2x Stanier Class 8Fs - Under the Sea

[Bittern]

I've recently heard from quite a few places that there are two ex-LMS Stanier 8fs under the Red Sea, originally destined for Egypt under the care of the doomed SS Thistlegorm. Has anyone got anything such as pictures, videos and co-ordinates?

I've watched a few videos of the SS Thistlegorm's remains, but can't seem to find the two lasses. Here's the best quality video I've found of the ships remains yet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J9-yjP8B9s

I appreciate any help offered.

Thanks.

 

[AlexS]

http://mitchell285.fotopic.net/c1370469.html

Lad I vaguely know dived the wreck, his pics of the 8Fs are there.

 

[Powerplant]

Interesting

 

[sprinterguy]

I'd heard about those two 8Fs before, and it had me intrigued, so it's good to be able to see some pictures of someone who's actually dived the wreck. There doesn't appear to be much left of the boiler cladding it seems.

I would think they must be two of the most difficult locos in the world to "cop"!

 

[Bittern]

Well, at least they won't run out of water.

 

[Mvann]

There was an article with photographs in steam railway years ago. I might still have it somewhere.

 

[Ploughman]

There doesn't appear to be much left of the boiler cladding it seems.

Or the rest of the boiler under the cladding.

 

[caliwag]

Moving video, I guess, but I thought that at least a dozen 8Fs were lost at sea...surely all the brass bits would survive!

 

[12CSVT]

I would think they must be two of the most difficult locos in the world to "cop"!

There's an even more difficult loco to cop - a class 27 (27043/D5414) has been buried in a landfill site at Mount Vernon near Glasgow for the past 25 years.

 

[sprinterguy]

There's an even more difficult loco to cop - a class 27 (27043/D5414) has been buried in a landfill site at Mount Vernon near Glasgow for the past 25 years.

I've vaguely heard about that, it seems unbelievable there's the remains of a 27 buried somewhere...Time to buy a metal detector if anyone wants to cop that one

 

[Bittern]

Apparently it's riddled with asbestos and that's why it was buried, and should remain as such.

 

[sprinterguy]

Apparently it's riddled with asbestos and that's why it was buried, and should remain as such.

Indeed, though there were no such qualms about asbestos for the folk who were driving the 26s and 27s, or for passengers who rode in first gen DMUs similarly stuffed with abestos (or for that matter, for pupils at my old secondary school, which I think managed to retain asbestos until just into the 21st century) in the 60s and 70s: Although you can bet that 27043 will be in a less than complete condition by this point, and pose a considerably greater health risk if it were to be uncovered (not that it ever would be).

So there it shall stay: It'll be an interesting find for archeologists in a thousand years, the "Time Team" of the 31st century, to ponder over: Perhaps they wil conclude that it was an offering to the railway gods of the Scottish region by us uncouth heathens of the 21st century, to appease their wrath and ensure good punctuality and fair ticketing...

 

[4SRKT]

If I'd knows about this in the 1980s I might have written to BR and suggested this as something they might do with all the duffs and peaks! Much more deserving victims of such a fate than a pair of 8Fs!

 

[sprinterguy]

If I'd knows about this in the 1980s I might have written to BR and suggested this as something they might do with all the duffs and peaks! Much more deserving victims of such a fate than a pair of 8Fs!

Wasn’t slamming a Peak into a nuclear flask sufficiently grotesque for you? I have to admit, I’ve never liked Peaks. English Electric all the way (Though I don’t mind 47/4s, but hey they were just beginning to be withdrawn in droves when I came into being).

 

[4SRKT]

Wasn’t slamming a Peak into a nuclear flask sufficiently grotesque for you? I have to admit, I’ve never liked Peaks. English Electric all the way (Though I don’t mind 47/4s, but hey they were just beginning to be withdrawn in droves when I came into being).

