Only a politician or civil servant would think of cutting up locos to make the rest rarer!
I fear you are quite correct!
Robert H
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Hi Robert,
I always wondered why the WCR diesels never found work (even with the power units rebuilt as six locos) with the Bord Na Mona. I suppose there's something reassuring in the CIE evidently not quoting a realistic price to another Irish nationalised industry ! I was unaware of the 60's IMR 'steam only' clause, which was understandable for scheduled summer trains, but effectively put the mockers on any attempts to run any sustainable out of season or off peak services. I take it that the clause is no longer in force, but it might go some way to explain the shoddy treatment of the exCDR railcars for so long.
Thanks too for shedding some light on AMS's times. It explains a lot which was perplexing, but seen in the context of events, now makes some sense. It's easy to judge the past by today's standards, which is invariably unrealistic. I recall Boyd's account of the old Festiniog company being similarly wary of enthusiasts following equipment vanishing. Why Mr Sheard's reputation should be clouded by a very understandable reaction to some pretty dispicable behaviour when similar events at Portmadoc (as it then was) led to the company, rather than any individual, being critisised, I don't know. Some who weren't even born at the end of the old IMRCo act as if Mr Sheard had affronted them personally. Very odd indeed.
Do you have any idea who the bright spark recommending the wanton destruction of six locos was ? I shudder to think of anyone with that sort of reasoning in ANY responsible position ! Such thinking makes it even more of a miracle that after all these years only Derby is completely lost to us, although Pender's eventual fate is nearly as bad - especially as no-one thought to include a clause that the little loco should at least be accompanied by some information concerning it's home system, but as I understand it MOSI in Manchester have very fixed ideas on the purposes of their display. A real shame it couldn't be allowed to sport at least a headboard announcing the next big event on the island.
It's good to see the write up you get in this month's 'Heritage Railway' magazine, [169 p40], although the wording gives the distinct impression that Tynwald's restoration will be undertaken by the SRT rather than IMR&TPS. Is it perhaps a crossed wire with the SRT's own plans for their Blyth project ? Could you clarify this point please ?
Equally mystifying to me is the statement in the article concerning the 1928 altercation with No10 leading to No7's demise a mere 19 years later ! I knew there was frame damage from this incident, and that the scars are still evident, but how much of an obstacle to restoration will this be in practice?
Regards
HH
from Robert Hendry
I do not know enough about the internal politics of CIE and BnaM but at a guess it would be size. Until the 1960s and the 85 bhp Wagonmasters, the BnaM locos were mostly under 48 hp whilst the West Clare diesels were powered by two 107 hp Gardner engines. I have photographed and travelled on BnaM peat trains and the sharp curves suggest that even if you cut them in two, they would be too cumbersome.
You asked re the ‘diesel ban’ and the bizarre fate of the railcars. The fate of the diesel railcars up to the mid 1980s was that the diesel ban lingered on in the corporate mind if not in any actual “agreement” terms. Often when people have done X for a few years, X becomes the norm even if it is no longer useful or even absurd.
A classic example of this was at Leamington Spa on the GW in the 1950s when a pannier arrived to shunt the yard every night. No freight movements took place so the crew retired to the shunters cabin, the fireman attending to water and fuel from time to time. About 1957 a new station master asked why? The answer came from an elderly railwayman. If a German bomber had dropped a landmine on the exit points from the shed all the locos would be bottled up. That meant that the engineer’s emergency train could not move, so a loco was sent to the yard as a convenient place to hold it in case of an air raid. Twelve years after the end of the war it was still awaiting Goering’s planes.
The fate of the diesels since 1990 makes the period up to then seem almost rational, and is a Pandora’s box that I have no desire to open. If I did there would be howls of protest from so many quarters, and it would be directed at me. The move of the Cleminson coach and No 7 to Southwold has stirred up a lot of animosity towards me personally, and I have no need of any more.
If you want a personal opinion, they are some of the most important early diesels to survive in the British Isles. They are a national and not just a Manx heritage item. They should be restored as closely as possible to their 1950s CDRJC condition. I have travelled in them on many occasions. As an enthusiast I love them, but no modern commuter would accept them as a means to get to work unless you alter them to the point that you destroy their historic character. Other than vintage car or bus enthusiasts how many of us want to travel in a 1940s car or bus every day? Very few, I fear.
As to who suggested cutting up the IMR locos, I can say who it definitely was NOT, and that was Len Bond, the Secretary of the IOM Tourist Board. Len is to all intents and purposes unknown to the enthusiast world. On one occasion he phoned my father to say he was in London on business and would like to call in for a social visit. We met him at the station and had tea in the lounge.
