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This Doncaster 8f should have been preserved
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8f 48518 should have been preserved
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Why??
Iskra
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It has been preserved, just in pieces which are helping to get/keep other locos running.
It’s not steam though.Is this chap Alfred in disguise?
Awaits thread about 45015......
More likely that the next question will be about why 92085 was cut up in 1980...
Steam loco
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92085 was cut up because the delivery of wagons dried up
markindurham
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There was plenty of time for it to be preserved for restoration in its own right over the years; nobody took the opportunity to do so. Why was that?
Yes, as a Doncaster built LMS design loco, and as the last survivor of that group, there is indeed an argument that it deserved saving, but cold, hard cash wasn't forthcoming, and that's the crux of the matter.
Is this chap Alfred in disguise?
Awaits thread about 45015......
Or the Luton to Dunstable railway......
You mean that legendary preservation scheme which would have attracted so many people to the ar$e end of Dunstable to have a tour in a decrepit DMU ?
Makes me all sentimental about the real kind of wibble which used to appear on these forums some years back that seems to have disappeared - stuff about the possible uses for the 442s is kinda bland by comparison !
Also Woodhams substantially increased the purchase price twice in 1975/76 and there was also the worry of the VAT rate increasing above 8% in the 1976 budget (which did not in fact happen till 1979). This led to the 48515 Group fearing that the prospect of being able to purchase the loco was becoming more and more unlikely, which led to them joining forces with another group in the same position.
This proves the point that Dai Woodham was first and foremost a businessman, not a saintly philanthropic benefactor of locos to preservation groups as some like to have us believe.
Flying Phil
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I don't believe that Dai Woodham was a saintly philanthropic benefactor - he was a business man who was, obviously, more sympathetic to steam locomotive preservationists than all the other scrap metal merchants in the late 60's and thereafter. Also in the mid 70's Everybody was increasing the price of Everything - Inflation was horrendous after the oil crisis in 1973/4!
markindurham
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Well yes, but other locomotives were also eventually purchased by groups other than the first ones to try their luck fundraising, were they not? My point about the will by someone/a group to purchase and restore, basis her uniqueness, and see it through, still stands.
Then that would mean that either the fundraising efforts of the 48518 Group were not as successful as other groups or that the loco was in the poorest condition of the 8Fs in Woodhams yard.
Re the first point, my recollection is that 48518 hadn't been the original choice of 8F that the group wanted to buy. I have in the back of my mind that it might have been 48151, and that the reason to change to 48518 was that 48518 was thought at the time to be in better condition, but I could well be wrong on that one as it as more than 40 years ago. IF it was 48151, the fact is that this loco was purchased by a different group in 1975 (according to Wikipedia) whereas it was in March 1976 that the 48518 group abandoned their plans to buy that loco, and instead combined with another group and went on to buy 34105.
Re the second point, it seems logical to assume that the condition of the loco was such that other examples were more attractive propositions to purchase, leaving 48518 to become one of the Barry 10. Her prospects for an eventual return to steam can't have been helped by Turkish examples of the becoming available for preservation in the mid 1980s.
Incidentally, was there anything particularly unique about 48518?
markindurham
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Regarding the subject locomotive's potential claim for preservation, nobody here has claimed that it was a LNER design. The unique thing about her was, as previously stated, that she was the last of the non-LNER designed locomotives built at Doncaster. (From memory, North British, Swindon and Ashford also built Stanier 8Fs, but NB, as a private business, were, of course, known for building locomotives for railways on a contract basis. Swindon and Ashford were not).
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Spamcan81
Member
And she was taken into LNER stock as Class O6 and given an LNER running number. Makes/made her unique among surviving 8Fs. A crying shame that she’s been cannibalised for just a few bits to help construct a fake County at the Didcot “Cut and Shut Shop”.
Some were built at Brighton too. I don't think that 48518 was ever an O6. The 30 Doncaster 8Fs built for the Railway Executive Committee in 1944-45 went straight to the LMS and were numbered 8510 to 8539. O6s built at Doncaster subsequently became 8753 to 8772 when given LMS numbers.
48518 was in good mechanical condition and a serious attempt was made to raise funds and buy it for use on Peak Rail. At a late stage serious firebox problems were discovered - severe quilting - and 48624, which had a very good boiler, was purchased instead in around 1981.
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