We had a trainspotting club at my school. It was the only way you were allowed out at lunchtime so this added to its popularity, but back then being a crank wasn't the social leprosy it seems to be now, especially not in a place like York. Members of the club were allowed to watch 46009 ploughing into the flask live on the school telly at lunch time. This was about a week after my 13th birthday, and already I had a well developed sense of 12-cylinder Sulzer hatred! One particularly excitable fellow jumped out of his seat and shouted triumphantly "One less peak!!" at the moment of impact, to the bemusement of some teachers who'd drifted in to see what was going on. This fellow had to be watched though, because he regularly supplied duff gen about class 50s being stabled at York. "Fifty on the depot! Ex-works, new livery, with a mass-on BR sign! My Lordz!". Ah, those were the days

 

[Bittern]

Yeah, such a shame it's not a socially-accepted hobby these days, and 'normal' (whatever the heck that actually means!) people give you strange looks when you actually do it. The only way I could actually see it becoming socially-accepted is if Steam returns to being the main motive-power, and even then...

 

[4SRKT]

'Normal' in this context means people who have no real interests outside the unholy trinity of shopping, cars and Premiership football, and who find the idea that anyone might find anything at all even vaguely interesting both ludicrous and threatening.

 

[sprinterguy]

'Normal' in this context means people who have no real interests outside the unholy trinity of shopping, cars and Premiership football, and who find the idea that anyone might find anything at all even vaguely interesting both ludicrous and threatening.

Couldn't have put it better myself. I have a number of interests in addition to my railway based preferences, as most on this forum undoubtedly do, and it beats me how people like those you described get through their lives with apparently nothing to stimulate them whilst following the “normal” crowd like sheep.

In the present day it seems unbelievable that there could be such a thing as school trainspotting clubs as recently as the 1980s, with rail enthusiasm (In the many forms it takes, “trainspotters” are only a small sector of the hobby as a whole) now seen as such a taboo thing to be interested in.

 

[AndyJB]

I've vaguely heard about that, it seems unbelievable there's the remains of a 27 buried somewhere...Time to buy a metal detector if anyone wants to cop that one

An incredibly good gas mask would be required!

 

[4SRKT]

Couldn't have put it better myself. I have a number of interests in addition to my railway based preferences, as most on this forum undoubtedly do, and it beats me how people like those you described get through their lives with apparently nothing to stimulate them whilst following the “normal” crowd like sheep.

In the present day it seems unbelievable that there could be such a thing as school trainspotting clubs as recently as the 1980s, with rail enthusiasm (In the many forms it takes, “trainspotters” are only a small sector of the hobby as a whole) now seen as such a taboo thing to be interested in.

I expect the 'sheep' don't cope that well. Lots of unhappy people on diazepam and whatever else. Life is basically a void waiting to be filled. If you don't fill it with something you enjoy, even if that means ploughing a lonely furrow through a mocking society, it'll fill itself with drink, drugs, lack of fulfilment, unfocussed envy, and just general misery. We're pretty lucky you know.

Spotting/bashing/crankery or whatever was something close to a mass movement back then. Many people I know of my age would know the difference between a 31 and a 37 (for example), or know what DMU stands for, even though they now have no interest at all in the railway. Such things were just more mainstream, certainly in a town like York.

I wonder when this started to change? I lost touch with BR in a big way in about 1990 when I went to study in Northern Ireland (got loads of thumper and GM action while there though, including working for a year in Larne and getting 50 thumper miles a day ). When I returned I got married and pushed it all under, until I couldn't suppress it any more and got right back into it about three years ago. You can NEVER escape from this when you've been in it as deep as I was. Not permanently anyway! Gosh, hasn't it all changed though? Obviously I'd expect that the stock and [lack of] locos would all be different after almost 15 years in the comparative wilderness, but it's more than just that. It's so sanitised for one thing, and society's opprobrium towards us all is both unnecessary and bewildering

 

[Trog]

There's an even more difficult loco to cop - a class 27 (27043/D5414) has been buried in a landfill site at Mount Vernon near Glasgow for the past 25 years.

I have been told that there is a steam engine buried somewhere at the north end of Cricklewood motorway service station. It was blown up or crashed for a film then just buried.