4472 in BR green

[2002EarlMarischal]

We all have our own opinions of course, but personally I am hugely disappointed that the NRM have been weak and given in to pressure to paint Flying Scotsman in GWR/BR green.

OK she has a double chimney and smoke deflectors, but so what, she's hardly original anyway. Gresley experimented with both devices on fellow class member Humorist, so they're not a great departure from LNER thinking.

What she is though, is an LNER design, known as much by her iconic number 4472 as her name. It was in LNER livery and carrying that number that she achieved her speed record, that she toured the USA and Australia, setting the longest distance non-stop steam run record in the process.

There seems to be a body of people who won't be satisfied until every steam loco is in BR Green or Black - just because it's how they remember them. How selfish, how boring, and what a waste of our colourful railway heritage.

[JASd17]

I feel it is a waste of time replying to this, excepting one viewpoint.

A gentleman who used to work at 222 Marylebone Road has repeatedly suggested to me that 60103 should have been left as withdrawn.

It is an honest thought.

I personally have no particular interest in preservation matters.

John

[60526]

Your right everyone does have there own point of view, but this is the LNER forum so it is not a waste of time. The loco may have not been the best but it was the first loco to achieve an authentic and recorded 100mph, ok it has a famous name that gets mixed up with a named train, but the record must be the primary reason why it is preserved. In preservation people have tried to make money out of it, some did, others failed and then walked away for the NRM to pick up a clapped out bit of history which everyone and his dog has subsequently been moaning about because of the cost etc. I get fed up to the teeth with reading endless miles of text in Steam Railway about this, it's like the Steam News of the World and a good reason not to buy it. Everyone can get emotive about this but it won't change things. It's a bit of our history, it's now got the remains of an expensively restored A3 boiler on it, I think that the NRM have quoted that it has to be run on the mainline with smoke deflectors because of smoke drift to the cab, it has a double blastpipe, double chimney, the dome?, so it's not authentic LNER, but it is late 50's/early 60's for a BR A3, so they have got the colour right. I don't know jack about A1's, A3's etc, but even if you do you should get the green book out and re-read the history of this loco class, variations, influences, it is facinating.
I lived just north of New Southgate in the 1950's so probably saw the loco on a few occassions but not to remember, the only A3 I can clearly recollect was 60054 Prince of Wales on an up express coming through Wood Green, go forward to the 1980's and we were on a Marylebone to High Wycombe Sunday outing with a poor Sir Lamiel down and with a late running 4472 on the way back where I think that we were running to the line speed if not beyond, because it was absolutely flying. I was impressed by Tornado on the up Elizabethan a couple of years ago but this was something not to forget. And then forward to I think the 1990's, Nene Valley Railway, having a clanking run down to Orton and then a closer look back at Wansford, rust holes in the cab sides, you could go on, it was very tired looking.
So for the same reason that Royal Scot should not be in crimson lake, 60103 should be BR green, but I'd love to see someone sponsor a new tender body etc, no smoke deflectors, single chimney, correct dome and other mods to get as close to a 1920 or 30's condition in LNER green. But with the exception of the likes of a Thomas blue, colour does not really worry me, the fact that somebody has put the time, effort and money into keeping them going is good enough. I'm visiting the Bluebell in a few weeks time where the re-restored Maunsell Q will be running in BR black for the first time in preservation so I understand, I can remember seeing this in Southern black with sunshine lettering (in preservation), but never in BR black, but I will be glad to see it and have a ride behind it, and then moan about why they haven't got any coaches in BR crimson perhaps (only joking).

[S.A.C. Martin]

Everyone seems to have conveniently forgot that Steam Railway Magazine readers paid for a repaint into BR green in 2004, which went out of the window because she went in for overhaul the next year and hasn't as yet been completed.

As far as I'm concerned the NRM are righting a wrong that was done that time around and it's the right thing to do.

Not to mention some of us are thrilled at the choice of the livery. I'll happily throw a few quid in if they want to return her to single chimney form later on, but BR green makes the most sense for now given her physical condition (on the locomotive end).

[AdamOrmorod4468]

Everyone seems to have conveniently forgot that Steam Railway Magazine readers paid for a repaint into BR green in 2004, which went out of the window because she went in for overhaul the next year and hasn't as yet been completed.

