the Scotsman legend. I could become cynical about it in adulthood, but why?

Think we're mainly on the same Hymn sheet?

Another "popular" bit of "knowledge is Mallard. Now I love the A4's. But Mallards "wrecking" record setting run has totally overshadowed the Coronation Scot's records. At least we've got a streamlined version back at last but I doubt that will redress the balance? Now wouldn't it be something if they restored the whole Train sets for the Coronation Scot and say the Silver Jubilee. Now if you want to celebrate Named trains those two WOULD be a sight! Sadly coaches have a lesser if none the less dedicated following in the preservation world. BR's stockpiling of coaches for peak times must have meant a surplus ripe for pruning before anyone had the foresight to snap up many classics?

Strangely enough the Streamliners that made up some of the "Crack Express Trains" in the US have survived better than any of the loco's that actually hauled them. That IS a tribute to their manufacturers? So forget Big Boy you guy's over the pond! ...How about a rebuild of a NYC Hudson?

Geoff

lateagain wrote:Now wouldn't it be something if they restored the whole Train sets for the Coronation Scot and say the Silver Jubilee. Now if you want to celebrate Named trains those two WOULD be a sight! Sadly coaches have a lesser if none the less dedicated following in the preservation world. BR's stockpiling of coaches for peak times must have meant a surplus ripe for pruning before anyone had the foresight to snap up many classics?

Now here we're definately on the same hymn sheet! If anyone were to suggest cutting one of the still-unrestored Barry wrecks, there'd be an outcry, but every year magnificent vintage coaches continue to slip quietly away, because they've been allowed to rot beyond the point of no return. Then you see preserved branch lines populated entirely with Mk. I stock, which is wrong, since branch lines tended to get cascaded older vehicles. Railways like the Bluebell, IoW and Severn Valley are to be commended, not only for preserving vintage coaches, but more importantly for getting them undercover. In fact, getting wooden-bodied coaches undercover should be a higher priority than restoring than restoring them. But perhaps carriage sheds just aren't "sexy" enough for fundraising purposes?

And if groups like the A1SLT are serious about continuing to run steam on the 21st century main line, then they'll have to think about coaching stock at some point. By 2020 the Mk. Is will be 60-70 years old, and even most Mk. IIs will be over 50. So perhaps there would be some logic in building a brand new, dedicated steam charter set, perhaps with commerical sponsorship? It could be built in one of the Big Four styles, but modified under the skin to meet modern safety standards. Why not recreate the "Coronation" set, complete with beavertail? Perhaps I'm getting carried away now...!

MuzTrem wrote:

lateagain wrote:Why not recreate the "Coronation" set, complete with beavertail? Perhaps I'm getting carried away now...!

...well if folk have the money and the will to build Tornado from Scratch a few coaches should be a "snip" of the cost? Trouble is that when you see the mock-up of the carriage builders workshop at Swindon you do wonder how many folk nowadays have those skills?

Mind you WHAT a project for teaching skills to the younger generation? and as a recent BBC series on what we manufacture in the UK identified recently we're rather good at "High End/Quality" production of small runs so what better task? There are a good few Gresley wooden coaches awaiting refurbishment but the one I saw at Aviemore last year was tarpaulined as best as possible but in the open.

There's no doubt the passion is there but the skills and the dosh are becoming thinner?

How many coaches has the NRM in it's "to do list"?

Trouble is that the unquestionably political decision to move Clapham to York, and then open even further North might be terribly PC, support the regions etc. etc. but high cost projects like the NRM need to be close to the largest Skill's Base, Potential financial backers/sponsors, and the largest potentially skilled volunteer force. I don't say this in any way to detract from the efforts of those who support the NRM now but the bottom line is that the big Metropolitan Regions in the UK have what's needed many times over than York ......and Shildon frankly beggars belief!!! ...not because there's anything wrong with those who work at and support Shildon but purely based on it's geographical location. I'd need a mortgage for the fuel (and a lot of time) to drive there from London.

If you wanted a second site and didn't want to be seen to "favour" the South East at least Birmingham would have made more sense geographically? It's pretty much "in the Middle"?

As a Soft Southerner I'd be more than happy to see another Northern location, if it helped the locale, but just how many jobs did Shildon Create? It can't be an easy trip for those in the North who'd love to volunteer even? As the UK is fast becoming a theme park to our heavy industries past maybe what's needed is some serious investment in that? Of course we need to create a bit more global warming to get the Summers hotter first

Geoff

PS ...just found this: http://www.shakespeareexpress.com/tlw/i ... m_pn_v.jpg
You can just see those lines down the rank of coaches, all in that livery ....and then ..wake up

lateagain wrote:Trouble is that the unquestionably political decision to move Clapham to York, and then open even further North might be terribly PC, support the regions etc. etc. but high cost projects like the NRM need to be close to the largest Skill's Base, Potential financial backers/sponsors, and the largest potentially skilled volunteer force. I don't say this in any way to detract from the efforts of those who support the NRM now but the bottom line is that the big Metropolitan Regions in the UK have what's needed many times over than York ......and Shildon frankly beggars belief!!! ...not because there's anything wrong with those who work at and support Shildon but purely based on it's geographical location. I'd need a mortgage for the fuel (and a lot of time) to drive there from London.

Well, as I've often said, this is why we need HS2 to bring everyone closer together! (Encourage more businesses to move "up North", and hopefully more skilled workers will move with them.)

As the UK is fast becoming a theme park to our heavy industries past maybe what's needed is some serious investment in that? Of course we need to create a bit more global warming to get the Summers hotter first

Perhaps that's not an entirely bad thing? After all, as somebody once said, you can't outsource our heritage! And as workers in Asia and South America become more propsperous, hopefully they'll become tourists.

You can just see those lines down the rank of coaches, all in that livery ....and then ..wake up

Of course, the dedicated red-and-gold set of coaches only ran with 6229 in America. An enticing might-have-been if ever there was one!