new team to speed up slow-burn ‘night owl’
society is galvanised to ensure new-build ‘47XX’ steams well before gwr bicentenary.
The builders of new ‘47XX’ No. 4709 are planning to completely restructure the project’s activities - with the realisation that without a significant change in approach, the locomotive may not be completed until close to the GWr’s 200th anniversary in 2035.
Writing in the latest issue of the Great Western Society’s house magazine Great Western Echo, David Bradshaw - chairman of the LMS Patriot Project, and one of the original instigators of No. 4709 and Didcot’s replica ‘County’ No. 1014 County of Glamorgan - has set out a new strategy to increase publicity and fundraising for the Churchward 2-8-0, so that it “reaches completion in a sensible time frame”. “With rival new-builds coming on apace and ‘Saint’ No. 2999 about to emerge,” he contends: “it is clear that the 22 years it has taken to complete Lady of Legend has to be significantly improved upon if No. 4709 is to hit the main line within the next six years, which the project team believes is achievable.” Volunteers are therefore being sought for a new team, to be set up along the lines of the ‘Patriot’ group, with individuals taking responsibility for sales, publicity and communications (see panel). The group is also looking to set up separate engineering teams for No. 4709’s ‘bottom end’ at the Llangollen Railway, and its Collett 4,000-gallon tender at Didcot. The initiative comes at a crucial time for the ‘47XX’ project; the wheeling of the locomotive’s frames is a realistic prospect this year - provided £16,000 can be raised. By late spring, it is expected that No. 4709’s driving wheelsets will have received their tyres and crankpins at the South Devon Railway, while the axlebox horns should have been fitted and ground at Llangollen - leaving only the axleboxes themselves to be overhauled before the wheeling can take place. If sufficient funds can be raised by the end of April, the pony truck and driving axleboxes (recovered from ‘Large Prairie’ No. 4115 and 2-8-0T No. 5227 respectively) could be ready for fitting by late summer. The new ‘47XX’ was first mooted in 2002 (SR274), although it officially received the green light in 2010, when No. 4115, No. 5227 and ‘28XX’ No. 2861 (which has donated its cylinder block) were obtained from the ‘Barry Ten’ collection. The main milestones have been the cutting of the frames in 2012, retrieving and restoring the extension frames from No. 4115, and the construction of the fourth 5ft 8in driving wheelset to join the three wheelsets and pony truck from the ‘Prairie’.