MODIFYING BARBER
Why the South Tynedale Railway’s plans to modify unique Harrogate Gas Works 0-6-2ST Barber have triggered debate.
Why was there such furore about some simple changes?
Next job is to work on Barber. Bottom end needs work on valve gear bearings and the cab height needs raising. Hopefully no more banged heads.” So said the South Tynedale Railway on its Facebook page on December 7 2020. A seemingly innocuous statement, right?
Yet, those ostensibly innocent 26 words sparked a storm of backlash, both on social media and throughout the enthusiast community, with various commentators describing the plans to raise Barber’s cab roof and alter its unique profile as “changing history,” “simply wrong” and “a disgrace”.
Indeed, the strength of feeling towards the proposed modifications has been such that the railway has just published a comprehensive Conservation Management Plan to address these criticisms, outlining what it intends to do and why, with the need to protect the safety of footplate crews cited as the primary justification for the planned alterations.
But if that is the case, it raises serious questions over the ethics of modifying unique and historic locomotives, and the delicate balance between safety and conservation.
Square peg, round hole
Barber isn’t just any narrow gauge locomotive. In fact, it is one of the most historic locomotives in Britain, if not the world.
Built by Thomas Green & Son Ltd of Leeds in 1908 as Works No. 441, it was one of only 38 railway locomotives built by the firm which, although it primarily manufactured agricultural machinery, also built more than 200 steam trams. Today, only five Thomas Green locomotives survive (see panel, p10) and Barber is the only example in the northern hemisphere.
But scarcity alone isn’t what makes Barber special, nor why plans to modify it have attracted so much ire. An intrinsic part of Barber’s identity and character is its distinctive cut-down shape, the root of the current controversy; a shape moulded by the railway for which Barber was built: the Harrogate Gas Works Railway.
There had been a gasworks in New Park, Harrogate, since the mid-1840s. Coal gas, or town gas as it was better known, was produced by heating bituminous coal in an oxygen-less environment to create a gas for lighting and heating. As such, the gasworks consumed a prodigious amount of coal.
Road locomotives replaced horse and carts in 1871 for delivering coal to the gasworks, but even these struggled to keep up with Harrogate’s growing populace and demand for town gas so, in 1904, the directors decided to build a one-mile 2ft gauge railway from its coal yard at Bilton Junction on the Harrogate-Ripon-Northallerton line.
The defining feature of this railway – literally and figuratively – was an 800-yard tunnel, just 9ft high and 8ft wide, under what is now a housing estate and the A59 road. Barber’s distinctive outline was dictated by the restrictive nature of this tunnel; it was so tight that a hatch was fitted in the rear cab
sheet to enable the crew to make their escape if it broke down in the narrow bore.
Named after the gasworks’ chairman, Francis Barber, the 0-6-2ST worked until withdrawal in 1946, a decade before rail operations at the gasworks ceased altogether in July 1956. Happily, by this point Barber had been presented to the Narrow Gauge Railway Society, ensuring its survival and, the following year, it was moved to Leeds City Museum’s Copley Hill store. In March 1980, it moved just over a mile away to the Leeds Industrial Museum at Armley Mills, before moving on again in July 1983 to Bradford Industrial Museum, where work was done on the boiler and ‘bottom end’. Alas, the money ran out and Barber returned to Armley Mills in 1991, where it remained in a dismantled state for over a decade, its restoration apparently in abeyance.
Things changed in 2004, when Leeds City Council placed Barber on long-term loan to the STR, before transferring ownership altogether in 2010. In 2012, it was sent to Alan Keef Ltd near Ross-onWye for a circa £300,000 restoration and launched back into traffic at the STR on the Early May Bank Holiday in 2015, alongside the other surviving Harrogate Gas Works steam locomotive, Peckett 0-6-0ST Works No. 2050 ‘Harrogate’.
So matters rested until late last year when the decision was made to modify Barber’s unique shape – a decision that has highlighted the tension between conserving historic artefacts and operational needs.
Plan of action
So, how exactly does the South Tynedale Railway plan to alter Barber? Simply, it is raising the cab roof and chimney, relocating the whistle, and fitting safety chains across the cab to prevent crew members falling out, to make Barber “safer and easier to operate,” explains STR Preservation Society chairman, David Granath.
“At present, the low cab restricts visibility and there is the continual risk of head injury. The front spectacles are low and partially obscured by the saddle tank. In order to get a better view, the crew often stand outside the cab and we are not convinced this is a safe practice.
“Also, the existing confined cab is hot and noisy, and the whistle is unacceptably loud inside the cab. Crews work a full day shift, and we have to think about their comfort, wellbeing and safety.
