OT a bit:Old Locos

The message from "Rob" contains these words:

ISTR that one of the Ffestiniog locos is a "rebuild" of one of the original locos... The reversing lever, or perhaps some other cab fitting, is the biggest part of the original loco in the "rebuild".

Lets put it this way, on your criteria many of the pre nationalisation loco's were replicas before they were withdrawn !....

Most loco's in preservation still have the frames, boiler barrel, wheels, axles, cylinders and sometimes motion that they where withdrawn with, also, many of the tender loco's still use the tender that they were attached to when withdrawn (although plate-work might well have been repaired / replaced.

There are exceptions to the above, notably the later loco's to come out of Barry scrap yard, many of the Bullied Pacific's lost their tenders when the British Steel Corp. bought them to use the frames as internal user 'wagons' at steel works in south Wales.

Slightly further off-topic, having seen the cost of overhauls recently I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of them coming up for sale in the near future? My grandad owns an engineering company but £500,000 a time would stretch even his budget.

(kim)

Wasn't one of the preserved Halls discovered to be a ringer?

Apparently it was in worse condition than one withdrawn for scrap, so they swapped the name and numberplates, and overhauled that one.

In message , Christopher A. Lee writes

Even Flying Scotsman is, IIRC running with an A4 rather than an A3 boiler.

There was instances of that sort of thing going on when the loco's were in big four / BR service, some loco's were not available to pull special services and their ID's were swapped with a loco in service at the time, IIRC two of the LMS Coronation class loco's swapped ID's in 1939, 6220 Princess Coronation (aka 6229 Duchess of Hamilton) ended up spending most of WW2 in the USA ! At least on state funeral train was pulled by a loco masquerading as the 'expected' loco.

Also frames, boilers, tenders and all manor of other things got swapped whilst loco's when through works overhauls etc. - the only thing that tended to stay original was the name and number plates.....

In which case he needs a better accountant !...

Seriously, most of these loco's are not financed from a single source.

It's an old railway adage that the loco that the collection of parts you call a loco, that goes into the shops, is not the same collection of parts that comes out.

Some of the Bulleid Pacific for example, entered traffic brand new with used boilers.

Generally speaking, it's the frames that define the loco, everything is and was subject to change and replacement.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

Much the same with London Transport buses and San Francisco cable cars.

Like the old axe that had had 2 new heads and 3 new handles. ;-)

"Roger T." wrote

I believe the LNER and then BR(ER) would even change loco frames if they became cracked. The cracked frames would then go off for repair and be re-used on a different loco.

John.

Sometimes they replace(d) the frames when they cracked once too often! Didn't the builders plate tend to stay with the (ahem) loco?

Greg.P.

Quite possibly. It was not unknown, in the latter BR steam days, for a condemned loco in pretty good nick to be repaired with parts from an in service loco and for the two to swap numbers, the "condemned" loco re-entering traffic with the number of "good" loco and the "good" loco going to scrap in its place.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

Nothing is impossible. The loco number is just a bookkeeping tool.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

Thanks.

That happened in both LNER and BR days. I believe the A4 boiler was slightly shorter and a piece was inserted between the tubeplate and the smokebox.

Boilers took longer to overhaul than the rest of the engine, so they kept a pool of spares.

A freshly overhauled engine took the next spare boiler, and when its original boiler had been overhauled, it went into the spare pool.

A.

I think it is in this month's Railway Magazine that it says the NRM has investigated Flying Scotsman and concluded that one cab side sheet and one other component are all that remain of the original. Andy Kirkham Glasgow

I think hardly anything of any of the Ffestiniog locos is original. Indeed the double Fairlie Merddyn Emrys is sometimes referred to as a "Thirteen-inch-to-the-foot replica" as many of its dimensions have increased during recent rebuilds.

But this is not a recent phenomenon. Boyd's history of the FR shows that locos were often rebuilt with (e.g.) new boiler, tanks, frames and cab after about twenty years of existence.

Andy Kirkham Glasgow

Not even that, like all revenue earning equipment they are there to earn there cost and make a profit on top, when new frames were required it was just another spare part....

It is true hat the frames were the least common item to need replacement but it did happen.

What determines a loco is it's running number.

Just to add to this, but wandering slightly further off-topic if I may. My workplace rebuilds RB199 engines for Tornado aircraft, these engines are of a modular construction, there being 16 main modules to an engine. It is quite legal (and does in fact happen every now and again) for all 16 modules to be replaced due to various faults or consumed life, yet the engine still retains the same engine number!!! Work that one out. It stems from a need, as Roger rightly said, to "book-keep". Same with classic cars, take a landrover - you can replace the chassis with a brand new one (necessary to retain reg number), replace the gearbox, rebuild the engine, replace the axles, replace most of the bodywork and then what have you got? Not the same vehicle that you started with (other than the engine block and maybe a few panels), but still accepted within those circles as a rebuild? Badger.

"Andy Kirkham" wrote

I thought it was new build?

John.