Dead Metal

[thunderer]

Good Gracious...I thought I would get chastised for de-railing this thread with my little sojourn about Mallard. How wrong could I be ?

It does prove though, that the emotions so evident in certain people go at least part way to proving that some "exhibits" should be used, regardless of it is only for a few hours every other year. Kinda reminds me of the situation with the "Duke", "Tornado" and "Lode Star" (More Loco's).................

With K7, I say let's see her getting wet. She may be the only craft of her design and thus priceless, but surely it is better to see her in action and not confined to a dry, dusty and boring existence like some of the museo's and general public would have her be.

[Mike Bull]

Safe to say, we couldn't agree more with Thunderer!

[mtskull]

betcha no more than 50% of the "original" Mallard is there anyway-throught her life don't they think that parts were replaced on a regular basis?

I am sure there is a great deal of truth in that. Components were regularly swapped between locomotives during major overhauls; parts such as boilers, pieces of motion, and sometimes even axleboxes and wheelsets. If Wiki is correct, Mallard has had no less than 12 boilers and 7 tenders in its lifetime!

I too would love to see Mallard in steam again, but it simply isn't feasible to keep every steam loco in running order; boilers are very expensive things to maintain and only have a life of ten years between major overhauls before you even think about keeping all those moving parts in fettle.

Don't be too hard on the NRM; -as a kid in about 1967 I remember visiting Butlin's at Minehead and scrambling all over "Duchess of Hamilton", at the time as dead a piece of metal as you could find, reduced to a children's plaything. This locomotive was subsequently rescued and restored to steam again on the main line... -by the National Railway Museum.

[mtskull]

betcha no more than 50% of the "original" Mallard is there anyway

Possibly considerably less than 50%! -I have just read a letter in Railway Magazine, in which a former BR apprentice states that he witnessed an A4 being cut up at Doncaster Works in the 1960's. On asking, he was told in some secrecy that the frame was Mallard's, which had been discovered to be cracked and was replaced by another frame from a scrapped locomotive.

That being the case, what we know as Mallard lacks at least the boiler, frames and tender that travelled at the record speed of 126mph. Talk about LOOF!

[Renegadenemo]

For some reason that I don't understand locos never grabbed my imagination. It's even stranger when I consider how many sunken engine rooms I've explored with their towering, triple-expansion steam engines and massive boilers yet even I would love to see Mallard live and breathe again. It makes no difference that parts have been swapped out during her lifetime, the spirit of the machine lives on in what's there.
As I keep telling the museologists when they bleat preciously about 'originality', even if your granny has a plastic hip and a new heart valve, she's still still your granny...
Nor do I buy the idea that putting Mallard back into steam would be difficult or expensive. How many skilled and experienced steam enthusiasts must there be out there who would mortgage their soul to the devil for a chance to work on that machine?
Wear and tear - what a load of rubbish. Whether she ran from London to Edinburgh or just a half a mile up the track and back the public's appreciation would be the same.
The bald fact of the matter is that the museum community have no excuse, ethical or technical, for not giving the public (for whom museums exist, let's never forget that) exactly what they'd like to see.

[mtskull]

Nor do I buy the idea that putting Mallard back into steam would be difficult or expensive. How many skilled and experienced steam enthusiasts must there be out there who would mortgage their soul to the devil for a chance to work on that machine?
Wear and tear - what a load of rubbish. Whether she ran from London to Edinburgh or just a half a mile up the track and back the public's appreciation would be the same.
The bald fact of the matter is that the museum community have no excuse, ethical or technical, for not giving the public (for whom museums exist, let's never forget that) exactly what they'd like to see.

Bugger. Just spent half an hour putting together a reasoned argument taking issue with the above points, and then lost the internet conection. So, briefly:

Difficult and expensive? Check out the NRM's restoration of Flying Scotsman, unique and possibly even more iconic than Mallard:
http://www.flyingscotsman.org.uk

Would I like to see Mallard return to steam? -Undoubdtedly. Would I be prepared to see resources diverted from Flying Scotsman, when there are at least two other A4's in running order that can be seen hauling trains on the main line as they were designed to do? -No.

Would the public's appreciation of K7 be the same if she was restricted to pottering around at 8 knots compared to planing at high speed as she was designed to do? -of course not, and the same applies to the Mallard argument re. steaming for half a mile or from London to Edinburgh.

The purpose of museums is not primarily to entertain; rather it is to take care of and preserve exhibits, whilst informing and educating the public as to their history and significance. There is no reason why this shouldn't be done in a way that has broad appeal and is entertaining, but "live" exhibits, much as I enjoy them, aren't the only way to achieve this and it isn't always desirable. There is always going to be a trade-off between operating and preserving historic machinery; this is a difficult balancing act to perform and the fact that the museologists got it so badly wrong in the case of K7 doesn't mean that they are wrong every time.

