LNER. No. 48518 (no one?)

[LNER Fan 60008]

All it needed was for you to apply your obvious leadership skills an a great deal of money and this loco could have been running now.

It seems to me that there is a culture in this country where some people expect 'them' to facilitate all sorts of objects of desire, without giving the slightest thought to the practicality cost of of these fantastical projects.

And what is to say I've never thought about doing something about it? Or thought about how practical other projects are?

I would have liked to have done something to save the locomotive, or at least prevent it from being broken up for the GWR group, but no one else that I knew showed interest in saving that 8F, I don't even live in England, and by the time I initially read about this 8F, it was already being broken up. It's not like I knew about it long before the GWR group snapped it up.

I am aware of how some of these projects are not cost friendly (and at the risk of being disowned from the forum, I've personally wondered about the value and point of building a new P2, but that's for another topic), but you would have thought just keeping an existing locomotive (or what remained of it) from being broken up wouldn't have been impossible.

Yes, I probably shouldn't have complained about the 8F as I did, but what can I say? It's just upsetting to find a somewhat-kind of-unusual (well, maybe not that unusual anymore...) locomotive broken up without anyone doing (or being able to) do anything to save it.

There are three kinds of people, those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened!

Sadly, all some people can do at times is watch and see what happens. Being stuck in a country/state that isn't very keen on many railway preservation projects (aside from static displays) generally averts being able to make much happen, I'm sorry to say. Didn't mean to start up any arguments in this thread.

Four tyoes, St J. There are those who don't give a s***.

That is what most people here think of running a steam locomotive ever again. They'd probably lay a brick at the site of how many preserved steam locomotives run in the UK.

[Blink Bonny]

I keep forgetting how lucky we are in the UK with the number of steam locos running regularly.

Its also a pity how parochial the average enthusiast is. I'm a steam enthusiast. I like steam engines. OK, I'll happily wind up a GWR fanatic (Gresley Was Right usually does the trick!) but I like engines from, if I'm honest, all 4 of the "Big 4." My latest purchase? A pannier tank, OK, in London Transport livery (L89 - early days on the KWVR and all that) but still Green, Wet and Rusty.

Keep you chin up and remember - keep the faith!