Smoke Deflectors - 4472

[jwealleans]

in Mcalpines hands in the early nineties I recall she masqueraded as another class member for a few days

I happened to be at York one day in the 1970s and saw her as 'Enterprise' and 'Victor Wild' (one each side). That turned out to be for the film 'Agatha'. Which I have still never seen.

[Bullhead]

I happened to be at York one day in the 1970s and saw her as 'Enterprise' and 'Victor Wild' (one each side). That turned out to be for the film 'Agatha'. Which I have still never seen.

I remember seeing that too, but didn't (until now) know what the reason was.

[S.A.C. Martin]

Simierski,

I couldn't agree with you more. You make several valid points about the authenticity of 4472 (or should it be 60103?).
Yes, we should be grateful for an A3, in whatever guise it appears. A few years ago I enjoyed a run from York to Scarborough and back with the sound of the 3 cylinder beat drifting back from the front, and enjoyed it immensely. I look forward to seeing the engine running again, especially as we seem to have lost the V2. I must say that Green Arrow is my personal favourite, I do hope the means can be found to restore it - I would contribute were a fund to be organised.

Chaz

Green Arrow is one of those engines that I too would like to be overhauled - I have sadly never seen her in steam (being 22, and at the NYMR when she last steamed, she had just been withdrawn so I was too late).

She won't steam anytime soon, that I am confident of. Scotsman, Sir Lamiel, Lord Nelson, City of Truro, 63601 and similar are all in steam, flying the flag for the NRM countrywide. The resources simply aren't there for the V2 (and I suspect, in a few years time those funds will be directed to two of the NRM's streamlined exhibits for a return to the mainline).

There were rumours circulating last month that the new curator of the NRM wanted to paint Scotsman in Wartime black as a one off, short term photography opportunity at some point - only permissible if she had a single chimney without smoke deflectors. I hope the rumour is true as it will preclude the return of said single chimney.

PS - doesn't the N2 look good in GNR colours? - is there anybody alive, do you suppose, who can remember the Met tanks in these colours?

The N2 is fabulous - a beautiful machine, the GCR has done a grand job on her. I don't know if there are any people who remember the N2s in that livery, but I will certainly never forget seeing her steaming up and down the GCR in 2009.

[60041]

Scotsman could of course be restored as 60041 Salmon Trout, as post restoration she will be carrying ST's boiler! All in the name of authenticity of course, not that I have any vested interest of course, my user name has nothing to do with it - honest.

[52D]

We cant have that UK practice is to id the loco by the frames. Thats why we lost Albert Hall and gained something else.

[Bryan]

We cant have that UK practice is to id the loco by the frames.

Same reason why a foreign loco on the NYMR was renumbered from 841 to 825.

[chaz harrison]

Scotsman could of course be restored as 60041 Salmon Trout, as post restoration she will be carrying ST's boiler! All in the name of authenticity of course, not that I have any vested interest of course, my user name has nothing to do with it - honest.

I detect more than a little tongue in cheek, 60041!

I feel that The Scotsman's pulling power (I refer to it's ability to draw crowds rather than it's tractive effort) has far more to do with it's name than anything else. So I can't imagine the NRM looking at a change of identity for one second!

At the moment Tornado appears to have stolen 4472's crown. Will the A3 regain it's pre-eminence when it returns to the rails? It will be interesting to see.

By the way, am I the only one to find the "she" applied to locomotives singularly inappropriate? I find it impossible to find anything remotely feminine about a hundred or more tons of steel.

Chaz

[60041]

By the way, am I the only one to find the "she" applied to locomotives singularly inappropriate? I find it impossible to find anything remotely feminine about a hundred or more tons of steel.

Chaz

You obviously haven't met my wife

[chaz harrison]

You obviously haven't met my wife

Crikey! I'm not sure I want to!!!

