Quote:
Originally Posted by Admiral Halsey
(Post 2145098)
No clue. I think we should make an effort to always save the lead ship of every class. Kinda like the British did with their locomotive preservation efforts at the end of the steam era.(Though they nearly blew it by not choosing the Flying Scotsman as one of the engines for preservation. Thank god she was still saved from the scrappers.)
|
Nope, gotta bite on this one. :haha:
That's not quite how it happened, although God I wish it was.
Although some lead engines of their class were preserved, they were generally rather exceptional engines such as the Stirling No. 1 (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNR_Stirling_4-2-2), but generally speaking they were few and far between. However the real preservation drive began at the end of steam in the 1960s, and it wasn't that organised because it was enthusiast groups trying to grab any locomotive they could before the scrapyards cut them up, in that way the Barry Scrapyard in Wales would be the lifesaver of many locomotives because they were very lenient on accepting money for locos or putting locos to one side until the funds could be arranged. Many 'Standard' locomotives were preserved (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BR_stan...andard_classes) because they were quite new at the time and thus could be put into service on preserved lines quite early, likewise the Austerity classes (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunslet_Austerity_0-6-0ST) because there were so many of them dotted around the network in coal yards and industrial sidings.
As such, when the iron dust had settled, there were gaping holes in our preservation list, we had an A2, A3 and A4s but no A1 until Tornado was built from scratch by the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust in 2008. Scotsman was the only A3 to be preserved, and thankfully Alan Pegler was able to step in and grab her before she went but she's become bogged down in a constant state of overhaul to get her back to mainline running status.
Needless to say though, a LOT of steam locomotives were saved, and we should be eternally grateful for this, but we couldn't save them all, and certainly the lead loco of each class were not saved (otherwise we'd still have Silver Link of the A4 class) but thankfully we did get quite a few lead locomotives, particularly those of the Great Western and LMS area because they went to Barry scrapyard and were able to be grabbed from there.
We have a lot to thank Dai Woodham for:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dai_Woodham
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodham_Brothers