User:Tony May/A1/BDH

I have sought an external external opinion on the dispute summarised at User:Tony May/A1.

The expert whom I contacted was Dave Hunt. Dave is a member of the LMS Society, which has a membership of ~45, and is open on an invitation only basis for railway historians of the LMS and related companies. Dave is editor of the LMS Locomotive Profiles series, co-author of most of the books in that series, and IMVHO, with Bob Essery, one of the two living leading LMS Railway historians. The LMSS has published a bibliography which is available here and as can clearly be seen, Dave's bibliography is extensive.

We have had via email the following exchange. I have removed email addresses from the below message in order to prevent spam. What was not surprising to me was his reply, but I offer it as supporting evidence of the historian's approach explained in User:Tony May/A1.

Tony May to Dave Hunt:

Dear Dave,

I have a question for which I would be extremely grateful for the opinion of a published railway historian. I apologise if the answer to this question seems obvious to you; it is apparently not obvious to some people with whom I am having a discussion. The discussion is ongoing at Wikipedia, which as I'm sure you are aware, is a freely available user edited encyclopedia. For more information please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About.

My question is as follows: In the article on the LNER Peppercorn Class A1 there is a list of locomotives which includes both the original 49 members of the class, and the new build engine Tornado. Personally I think this situation is absurd, and Tornado should be removed from this list. However, one other user thinks that it is the fiftieth member of the class because the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust "regards" it as being so.

My question to you therefore, is, if you were writing a book on the Peppercorn A1s, would you include a table listing the original 49 engines and Tornado, or would you just have list of BR engines? Would you discuss them all together in the book, or would you have a separate chapter at the end dealing with Tornado? If you were peer-reviewing a such a book that lumped together service and preservation, would you consider it to be up to professional academic standards?

I know you are an LMS man but please forgive me, I am too really! I'm sure you are excited about the ongoing Patriot project at the Llangollen, so as you can see the question has wider implications.

Thanks for your help

Dave Hunt in reply:

Dear Tony,

Your question is interesting. In a different sphere, a railway modelling friend who was a garage owner some years ago built a C type Jaguar from spares and fabricated parts. It was considered so authentic that the Jaguar chief engineer after inspecting it declared the car to be a genuine Jaguar and the firm allocated it the next chassis number in the C type sequence.

To address your query, though, I would regard Tornado as a full size replica of an A1, albeit with many differences in materials and design of components, and not to be included in a survey of the original locomotives. I understand that the boiler is not quite the same as a genuine A1 type (although I don't know offhand what the exact differences are) and the engine obviously has some modern fittings to enable it to run on the main line. Has it been altered at all to fit the loading gauge? The preserved Stanier locomotives have had their cabs reduced in height and various other alterations for just that reason.

Were I to be writing about the A1s, I would mention the building of Tornado in the postscript but omit any reference to it in the main text. I would also consider putting an appendix at the end covering its construction but only briefly. Just because the trust regard their locomotive as the fiftieth member of the Class does not, in my view, make it so. This is the approach I would take with the Patriots if and when the replica is built at Llangollen.

If I were reviewing a book that included Tornado in the A1s, it would detract from my opinion of it and I would say so in any review.

I hope that this answers your questions satisfactorily.

Regards,

Dave Hunt

I think that is fairly straightforward. Tony May (talk) 20:42, 13 December 2008 (UTC)