Chaz

[third-rail]

Not a good picture but here is 60097 as she ran for many years.

to the best of my knowledge the live rails shown never carried a electric revenue earning passenger trains also used by the quayside elecs on the way to gosforth car sheds for servicing and back.
i should mention that south east curve used to carry at least one express in the morning starting from tynemouth, calling at cullercoats, whitley bay ,monkseaton and west monkseaton which ran to newcastle nonstop by this curve

[Yorkshire Exile]

For 60103 to masquerade as Salmon Trout or Humorist a new GN coal rail tender would be required for authenticity!

[Blink Bonny]

Hmmmmm.

I'm going to be strung up for this (nothing new there says Mrs BB) but I prefer Scotsman with the double chimney and deflectors. In terms of prettiness, I would have to say Gresley Was Right, but what a difference the Kylchap made to performance, effectively extending their lives to a point where Alan Pegler was in a position to buy her!

What I dislike intensely is this painting-in-LNER-livery-while-retaining-BR-fittings thing. For a body that frequently mistakes steam locomotives for classic cars and has spent more repairing a scrap boiler than the A1 lads spent BUILDING a new one and states that it has a policy of complete historical accuracy at all times to perpetuate this abomionation is beyond me!

So - for me, Apple Green with single or Brunswick Green with Kylchap and Wittes. Not some unholy mismash!

[chaz harrison]

What I dislike intensely is this painting-in-LNER-livery-while-retaining-BR-fittings thing. For a body that frequently mistakes steam locomotives for classic cars and has spent more repairing a scrap boiler than the A1 lads spent BUILDING a new one and states that it has a policy of complete historical accuracy at all times to perpetuate this abomionation is beyond me!

So - for me, Apple Green with single or Brunswick Green with Kylchap and Wittes. Not some unholy mismash!

Agreed.
(My ultimate choice would be a Gresley A1 in GNR livery, a new build Great Northern anyone? only kidding - If it hadn't been for Mr Thompson 4470 might have made it into the Museum to rub shoulders with the Single and the Atlantics.)

Chaz

[S.A.C. Martin]

Hmmmmm.

I'm going to be strung up for this (nothing new there says Mrs BB) but I prefer Scotsman with the double chimney and deflectors. In terms of prettiness, I would have to say Gresley Was Right, but what a difference the Kylchap made to performance, effectively extending their lives to a point where Alan Pegler was in a position to buy her!

Not at all, dear chap. I first saw Flying Scotsman in brunswick green at the age of five...on the Llangollen railway in wales, and in that livery and form is my preference too.

However, there is a lot to be said for the publicity of the LNER livery. The image it evokes of a bygone age, when steam engines literally made the world go round, and the luxury and speed of it all makes it a fitting livery for Scotsman. British Railways brunswick green won't have the same mass appeal to the general public as the enthusiasts - not to say that she shouldn't be painted into brunswick green at some point, but in her return to steam, LNER apple green will highlight her better in the public eye (as one apple green engine has demonstrated this year, quite aptly).

What I dislike intensely is this painting-in-LNER-livery-while-retaining-BR-fittings thing. For a body that frequently mistakes steam locomotives for classic cars and has spent more repairing a scrap boiler than the A1 lads spent BUILDING a new one and states that it has a policy of complete historical accuracy at all times to perpetuate this abomionation is beyond me!

Unfortunately you are now bordering on the tenuous at best. If I could direct you to my original paragraph, earlier in the thread:

Over the years this topic has come up a multitude of times, and no one ever agrees on the best course to follow.

I would suggest that livery is a moot point for 4472. Since her preservation in 1964, she has carried an A4 boiler which had incorrectly positioned boiler bands (and nobody pointed that out at the time), she has also had fitted a second tender in pseudo LNER livery (which again, no one complained about as she was privately owned!) and in the NRM era, has worn LNER green which is correct for the tender, but not for the engine herself, as has been commented on in this thread by many people.