He then pulled a document from his case and pushed it across the table. My father picked it up and realised it was the Transport Steering Committee report that was to be laid before Tynwald in a few days. Until then it was confidential. It recommended no further support for the railway! Len had been given it so that the Tourist Board could delete references to the railway from their publicity material!
If the report was to be defeated in Tynwald a detailed reply before the vote took place was needed, but if it got out that a copy had been given to an unauthorised recipient all hell would break loose. Len Bond put his neck on the block on the basis that my father would use it with discretion. It is almost 40 years ago, but it required precise timing and the MHK to whom we spoke could perhaps read between the lines but knew what it was desirable not to know. So, I can eliminate Len Bond because he was hopping mad over the nonsense over the locos.
You perhaps have read of John Bolton who was the architect of the Island’s transformation to a tax haven and the most formidable critic the railway had. I do not know for certain, but I would be astounded if he had come up with such nonsense. He did not believe the railway was worth keeping, as it could not show a plus on the balance sheet, but he was not a fool. Whenever we crossed swords over the survival of the railway, I feared him as an opponent but I respected his relentless, if at times blinkered, logic. He was a great man even if he was against the railway.
I have cleared them as any inference that either of them were to blame would be a slur on two people, one of whom was an ally and one an opponent. I am reluctant to go beyond that as the individuals are no longer in a position to defend themselves.
I haven’t seen the item in Heritage Railway so cannot comment directly. We, the IOMR&TPS own the chassis. The SRT is working to recreate a section of line and our first priority will be the Cleminson coach for which we have set aside £25,000 at the moment. A preliminary report will go to our next society board meeting in a few days, but we need a full engineering survey if we are to do a proper job.
After the coach we want to look at No 7. It may be that we will restore it, or it may be a joint project with SRT. No 7’s history is a minefield! The 1928 collision is well known, but the damage to 7 and 10 was so great that the IMR acquired two new sets of frames from Beyer Peacock, so we assume No 7 went back into service in 1929 with brand new frames.
In 1939, No 7 surrendered one of the weird 1923 boilers with the Ross pop valve direct mounted on the front ring of the boiler to No 1, and if conventional logic is to be believed received the boiler off No 1, which had started life on No 5 in 1907. It was 32 years old and knackered. Colin Goldsmith showed me some records that now seem to have vanished which revealed that between 1939 and 1945 No 7 ran well under 1000 miles.
The chassis was dismantled and lay idle from then on until I begged for its life from Bill Jackson. When you look at the chassis the joint between the stretcher plate supporting the pony truck and the LH frame plate is fractured and welded. There is water induced corrosion further back and the state of the chassis is NOT compatible with a 1929 chassis that saw ten years of heavy use and then rarely ran again.
After Mr Bradshaw was retired following the 1928 collision, the IMR loco department returned to sanity, and what I think happened is that No 7 swapped chassis with some other locomotive. We say that the chassis determines the identity of an engine, but if two locos swapped tanks, it would be easier to paint out the bunker numeral and paint a different number on than to change the nameplates round!
The chassis we own is NOT the 1929 chassis. As 1 and 7 were both in the shops in 1939 a swap is possible but seems irrational. A far more likely scenario is that No 7 surrendered its chassis to one of the 4-6 series locos that had started life with small boilers but had been rebuilt with intermediate diameter boilers and larger tanks. They were front line engines, and No 7 after the rebuild was a crock, used for shunting in Douglas.
It is sometimes suggested that the swap took place in 1945 BUT the chassis when we bought it was numbered 7 and I cannot see the IMRCo wasting money on repainting a chassis that was going to be pushed into store. As the chassis we own had No 7 on it, I think it was switched in 1939, No 7 receiving a worn out boiler and the poorest chassis to go with it. That makes sense. If I am right our chassis ran for most of its life as engine X, and from 1939 to 1945 it put in a few hundred miles as No 7.
When we work on it, I want to take off the present green paint which will reveal No 7 beneath, but I think when we take that layer off we are going to find something very surprising, but as to which engine I am not sure.
As to how it will affect restoration, the weld on the LH frame is breaking up, and there is corrosion further back. Again I have to guess but the IMR tanks sometimes started weeping in the vicinity of the firebox as the area was subject to heat so the inner tank plates expanded and contracted. Without removing the tanks you could not deal with this and as the loco was as tight as a drum when it was in steam and hot, the only problem was when it cooled down at night. A Peel fireman told me that they had endless troubles with locos leaking water into the pit, but he was vague as to which engines. I need a proper engineering report on No 7 before I can say what we will need to do.
