Re: The aesthetic thread aka "Fugly"
Posted: Sun Jul 19, 2009 11:20 am
Couple of points, one to clarify a few things, one an opinion:
First, it's cheaper to build in the USA because the pound sterling is considerably higher in value than it used to be. This makes dollars comparatively cheap, so a loco which costs, shall we say, two million dollars to build in the USA, might well cost two million pounds to build in the UK. The US cost equates to only about one point three million pounds, so the logic is easy to see. A general rule of thumb if you're comparing is that whatever it costs in dollars over there, is probably numerically about the same as what it would cost in pounds over here. They're possibly a little cheaper to build over there because most US engines are two-stroke, therefore simpler mechanically, though I don't know precisely which engines they'll use in this new one. Most of the development work for the componentry - engine, transmissions, bogies, motors, etc. has already been done, so the cost of that does not have to be factored in, which it would be for a UK built machine - including designing or importing a suitable engine - and costs go up still further. Not only that, but the locomotive building capability of any of the UK's former works was run down donkey's years back; such manufacturing capability we still have is all MU based. It has little to do with build quality, reliability, or labour relations directly; it's pure economics.
The opinion is simple: How could anyone have designed anything of such pure and unrelieved ugliness? The Class 58 was an attempt at a nice looking loco that nearly made it, but not quite. The Class 66 was an exercise in elegance. The 67 was a classic example of how not to design simplistically; it may have had simple lines, but the proportions were all wrong, and the angles and curves poorly realised. It had no 'presence', which the 66 has in abundance.
This new thing takes all the worst features of the old 58 and combines them with the worst of the 67 into a nightmare. Yuk!
First, it's cheaper to build in the USA because the pound sterling is considerably higher in value than it used to be. This makes dollars comparatively cheap, so a loco which costs, shall we say, two million dollars to build in the USA, might well cost two million pounds to build in the UK. The US cost equates to only about one point three million pounds, so the logic is easy to see. A general rule of thumb if you're comparing is that whatever it costs in dollars over there, is probably numerically about the same as what it would cost in pounds over here. They're possibly a little cheaper to build over there because most US engines are two-stroke, therefore simpler mechanically, though I don't know precisely which engines they'll use in this new one. Most of the development work for the componentry - engine, transmissions, bogies, motors, etc. has already been done, so the cost of that does not have to be factored in, which it would be for a UK built machine - including designing or importing a suitable engine - and costs go up still further. Not only that, but the locomotive building capability of any of the UK's former works was run down donkey's years back; such manufacturing capability we still have is all MU based. It has little to do with build quality, reliability, or labour relations directly; it's pure economics.
The opinion is simple: How could anyone have designed anything of such pure and unrelieved ugliness? The Class 58 was an attempt at a nice looking loco that nearly made it, but not quite. The Class 66 was an exercise in elegance. The 67 was a classic example of how not to design simplistically; it may have had simple lines, but the proportions were all wrong, and the angles and curves poorly realised. It had no 'presence', which the 66 has in abundance.
This new thing takes all the worst features of the old 58 and combines them with the worst of the 67 into a nightmare. Yuk!
) starting static generators and will be 4-stoke.