Far be it from me to point this out, but Flying Scotsman may or not appear in a single chimney form. This is the one peice of information that the NRM have, wisely perhaps, kept close to their chests throughout the long and arduous task of returning her to steam. If she reappears with a single chimney, in LNER green, this will be closest only to her 1946 condition before being renumbered as 103 by Thompson, as her 1923 condition demands a taller chimney, cab and gresley boiler minus the banjo dome, and of course, minus the superheater headers on the smokebox.

In whatever livery she is going to appear, she wil never be completely historically accurate, but, regardless of what livery she appears in, we should be grateful first and foremost that we still have her around as a reminder of what handsome locomotives the Gresley A1s/A3s were/are, and to support her still in whatever hybrid form she may eventually appear.

After all, its not necessarily about the livery, but the history of the locomotive which comes with it.

Addressing the OP's question, the A2 style deflectors were fitted onto Humorist, the only member of the class with these - and, as on the LNER encyclopedia's own website, the first to be fitted with a double chimney. Scotsman if fitted with these could indeed masquerade as Humorist in all three liveries - BR apple green, BR blue and BR Brunswick green. Would we want her to, is another question for another thread, although in Mcalpines hands in the early nineties I recall she masqueraded as another class member for a few days down at Llangollen or similar.

I personally would prefer to see the smoke deflectors removed and a single chimney fitted, for the best looking form of the A3s. However that may not be the best working form for Scotsman on the mainline. If we want her to run railtours mainline, should we not want her in the best condition (ultimately A3 with double chimney and smoke deflectors"?

I think we need to look at this issue from all angles and not necessarily (as trust me, I would like to) from behind the rose tinted spectacles?

And finally:

So - for me, Apple Green with single or Brunswick Green with Kylchap and Wittes. Not some unholy mismash!

It seems to me that what is fine for one locomotive (Royal Scot) is not fine for another (Flying Scotsman). Most enthusiasts are happy to condone the painting of Royal Scot in LMS crimson lake, despite its never having worn it in its rebuilt form, but castigate the NRM or previous owners of Scotsman for the late 90s application of LNER green, when in reality its physical form is still closer to its built condition than Royal Scot can ever be!

As I said originally, no one ever agrees on the livery debate, and it will repeat itself over and over with regards livery. It's all semantics - the NRM could paint it tartan for all I care - as long as it says Flying Scotsman over the centre wheel splasher and makes that gresley beat, it remains the third Gresley Pacific built in this country, the world's furthest travelled locomotive and the only one to circumnavigate the globe at that: it remains the first authenticated 100mph record holder, and it remains, for all time, Flying Scotsman.

I just wish I had the money to donate to the NRM to hurry up the overhaul so I see it steam once more.

EDIT:

(My ultimate choice would be a Gresley A1 in GNR livery, a new build Great Northern anyone? only kidding - If it hadn't been for Mr Thompson 4470 might have made it into the Museum to rub shoulders with the Single and the Atlantics.)

Chaz

I think the A1/1 should have been preserved in any event. We have the unfortunate position of missing a severe link in the chain between Gresley pacific design and Peppercorn pacific Design, of which the latter has much to thank the original A1/1 for (although some might say, thankfully, not looks!). 4470 in the great hall, with LNER livery as rebuilt by thompson would not have been as beautiful as 4472 or indeed, 4470 was when built, but it would have allowed all three of the greatest influences on the LNER to have had some form of almost living memorial to their express passenger locomotives.

We lament the passing of Sir William Stanier, A.H Peppercorn, and a few other engines named after men and companies, but never the one which allowed us the design development that gave us the ultimate end to the Gresley line. Great Northern should have been preserved, rebuilt or not.

[52D]

Gents can i throw another chestnut into the fire, there was another pacific which did not get preserved. Some say it was like evolution with the Raven pacifics hitting a dead end somewhat akin to neanderthal man and the Gresley line evolving like Homo Sapiens. I for one would have loved to been able to see an NER version in York next to an Atlantic.