Woodham's Yard – Barry

Thanks for that.
I’d tried looking on the BBC site and came up with nothing. Aquick google sorted it.
Some people are sick and have no morals. It is not as if the stuff could be passed on easily.
Shocked and utterly disgusted.

The “pedigree” of steam locos does seem harder to pin down doesn’t it with boilers and frames not always being reuinted after overhaul when in regular use. There have been a couple of re-visions of names and numbers as a result IIRC.

I think the Altlantic will indeed be a good one when she is completed.

Isn’t one of the BR standards being rebuilt into a missing BR standard class – the only difference being one had a tender and the other was a tank engine?

I was unaware of the Dibnah theft.
(Oddly enough I was reading about him at the weekend and his perfection on his riveting on the boiler of his Avling & Porter convertable.)
Disgusting.

The theft occured just before Xmas, try looking it up on the local Bolton newspaper website.
Considering Fred’s profile in the media and the BBC in particular, the lack of publicity about this has been a disgrace, I only found out about it when I bought a copy of ‘Old Glory’ magazine recently, even some of my enthusiast friends who live not far from Bolton, knew nothing about it. I would have thought that national coverage of this disgusting crime against a true British icon would only help to catch the scum that did this.

The “pedigree” of steam locos does seem harder to pin down doesn’t it with boilers and frames not always being reuinted after overhaul when in regular use. There have been a couple of re-visions of names and numbers as a result IIRC.

I think the Altlantic will indeed be a good one when she is completed.

Isn’t one of the BR standards being rebuilt into a missing BR standard class – the only difference being one had a tender and the other was a tank engine?

I was unaware of the Dibnah theft.
(Oddly enough I was reading about him at the weekend and his perfection on his riveting on the boiler of his Avling & Porter convertable.)
Disgusting.

The County project has been controversial apparently in some circiles as the 8F being canabalised is the only surviving Doncaster built example.
It would appear that the railway world have sticklers too…!

I was aware of that, you obviously read Railway Magazine as well, however, the critics have a point, there must be other, less contraversial unrestored 8f’s about. My favourite recreation is the LBSC Atlantic, it’s interesting to note that the boiler for this project was found in Witham where I lived for a couple of years, I remember going round Crewe and Doncaster works in the 60’s and finding some really cool stationary boilers, even then, I thought that they must have been worth saving. I notice that the new boiler for Flying Scotsman is from a deceased A-3, was this from an old stationary boiler, the previous one was from an A-4, sorry, boiler matters quite intrigue me, yawn, after all, the boilers give the things their identity, appearance and character.
Incidentally, does anyone out there have any info on the Fred Dibnah burglarly, don’t worry, if I found any, the perpertrators would be found floating face down in a septic tank where they belong.

Some of these are being used to create long lost locomotive types, ie the frames of a Hall and the boiler of an 8F are being used to create a County, similar projects will be to create a Grange and a Saint….

The County project has been controversial apparently in some circiles as the 8F being canabalised is the only surviving Doncaster built example.
It would appear that the railway world have sticklers too…!

Out of the 280 steam loco’s at Barry, All but 10 went to preserved railways. Many are in steam, others await their turn, or are used as spares. The ten left behind were put into storage by the local council, and have since been the subject of sale and removal for further projects. If it wasn’t for Dai Woodham, we would have maybe a quarter of the country’s fleetof steam locos.

Some of these are being used to create long lost locomotive types, ie the frames of a Hall and the boiler of an 8F are being used to create a County, similar projects will be to create a Grange and a Saint.
It’s always been controversial that some of the last surviving GW types never made it to Woodhams, particularly the Granges, there have been rumours that a strategic store of steam locos were hidden away in an underground facility in case of nuclear attack, who knows, it did happen in Finland, some of those survivors are now stored at Ongar and at an industrial estate in Suffolk.
Unfortunatley I never made it to Barry, in 1969 I worked at Butlins in Minehead and you could see their Barry Island camp across the Bristol Channel, this was where a mate of mine worked and he used to spend sometime wandering round the scrapyard, without a camera though, what a missed opportunity.
We used to go round the local scrapyards in the 60’s, the local sheds were full of withdrawn locos, particularly Annesley and Toton, I do have pictures of these sad scenes if anyone is interested. The locos tended to be cut up at a wagon works in Basford, Notts, Wrigleys I think it was called, plus a scrapyard on the outskirts of Derby next to the A52, thats where all the Jubilees seem to end up. Sad days.

Out of the 280 steam loco’s at Barry, All but 10 went to preserved railways. Many are in steam, others await their turn, or are used as spares. The ten left behind were put into storage by the local council, and have since been the subject of sale and removal for further projects. If it wasn’t for Dai Woodham, we would have maybe a quarter of the country’s fleetof steam locos.

Glad to hear they’ve not been turned into dog food tins, like so many old aeroplanes.

From this:

(original from http://lionels.orpheusweb.co.uk/RailSteam/RustSteam/Pages/BI012.html)

To this:

(By Tom Waghorn, taken from Bluebell Railway website)

Regards,

Dan

p.s. I counted around 5 engines on that site that have returned to steam, whilst there are another 3 or so that are having work done on them. Another has been cosmetically restored.

What a sad, sad sight… Steam locomotives are much more interesting (and fun) than the boring diesel-electrics or electrics of today. I used to do quite a lot at a preserved railway not too far from home, so I regularly used to end up getting footplate rides on these beautiful machines. I managed a good few rides on the Stanier 8F, Stanier Standard 4 tank, GW Pannier Tank and various smaller 0-6-0 engines. Great fun!

Has to be said, for me now as a photographer going round Dai Woodham’s yard in its heyday as it were, would have been a dream come true. Probably a little sad as well though!

Paul