As far as I'm concerned the NRM are righting a wrong that was done that time around and it's the right thing to do.

Not to mention some of us are thrilled at the choice of the livery. I'll happily throw a few quid in if they want to return her to single chimney form later on, but BR green makes the most sense for now given her physical condition (on the locomotive end).

If we treat the loco and tender as two separate entities, then the tender with its cut down rear is only suitable for BR garter blue, BR blue and BR green (it could have been one of the purple ones but I'm not sure), so It surely makes sense to have her BR green. I do prefer apple green over BR green, but I am nowhere near old enough to have seen either time period and having once seen her as 4472 it would be nice to have the chance to see a BR green A3 too.

[mick b]

It hasn't got a cut down tender

[AdamOrmorod4468]

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... h_2009.jpg

Edit: Tender No. 5325 was attached to 60033 Seagull during April 1948 for the interchange trials, later being given to 60034 until Lord Faringdon exchanged tenders with 60103 at the start of her preserved life.

[S.A.C. Martin]

Good grief - I never noticed that! So actually Scotsman's tender would also be rather appropriate for Mallard, who pulled a near enough identical one in those same interchange trials. Great spot Ade.

So that means all tenders attached to 4472 models for the last sixty odd years have been inaccurate in at least one respect then. I wonder if there are earlier pictures showing this?

EDIT:

And the answer is, an empathetic YES.





Astounded that I never noticed this before now.

[AdamOrmorod4468]

I have to say, I find the tender in general (with its A4 style streamlining, cut down rear and disk wheels) more jarring than the smoke deflectors and double chimney (in LNER livery), at least the latter mean that the engine's silhouette is appropriate. If the NRM ever decide to remove the devices from the smokebox and paint her apple green, I hope they modify at least the tender top (the wheels aren't too noticeable). An interesting coincidence is that 4472's water tender was also a cut down tender (No.5332, attached to 60034 for the interchange trials, later Seagull then Union of South Africa). However, while as Simon says this tender would be appropriate for Mallard (and Mallard's appropriate for most of 4472's career) I hope they don't swap as we only have one non-corridor A4 left in this country, and Mallard would have to lose her valances, also the corridor tender would be useful for operation of Scotsman.

[60800]

It will be running. Riley quality work, out on the mainline. Be happy with that.

Apart from the fact that I am very much looking forward to seeing Salmon Trout done up as 60103 in end of BR livery, I've nothing more to say on the matter, and quite frankly, unless anyone is capable and willing to pile in a couple of hundred grand to rebuild the tender and repaint the A3 ensemble or construct a new blastpipe, no-one else should either.

[S.A.C. Martin]

An awfully presumptuous and rather acidic post there if I may say so.

As someone who has over a ten year period put his money where his mouth is where 4472 is concerned, I'm entitled to a view and that is simply that I am happy with the BR livery, and always would have been. I have never known it as single chimney Scotsman in reality, the conversion being done around the time I was born to double chimney standard in the preservation era, but I think there are fair and reasonable arguments for the LNER livery.

However the NRM had an agreement with Steam Railway magazine for this repaint and it looks like they are going through with their end of the deal. Fair enough all round and will generate a lot of goodwill for many.

However I am somewhat amused by the "Salmon Trout" comment above as that loco no longer exists bar a cylinder block removed from that locomotive as a spare - given the way LNER locomotives were overhauled you could quite reasonably argue none of them are original in any way, shape or form.

However there is now no denying that the tender itself shouldn't be modified - rather left as is. I am astounded I did not cotton on to its history before and it's rather a nice remnant of LNER and British Railways history in its own right.

Should a temporary - and I emphasize temporary - tender swap ever be considered, the livery options on Mallard and Scotsman to match - authentically - for various periods would be rather interesting. Minus the valances and with Scotsman's tender, Mallard would be able to be almost perfectly restored to her 1948 Exchange Trials condition. Scotsman with Mallard's tender becomes accurate for her final years with BR perfectly too.

I am not suggesting this could, or should happen. But the possibilities are very interesting, given the anniversary of the exchange trials in 2018 along with the first non stop run of 1928 in the same year and of course Mallard's speed record of 1938 too (80 years).