The plan is to un-rivet the upper section of the cab and insert steel plates to raise the roof by 35cm (roughly 13½ inches), using either rivets or domed or countersunk bolts. “Apart from a small amount of cutting of the cab trim, there will be no cutting of metal required,” says David.
Meanwhile, the current chimney will be removed and stored alongside the original stovepipe item, and replaced with a new, higher chimney that “can either be of stovepipe design or with a copper ferrule, as at present,” says David, while the whistle will also be raised and have a baffle plate inserted between it and the cab front.
Aimed for completion by the end of June and expected to cost around £5,000, Barber will not look dissimilar to the locomotive that inspired its initial construction – Thomas Green 0-6-2ST Masham, built to aid the construction of Roundhill Reservoir near Harrogate (see panel, p9) – albeit retaining the rear cab sheet and, crucially, the distinctive escape hatch. In modifying Barber then, the STR is adhering to historic precedence.
As it says in its Conservation Management Plan, “Barber is a unique piece of industrial design and it is important that it is kept in existence. However, in the world of 2021, the locomotive has shortcomings in terms of crew safety and comfort. “The changes are reversible in order that the original design is not lost and can be restored back to original in the future should the opportunity or need arise. In this respect, we are trying to strike an appropriate balance between the safety, heritage, comfort and utility of the locomotive.” Furthermore, says David: “The cab could be returned to original form any time if we so wish.” So, the railway is modifying Barber in such a way that it will emulate a similar Thomas Green locomotive, it is enhancing the safety of its operating crews, and the proposed alterations are reversible. It all sounds very reasonable, certainly compared to the deeper and more permanent
We are trying to strike a balance between the safety, heritage, comfort and utility of the locomotive
modifications inflicted on other historic locomotives over the years, so why all the fuss?
Pros and cons
As stated earlier, Barber isn’t just any locomotive
– it is a unique survivor and its cut-down shape is an intrinsic part of its story, much like the Port of Par Bagnall twins Alfred and Judy, and it is hard to imagine anyone modifying those locomotives when their entire raison d’être is their unique shapes.
But other locomotives have been heavily modified – more so than what is proposed for Barber – without attracting the same criticism. Take the Ffestiniog Railway’s ex-Penrhyn Hunslets Blanche and Linda for example; after their arrival on the FR, they had their rear cab sheets removed, tenders fitted and pony trucks added ahead of the driving wheels. Blanche has even had its original slide valve cylinders replaced with piston valves.
As such, both locomotives are significantly different from their original design, and yet few people have taken the Ffestiniog to task over the modifications, so why should Barber and the South Tynedale Railway be singled out? Indeed, how much criticism was there when Barber’s Harrogate running mate, Peckett 0-6-0ST Works No. 2050 – which was likewise originally built with a cut-down chimney and cab to negotiate the infamous tunnel – was restored with a completely different cab and higher chimney? Not much, if any.
The difference is that, unlike the Penrhyn pair, Barber is completely unique and doesn’t have a classmate or similar counterpart to act as a time capsule. In the case of Blanche and Linda, their predecessor Charles continues to exist in its authentic as-withdrawn condition, so on a conservation basis there are fewer concerns about modifying them. Also, preservation has moved on since the early 1960s; what was acceptable then isn’t necessarily so today.
There is another important point to all this; many machines have faults and drawbacks that make
them challenging to live with and work on, but it is those aspects which give them both historic and educational value. For instance, surely no one would dream of fitting power steering and an automatic gearbox to a Ford Model T just because it’s difficult to drive…
By living with these challenges – whether it’s inaccessible oiling points, a stiff reversing lever or, indeed, a low cab roof – we gain a greater understanding and appreciation of the conditions under which their original operators worked.
Different times
The South Tynedale disagrees. “Barber was put into service in 1908 in very different times when health and safety seem to have been hardly considered. It is not possible or right for the trustees of the STRPS to do the same in 2021.
“While Barber is unique in its appearance because of its low cab, it has long been recognised that, on safety grounds, it is not entirely suitable for its present use on the railway. There have been instances of bleeding head injuries requiring medical attention, although thankfully not serious.”
Furthermore, the STR argues that the changes will merely reverse the way in which Thomas Green adapted the locomotive to fit the Harrogate Gas Works tunnel: “In order to achieve the desired profile, the manufacturer simply dropped the roofline of a standard height locomotive and in so doing dropped the front spectacles below the level of the saddle tank.”
But if the cab roof is so problematic, would it be better to withdraw Barber from traffic and replace it with another locomotive, rather than modify a unique relic? Again, the STR doesn’t agree: “We believe this would be a waste of a valuable resource and a loss to railway heritage,” says the STR. “Barber is a sturdy locomotive well suited to our rather hilly five-mile north Pennines route and must be kept in operational service.”
