August 2024 - Chairman’s Chat

By Neil Taylor

Dear Reader,
I thought that I would get a brief “Chat” in before the SVR Autumn Gala. There are a number of reasons for this, which will become obvious.

SVR Autumn Gala

Let’s talk about the Gala first. We will be holding our usual sales stand at the Gala. Thanks to multiple donations from the membership we will have a much fuller stand this time round. Please feel free to come and browse – and then why not buy something! In the Railwayana we have some lamps, cast iron signs and a number of wagon plates. Most are in unrestored condition as we find that collectors tend to prefer that. We have several smaller items such as a table cloth from the Cunard Company and various packs of cards. As ever we have many new items for the model railway collector, augmented by recent donations.

As promised we will have the new branded clothing. On sale will be polo shirts and sweat shirts with the new designs in both Black and Green. The new design is a fully embroidered picture of our locomotive, which manages to show a surprising amount of detail. For those of you who couldn't get enough of the old brand we will be discounting the older stock, so there will be some bargains to be had. The stall will be open on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

In conjunction with the Gala, Kidderminster Railway Museum will be running the Guild of Railway Artists summer exhibition. On display will be the finished painting of our locomotive at Bridgnorth. Whilst this might seem a little premature it is a great piece of art that should raise the anticipation of the arrival of our New Build loco. I would encourage you to go to view the painting as we will be auctioning the painting following the exhibition. As many of you will know, a John Austin painting normally goes for between £4,000 to £5,000 and we would hope that this one may fetch a little more due to the subject matter. As I have mentioned previously we are in discussions with John regarding the reproduction of the work as a limited edition print, postcards and even jigsaws.

Progress on the build

Tony has provided his usual informative update, but I would like to add my perspective. I have now done about 9 months as a regular volunteer on the team. This has been an eye opener as to the trials and tribulations of the activity. On a week by week basis I can see the effort that is used to produce items and, more importantly, overcome problems. You have to remember that we do not have a template, as none of the class exist. We do not know how Swindon overcame some of the problems, so we have to make an informed guess. Equally we can experience issues that may not have been an issue with the vast experience of the teams that built the original 45 locomotives. Let me give you a specific example from this week. We have always said that this is a make to print activity. So at great expense (£8,000) we had the boiler palm stays manufactured to drawing. These all came back looking great. However when we came to fit them we realised that the feet do not fit neatly to the boiler due to the radius of the boiler barrel. So we are now exploring getting these perfect items machined to have a radius on the feet of 59.5”. My guess would be that at Swindon somebody had a word with the forge to put a slight radius on the feet. Either that or an apprentice was tasked with linishing and bedding the feet in on the boiler. Whatever happened we will probably never know, but it proves my point that we have to fill the knowledge gaps when it comes to building our 21st century version of the loco.

The other thing that makes me feel so proud of our efforts, is the volume of activity. I have just been reading the August edition of “Steam Railway”. There is a wonderful retrospective on Black 5’s and one particular article talks about the restoration of 45163 and 45293. Much has been done to recreate these locomotives and they have managed to find, purchase or manufacture many components. A great effort over the last 30 years in both cases. However the article finishes with an appeal for help and I quote “Parts needed for 45163 are firebox door runners and a tender handbrake handle, and for 45293, a set of plain rear coupling rods.” It just puts our efforts into some perspective, as my equivalent appeal would go on for many pages!! I think that if we had thought too hard about the challenge before starting we may not have made the effort of the last 15 years. I say 15 years because the other thing I have been reading is the scrap-book of articles from 2008/2009. It is incredible to see the progress since these dates. At that time Chris Proudfoot made a significant effort with the Railway Press to get fundraising going. In 2008 there was still much to do as the frames had only just been planted at Bridgnorth. Once again I can only imagine the efforts of the small team in those days to increase awareness.

Which brings me to my efforts over the last 9 months. As mentioned in previous communications we were in the difficult situation last November, when our locomotive motion supplier declined to complete the orders that we had placed. From that difficult situation we are now in the position where all remaining items of the motion are either in manufacture or have been placed with a contractor. That has been an interesting and exciting process and now includes 4 different contractors. To the right is a picture of the Coupling Rods in an almost complete state in the Machine Shop of the Boro Foundry in Lye (Birmingham).

The eccentric rods and Reversing linkage have been placed with our partner “Heritage Rail Traction Limited” in Greater Manchester. And finally the Expansion Links and Die Blocks will be placed with a small company in Derby, who have a wealth of experience of similar items for the Traction Engine world.

Whilst the boiler continues to make good progress, I have come up against a difficult nut to crack; the Main Steam Pipe. Believe it or not, there is no stock of 6” diameter copper pipe in the UK. We have explored many options and we got to a “Plan D” before coming back to the stockists to demand a resolution. This may come in the form of a special batch of copper pipe that will cost somewhere between £15k and £20k. I am currently trying to get the entire BR Standard ownership population to come together to make a life-time purchase of this stock. Another example of how the lack of UK manufacturing base is driving the costs of all our projects higher than it really should be.

Personally I have tried to contribute in a way that uses my skill set. Martin Managhan (our Membership Secretary) and I have “crafted” the cab floor from hardwood. Below is a picture of two sections of the floor (Driver and Fireman’s areas) that have been treated with a couple of coats of Teak Oil. From now on only slippers will be worn on the footplate so as not to destroy the perfect finish.

Based on my time with the working group I have taken immense enjoyment and pride at contributing to the build process. However I have found it a distraction from many other activities. Having reviewed this, I may have to swing my personal pendulum back towards activities away from the coal face. The demand from the external world will soon start to take up a lot of time. This is manifestly true as demonstrated by the desire for information coming from the Railway Press following the trial fitting of the boiler in the frames in June. I have managed to satisfy the needs of the main publications and I can only imagine that this demand with increase several-fold as we get nearer to its first steaming.

Back in Time

In my reading from the Chris Proudfoot archives I took a lot of enjoyment from his articles that described a little “time travel”. I am unfortunately lacking in the personal memories of steam in the 1950s and 60s. The photo below is the closest I could find to my memories of steam – taken in January 1968 at Liverpool Edge Hill this is how I remember the last days of steam as I traveled from Liverpool to my grandparents in Crewe.

I am however, often sent collections of personal photographs and below are a couple more pictures from the collection of Richard Cinderey.

One of the final duties for the class was on stock transfer duties at Waterloo. Both 82019 and 82029 performed these duties right up until the end of steam on the Southern Region. Seen here, resting between duties 82019 is captured on the 21st June 1967. Just a couple of weeks before the end of steam traction.

Meanwhile in the Western Region withdrawals had already concluded for many members of the class. The loco pictured here 82039 was officially withdrawn in July 1965. We see it here on the 18th August 1965 at Gloucester Horton Road depot. Only 10 years old and destined for the scrap yard!

If we ever needed inspiration to complete the mission it is seeing these perfectly functional and still pretty new locomotives being removed from the stock list.