Peppercorn A1

What they made some track and 3 carnages Too

I presume this is a reference to the "Tornado" new build project? If so I find it odd that money can be found for this when so many existing locomotives are being taken out of service due to a lack of funding for new parts.

(kim)

"Carnages"? They plan to fill them with passengers and then deliberately crash them?

:o)

(kim)

"kim" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Never forgetting that the boiler was made in Germany!

I wonder if they will be helpful when BB class "Sir Winston Churchill" needs a new boiler?!...

Of course - if they are so ordered.

coat ?

Well that all fell rather flat....

Seriously, will anybody be able to afford a new boiler when it's needed? Will anybody in the UK still have the skills necessary to make it?

(kim)

I guess "Tornado" is a high-profile project that has attracted generous corporate sponsorships.

This may sound like heresy, but there may be too many preserved locos vying for too little funding, thanks to Dai Woodham!

kim said the following on 06/08/2008 22:01:

Money was found because those providing the money wanted to use it to build a new loco - they didn't want to restore old locos. I don't personally agree with that, but it's their money!

kim said the following on 07/08/2008 03:30:

I thought that the stated reason for the boiler being made in Germany was that the skills aren't in this country to build a boiler that size. It was something like "Britain gave railways to the world, now we're taking something back."

Of course, the silly thing is, it often easier to raise really large sums - that commercial companies can put their name to and obtain publicity for, and what better way than funding something so linked with the 100th anniversary of the start/end of WW2 - than the small sums that fund ther 'donky-work' or keep a loco running.

No, and that is why the A1 group had to have their boiler built in Germany. The UK could build a large locomotive boiler, but it would need a lot of investment to do so, we have not lost the skill but we have lost the machine tools etc. needed.

...and the RTR model railway manufactures seem to be going down the same track...

Seriously, with railway preservation people put their money into what they want, always have and always will, try telling them that they should be putting their money into say (to use a well known example), GWR King class 6024 rather than the 'no hope' 6023, all that will achieve is people not giving their money to railway preservation at all. Railway preservation is a funny old world, in some ways it can be compared to the Roman empire, on the surface all is sweet and everyone seems to be pulling in the same direction but behind closed doors people are back-stabbing left, right and centre! :~(

"kim" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Wasn't there a place up in Yorkshire that was still producing boilers? Fred Dibner visited during one of his last series. I'm sure that back then - only a few years ago they had enough work on their books to keep them going for donkeys years.

NOw of course, if we weren't living in a eurpoean socialist economy that is so overburdened by regulation and taxation that would be a perfect invitation for someone else to start up a similar business. Nowadays though with even our own governments against British industry ...

That is the first time I have ever heard anyone call capitalism/monetarism/Thatcherism "socialist"!...

On 09/08/2008 17:20, Chris Wilson said,

I think the problem was the size of the boiler. The outfit you're probably thinking of is Israel Newton, but AFAIK they can only do smaller boilers. I could be wrong, of course...

Don't get me started on that :-)

Paul Boyd wrote in news:489dd8af$0$26091$db0fefd9 @news.zen.co.uk:

Rings a bell, thinking about it, their main shop follor was only about the size of hill farm's barn so you could be right about size.

I've ignored Jerry :-)

There's a BBC video report on Tornado here:

(kim)

"kim" wrote

It did take around 20 years to fund and build, and I believe there are still some significant loans outstanding.

John.