The LNER Encyclopedia

This loco is frequently described as destroyed in the Castlecary crash. Indeed, it is so described in the Yeadon register. And yet on the opposite page, there is a picture of the complete loco at the works after the accident looking to only have superficial damage. In other books I've seen pictures of the other sde of the loco which appears to have even less damage.

This raises two questions for me - why was it (apparently) replaced, and what happened to it? I can't believe a loco with that little damage was simply scrapped. (For an engine with severe damage, look at the locos from the Harrow disaster, particularly the Duchess which was repaired.) I'm guessing it simply was recycled as spares. Was the boiler reused?

As another detail, there is what appears to be an accident damaged A4 in the Yeadon picture as well - anyone know anything about that?

Covered in some depth here and in some other threads as well, if you search for 'Grand Parade'.

I haven't Yeadon to hand, but the photo I'm thinking of shows a new A4 under construction. Is that the one you're looking at?

My understanding of the rebuilding/replacement of Grand Parade was that it was 'an accountant's rebuild'. In other words some parts however insignificant were reused so that the new loco did not appear in the accounts as a capital purchase against a tight capital budget. A rebuild being 'repairs and renewals' and charged to revenue as an operating expense.

This is a practice which at one time was quite common in large organisations - may still be; I have been retired from that side of the profession for a while now!

There's a picture taken at Doncaster in the greeny and it doesn't look very badly damaged, but that is only what can be seen. Damage to frames cylinders etc. etc. could have made it uneconomical to repair.

As most locos going through the works were taken apart first, the parts sorted out into scrap, recoverable after repair or overhaul, and reusable without further attention, the fact that a damaged loco was expected would upset the normal routine as it would not be fully known to what extent it could be repaired.

Simple, re-erect another loco using stock parts and a spare boiler, and then the damaged loco could be stripped outwith the normal repair routine, any reusable parts could be recycled and the rest scrapped.

As the railways carried their own insurance liability, depending on the damage the repair would either just come out of revenue account or in a bad case the underwriting department might cough up. I suggest in this case the latter.

It's the usual modern journalistic use of the word 'destroyed'. I think you will find that most of the major components of Grand Parade were repaired and reuse on other locos in subsequent years.

It would always take longer to strip a damaged loco and also to assess the state of all the components so as Bill suggests much of what came off the original Grand Parade would be recycled. For example boiler 8247 from the damaged loco was repaired as part of the normal boiler reconditioning and went on 2749 Flamingo on 8th July 1938. Tender 5267 went onto 2572 Spion Kop on 3rd September 1938 so you can see that all that happened to the original Grand Parade was it was recycled in the normal way of things but what confused everybody was the fact that a 'new' loco using stock parts came out before the old one was taken to bits.

A close study of Yeadon will give you all the answers.

The new Grand Parade had boiler 8029 off 2544 Lemberg and tender 5263 came off 2579 Dick Turpin.

I think that what really happened was that the next Pacific overhauled and re-erected at the plant came out as Grand Parade and so on.

I think that in the past authors and others have been somewhat inaccurate in stating in a way that the 'new' Grand Parade was assumed to be a (brand) new loco.

There is no doubt also that had Sir Nigel still been alive that the ill fated Sir Ralph Wedgewood would have been renewed in a similar fashion.

Thanks for clarifying murky waters St J.

One wonders if the photo of Grand Parade outside Doncaster hadn't existed we'd ever have heard of the 'new loco' concept.

The replies from Bill Bedford and St Johnstoun and the description of overhauls in the linked thread clear the matter up for me.

There really was no 'new loco', just the the delay and difficulty of assesment caused by the accident caused a slight hiccup on the normal flow of overhauls. There were enough major parts in existence from the 30's on that one or more (perhaps slightly incomplete) 'extra' A1/3's could have been made, the delay on the dismantling side just made that temporarily more obvious.

We are reminded that the front ends of the desecrated P2s also lay on the dump at the Crimpsall after Thompson had started his evil deeds. I would suspect that anything reusable from those would have gone into the system.