The STR argues that the proposed changes are necessary if it is to have two operational steam locomotives available for 2021, with Barber running alongside Hunslet 0-4-2T ‘Green Dragon’, and that safety considerations trump historical or conservation concerns. Indeed, plans to modify Barber were considered at the time of its original restoration: “It was originally intended, as evidenced by the STRPS board minutes of January 2011, that Barber should be put into service with two cab options: a high-level day-to-day cab and a low-level conservation cab. However, this plan was never enacted, possibly due to a lack of finance caused by significant cost overruns during the restoration programme.”
But this begs the question: if the problems posed by the low cab were accepted a decade ago, why do those issues require addressing now?
“The whole railway safety scene has changed since the original restoration took place,” says David. “There is now a much greater emphasis on safety culture and safety systems; what was tolerated or had a blind eye turned to a few years ago is no longer acceptable.
“The STRPS trustees are very aware of their moral and legal obligation to provide a safe working environment on all parts of the railway, including on the footplate of Barber.”
So what does the Office of Rail and Road – Britain’s rail industry regulator – say? In response to questions posed by Steam Railway, an ORR spokesman said: “The railway is right to be reviewing its assessments of the risks associated with the use of the locomotive for hauling passenger carriages, taking into account experiences of actually using the locomotive in service.
“The railway did make contact with the ORR regarding the proposed changes of the cab roof and we had no immediate concerns from a safety perspective, but observed that they should consider the safety implications of any proposed changes.”
This they have done, and deemed the changes imperative if Barber is to return to service.
Drawing the line
However, the whole scenario has arguably greater implications. If you think about it, steam locomotives are fundamentally dangerous machines; they’re mobile pressure vessels constructed of legacy material, they have open fires, hot surfaces and sharp edges and, as Barber’s Conservation Management Plan points out, they were built at a time when the health and safety of their crews was a low priority for their designers.
That being the case, how and where do we draw the line between what is and what is not acceptable? Or are we venturing down a path where other aspects of locomotive design and operation are similarly altered to adhere to 21st-century safety standards at the expense of historic fabric?
“It is inevitable that as time moves on and technology changes that expectations on what
Surely no one would dream of fitting power steering and an automatic gearbox to a Ford Model T just because it’s difficult to drive…
is tolerably safe will change,” says an ORR spokesman. “This might sometimes mean that historic items, components or ways of working are no longer acceptable. The use of asbestos as a sealing material and fire barrier is a good example.
“However, it is also true that just because something has inherent risks doesn’t mean that these can’t be managed to a tolerably safe level. This might not always mean stopping using something or fundamentally modifying it; there are a range of ways of managing a risk.
“This ability to mix and match control measures to suit the specific circumstances means that each situation must be judged on its own merits and proper assessment carried out.
“Needing to retain historic character has a place, but safety does have a priority and that may mean in some cases difficult decisions must be taken.”
A never-ending pursuit
Ultimately, the debate surrounding Barber boils down to two basic points: whether the changes are right, and whether they are necessary.
The STR says it faces two choices – it either leaves Barber as is and retires it from service, thus losing a valuable member of its locomotive fleet, or it makes the changes to ensure Barber has a working future. To the STR’s credit, it has listened to, and attempted to address, the criticisms towards the planned modifications, which are certainly more sympathetic and less destructive than modifications made to other historic locomotives over the years.
However, it could still be argued that the modifications will fundamentally alter the profile of a historic locomotive that could justifiably be regarded as a museum piece and which therefore should not be changed, regardless of safety concerns. It could also be argued that there are alternative ways of mitigating the risk posed by the low cab, such as requiring crews to wear bump caps, for example, and just fitting safety chains. That way, the safety would be improved without significantly altering its appearance.
Perhaps there is no right answer; both sides of the debate have equally valid arguments.
However, the real concern is how will safety affect the way we operate steam locomotives in future? Will other historic locomotives have to undergo similar, if not more drastic, changes to adhere to modern-day safety standards? Or will those less user-friendly engines be sidelined in favour of those that do meet 21st-century safety criteria?
It goes without saying that safety has to be priority and that no volunteer, employee or visitor should be needlessly exposed to danger, but is there not a risk of going too far the other way, of undermining the historic value of steam railways and overly sanitising the experience? Does the never-ending pursuit of safety have to be at the expense of historic artefacts, or can a mutually inclusive balance be found?
Whatever your take on the Barber debate, only one thing is for sure: we definitely haven’t heard the last of this.
●● With thanks to Brian Craven, John McGoldrick and Michael Swift for their assistance in putting this article together.