[wlkr]

Interesting chinwag this but how much of the original 1472 still exists on this locomotive? How about the wheels? being of a standard set there would be almost 700 of them about, including the A4's and spares, with each set capable of being fitted to any locomotive in the class. The same applies to every other component that is a constituent part of this particular class of locomotive from castings to bogie wheels and boilers. To be pedantic, this locomotive is such a collection of those "standard" parts that were knocking around in the various sheds and works during the 'fifties that could and would be used as and when required on any loco of the same class, regardless of what engine they had previously been attached to, therefore making this engine historically correct as a representative of any member of the class post 1957. In it's current condition it can be truthfully said to be a "genuine" British Railways Eastern Region class A3 which makes it, as close as can be possible, spot on! So, to enable this machine to become any member of the post '57 class all that is needed is a spare high cab roof ventilator and a GN tender, plus the streamlined A4 tender off "Mallard" every now and again and get rid of the corridor in the existing tender. Then, you can reasonably have any one of the 78 A3's with just the change of a tender, cabside numerals and the smokebox numberplate, all in that superb, authentic BR racing green that so many of remember from our spotting days.

[Atlantic 3279]

I fully agree with Jim in his original post. The whole point to Alan Pegler's efforts to save this loco was to re-create 4472 in classic LNER guise, as nearly as practically possible at the time. Even with all of the known departures from pure form in the preserved loco it cost Pegler (and others since then) a fortune to achieve what he/they could. Putting this icon, one of the very few LNER survivors, into drab BR livery that appeases those who never saw it as it was meant to be, thereby representing a period when traditional LNER ways of doing things were trampled into the mud by ex-LMS (and GW) management, is in my view a disgusting move.

[wlkr]

There is only one point in "Atlantic 3279"'s post that I can find myself agreeing with and that is the dictatorial management of the former LMS grandees over the daily doings of BR(E) affairs. Disastrous is to say the least as far as the region was concerned. However, I would also like to point out that there will still be a hell of a lot more folk such as myself who remember these wonderful machines in their finest hours as they ran in the late fifties and early sixties in the BR racing green (not GWR green,I am reliably informed) than those who remember them in that "insipid" apple green livery (my opinion only, nothing more) so sometimes numbers have to be taken into account. I do obviously know however that the A1/A3 was an LNER design and a good one at that but it was later British Railways days that really saw them "fly ", long after the demise of the LNER and apple green. Unfortunately, all that time and money wasted on the existing BR(E) A3 could have helped to provide funds for a new build A1 in authentic livery and condition and everybody would have been happy.

[richard]

The NRM tend to get criticised for pretty much anything they do, but it seems at least double so with 4472. Someone is more than ready to complain about whatever decision they make. Next, the NRM director will be retiring for an easy life as the England Manager...

The A1 was actually a GNR design. Modifications were made from the early years (eg. the valve travel) through things like superheaters in the late 20s and the Kylchaps near the end. The Kylchap was known as a good modification in LNER days but my understanding is that the costs of patent licensing were the main issue there. Even without a Kylchap, the A1s could set world records...

NO steam locomotive in operational passenger hauling use today is exactly how it was in 'regular' revenue earning service. At a minimum, they all have had legal and safety modifications.

Due to this, at the end of the day, the choice of livery is of personal aesthetics. Variety is good although I tend to have a small preference for Grouping & pre-Grouping - partly because of all the BR black that seems to be everywhere!
I think the A1 group have the right idea - cycling Tornado through all authentic liveries during its boiler certificate. As a national museum and a very popular locomotive with polarising views on livery, the NRM should vary the liveries. It knew wartime black would be unpopular, so it has already "ticked that off" at the (rather premature) unveiling. It sounds like they had a prior obligation on BR Green. Fair enough. In a few years they can put it in Apple Green or even GNR green.

As for the old "They could have built a new one" chestnut. Yes they could, and perhaps with hindsight as to the final costs, they might have made that decision (hindsight is such a wonderful thing). But fundraising would have been much more difficult: 4472 has a much wider appeal beyond steam enthusiasts. And of course they would have been loudly criticised from some quarters for the decision.
Also building a brand new mainline steam engine is not an easy task. There are a dozen or so such projects, many involving existing "kit" parts (frames, boilers,etc) donated from older engines. In 20 years, only ONE has so far rolled a wheel...