£3M RAISED – NEW ‘P2’ FUNDS ARE 60% THERE
Prince of Wales is also halfway to completion – but lack of 2020 exposure slows fundraising.
Fundraising for the construction of LNER ‘P2’ Prince of Wales has broken through the £3 million landmark – matching the cost of its sister new-build Tornado.
It leaves £2m for the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust to raise if the engine is to be completed within its current three-year target.
“The speed at which the locomotive is completed depends on the speed at which we can raise the money,” project trustee Mark Allatt told Steam Railway. “That means we have to up the fundraising – and this year has not been the year that we planned… we had intended to do lots of external outreach to potential new ‘P2’ for the price of a pint’ supporters this year.
“We had a comprehensive roadshows programme, we’d have opened the works twice a month and we were going to leverage the fact that the locomotive looks very visibly like a ‘P2’ as the main advert for the locomotive, as it was with Tornado. We haven’t been able to do that in the same way, and although we’ve welcomed new supporters – when we thought it might be static – it’s not been at the rate we would have liked had we had that level of outreach.”
Despite that, work has been “progressing on all fronts” on the construction of No. 2007 at Darlington and contractors around Britain and in Germany.
“The big thing is the sheer breadth of the project, which is happening in so many different areas and places, and that has to be sustained,” Mr Allatt added. “We’re halfway through the build in terms of money spent – it actually looks further – and the boiler will bring that on in leaps and bounds as that comes into play. The next two years are peak spend and therefore the most critical time.”
Aside from regular covenants and dedicated component donations, the £175,000 motion club fundraising scheme reached its initial target in July, while the £600,000 boiler club is two-thirds of the way there, the £450,000 tender club has 77 of the £1,500 allocations taken-up and the £40,000 turbo gen club has reached £12,000.
“We have the tender frames being manufactured by Ian Howitt near Wakefield; the motion being done at Stephenson (Engineering) at Atherstone near Manchester; the pony truck nearing completion at North View Engineering Solutions, Darlington; and tender tank which has just been delivered; the boiler under construction at DB Meiningen in Germany; the electrical work by Rob Morland in Cambridgeshire; and the assembly of the locomotive in Hopetown itself,” the A1 Trust trustee added.
“Almost every work stream has something happening to it: the tender tank is being painted, the frames are not far off completion, the boiler is under construction, the cylinder block and valve gear design are at an advanced stage and model 3D-printed, while some of the motion and pony truck will be arriving this autumn. You can really see how close this is getting.”
At any given time there are up to 20 people working on the physical construction of the locomotive.
“The challenge now is that we’ve got all the big bits, it’s about hanging bits off the locomotive.
“That level of work has to be sustained and that’s why we need more money coming through the door, even though we are already bringing in a minimum of £½m each year.”
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