Finally Bill, none of this should be taken as detracting from the fact that I think the BB team are doing an absolutely f****** fantastic job!

[Renegadenemo]

There is always going to be a trade-off between operating and preserving historic machinery; this is a difficult balancing act to perform and the fact that the museologists got it so badly wrong in the case of K7 doesn't mean that they are wrong every time.

I don't buy that there's a tradeoff at all. What does preserving mean? Not allowing a few thousandths of an inch to wear off a bearing and in the process killing off a perfectly serviceable machine that everyone would like to see working? Museologists laying up a steam train or a boat or any other mecahnical contrivance in the name of 'preservation' is just an act of supreme arrogance on their part. When they started telling us we couldn't rebuild K7 because she was a 'snapshot in time' or that we'd 'destroy history' I demanded to know who was empowered to decide that K7's history had ended and, guess what, they had no answer. A dither of tweed-clad fools had made up their own tiny minds about the matter and because they'd been in the trade their whole lives they thought their word was law.
we argued that K7 had enjoyed an illustrious career then had a bit of a bump. She'd then lain around for a few years 'til her Donald's daughter had once again picked up the mantle and things were about to get going again. Work in progress - but all the musos could do was treat us like simpletons. Now they ooh and ahh and generally agree that Bluebird is receiving the most sensitive and fascinating treatment (apart from the purists who'd still be poking at her remains with cotton buds and de-ionised water to this day) but the museum community on the whole still do as they please regardless of what the true owners of these treasures - the population at large - would rather see.

[klingon]

Yeah-case in point-take a "tweedie" to Glasgows Kelvingrove museum and show him the mummified,cobbled together remains of the Spitfire MK21 hanging from wires on the roof which cost the taxpayer a helluva lot of money never to fly again(or for the first time depending on your viewpoint on "data plate restorations")-then drag him outside by the elbow patches and fly a living breathing Spit over his head-then ask him what makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up!(or mebbe the hair on the palms of his hands!)-no brainer!

[mtskull]

Most people knew at the time and everybody knows now that the museological community got it wrong about Bluebird. However, just as they were wrong in applying mainstream museological thinking to Bluebird, might it not follow that it is equally wrong to assume that what is appropriate to Bluebird applies everywhere else? It is clear that when rebuilding Bluebird, every effort has been taken to ensure that nothing has been destroyed from which further information could possibly be gleaned in the future. In the unique set of circumstances surrounding Bluebird, this doesn't prevent her being made fit for purpose, however the BBP team do not have the CAA or the Railway Inspectorate breathing down their necks. A team returning a historic loco or aircraft to working order may not be given the option of sensitively conserveering every component, and believe me, wear and tear to locomotives and aircraft alike is a more complex issue than a few thou off a bearing here and there.

Furthermore, Bluebird is unique, whereas if Joe Public wants to see a non-airworthy but original Spitfire, he can go to the RAF museum but If he would rather see one flying, he can go to Duxford. Likewise if he wants to learn about our railway heritage he can go to the National Railway Museum and if he wants to see a working A4 Pacific he can go to the North Yorkshire Moors Railway and buy a ticket to ride behind it. That doesn't mean to say that one approach is right and the other wrong; indeed, the fact that there are working examples of these machines only strengthens the argument for leaving the rest of them unmolested, at least for the time being.

If "what the public wants to see" becomes the sole criterion in deciding how all historic machines are preserved and exhibited, then all you achieve is to bring them down to the lowest common denominator of "big boy's toys". Preservation can mean many things but sometimes it just means saving something for later. Today's public do not own these treasures, they borrow them from future generations.

[quicksilver-wsr]

A quick addition to this debate ...

The cost of insurance must be borne in mind when considering the restoration of an aircraft to airworthy status, if long-term preservation in the flying state is to be the ultimate objective.

When new EU third-party liability rules came into force a few years back, the cost of insuring our Buccaneer aircraft - which was only fast-taxying, remember; not flying - hiked to a crippling £17,000 per annum. That was fun ... finding that kind of money every year, on top of fuel, hangarage and so forth.

Just sitting an aircraft like the Buccaneer on the tarmac outside at an international airport - because, let's face it, you can't operate that kind of plane from your local airstrip - can cost a wopping £1,000 per week. We got around that by keeping her in a private hangar: cost £320 per month. But if we had defaulted on payments to the hangar owner, the aircraft would have been wheeled outside and we'd have been left to the tender mercies of the airport accounts department. Fortunately, that never happened, because we just about kept up with all the costs on our aircraft adventure, but it was a constant worry and not recommended for those who have trouble sleeping at nights.

Insurance is actually our largest single cost in the budget projections we have for our water-speed record campaign, when the time finally comes.