Tuesday 20 August 2019

Maritime history is rusting away.

Preserving ships is an expensive business. Ships are much larger than road vehicles or even trains,  and they need constant upkeep. Despite the best efforts of preservationists, even ships that have been preserved as museums have been scrapped in recent years. In this blog I am making a list of historic ships in the UK; those preserved, at risk and recently scrapped. This is not a comprehensive list, but gives a sense of the scale of the problems of ship preservation in the UK. The relatively safe and large collections of Chatham historic dockyard (HMS Cavalier, Gannet, Ocelot), Portsmouth (HMS Victory, Warrior, Mary Rose) and Hartlepool (Trincomalee, PS Wingfield Castle) have been omitted for simplicity.

MV Balmoral
Status: Preserved/under restoration. After many years acting as back-up for the Waverley, and re-engining in 2003, the ship was given up by the paddlesteamer preservation society in 2012. Now in the hands of the MV Balmoral fund who are planning to return her to service.
Location: Bristol
Website: https://www.mvbalmoral.org.uk/home/

HMS Belfast
Status: Preserved by the Imperial War Museum
Location: London
Website: https://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/hms-belfast

HMY Britannia
Status: Preserved. A well-visited and well-funded vessel in the Scottish capital.
Location: Leith
Website: www.royalyachtbritannia.co.uk

Calshot
Status: At risk. Currently owned by the Tug Tender Calshot Trust, it was announced in May 2019 that due to "lack of financial resources" the vessel would have to be scrapped.
Location: Southampton
Website: http://www.tugtendercalshot.com/

City of Adelaide
Status: Under restoration. After many years languishing at the Scottish maritime museum in Irvine, the former clipper ship was transported to Australia for restoration in 2014.
Location: Adelaide
Website: https://www.cityofadelaide.org.au/

Cutty Sark
Status: Preserved
Location: Greenwich
Website: https://www.rmg.co.uk/cutty-sark

Daniel Adamson
Status: Preserved/Active. Offers cruises on the river Mersey and the Manchester Ship Canal.
Location: Liverpool
Website: thedanny.co.uk

RRS Discovery
Status: Preserved. The ship's engines were removed for scrap during the second world war.
Location: Dundee
Website: https://www.rrsdiscovery.com/

TSS Dover
Status: Scrapped in 2018, following a fire in 2017 that rendered the ship beyond saving.
Location: N/A
Website: https://www.tssdover.co.uk//

Duke of Lancaster
Status: At risk/Abandoned. Campaigners are currently hoping the ship can be saved, but no work has been carried out.
Location: Llanerch-y-Mor 
Website: http://dukeoflancaster.net/

Falls of Clyde
Status: At Risk. A campaign is underway to return the vessel to Scotland from Hawaii, where she has been neglected for some time, even though she was officially part of a museum
Location: Honolulu
Website: http://www.friendsoffallsofclyde.org/

Glenlee
Status: Preserved
Location: Riverside museum, Glasgow
Website: https://thetallship.com/

Great Britain
Status: Preserved. After decades rotting away in the Falkland islands, Brunel's masterpiece, once the biggest ship in the world, was returned to the UK for restoration in 1970.
Location: Bristol
Website: https://www.ssgreatbritain.org/

PS Lincoln Castle
Status: Scrapped 2010. The ship served for many years as a floating restaurant, and was in relatively original condition, retaining her engines. Sadly the owner could not afford the upkeep of the rotting hull and she was dismantled where she lay.
Location: Grimsby
Website: N/A

PS Maid of the Loch
Status: Preserved/under restoration. The Loch Lomond Steamship company are carrying out a multi-million pound restoration of the paddlesteamer with the intention of returning her to service on Loch Lomond.
Location: Balloch
Website: https://www.maidoftheloch.org/

PS Medway Queen
Status: Under restoration. This is more of a rebuilding than a restoration, with the original machinery being installed in a new hull.
Location: Gillingham
Website: https://www.medwayqueen.co.uk/

Nomadic
Status: Preserved
Location: Belfast
Website: https://www.nomadicbelfast.com/

HMS Plymouth
Status: Scrapped 2012. Despite serving as a museum in Birkenhead for many years, the museum closed in 2006 and the ship reverted to the ownership of Peel ports, who sent her for scrap, despite the historical importance of the ship as a Falklands War veteran.
Location: N/A
Website: N/A

TS Queen Mary
Status: Preserved. After many years as a floating restaurant on the Thames, the Queen mary has been returned to the Clyde for preservation. Sadly her engines were removed and scrapped previously, so she will be unable to return to service.
Location: Glasgow
Website: https://tsqueenmary.org.uk/

PS Ryde
Status: At Risk. Despite several attempts to form a preservation group over the years, the funnel and forward superstructure have collapsed and the ship is considered beyond saving.
Location: Isle of Wight
Website: N/A

Shieldhall
Status: Preserved/Active
Location: Southampton
Website: https://www.ss-shieldhall.co.uk/

PS Tattershall Castle
Status: Floating restaurant. Although still afloat, the ship has been modified from its original appearance so can't really be considered preserved.
Location: London
Website:  https://www.thetattershallcastle.co.uk/home

HMS Unicorn
Status: Preserved. A remarkable survivor of the post-Napoleonic era. The Unicorn was put straight into reserve when she was built and was never commissioned, remaining a hulk for her entire life.
Location: Dundee
Website: https://www.frigateunicorn.org/

PS Waverley
Status: Preserved. Waverley has been taken out of service in 2019 for reboilering, but should return to service soon.
Location: Glasgow
Website: https://www.waverleyexcursions.co.uk/


Sunday 18 August 2019

Track gauge in Ireland.

Ireland. Cut off from Great Britain and continental Europe by the sea, it might as well be on another planet as far as railways are concerned, and that's because Ireland uses a different track gauge. Back in the 1800s when the railways were first being built, a number of different gauges were in use in Ireland. The Dublin & Kingstown Railway used the same standard gauge of 4' 8 1/2" as most of Great Britain (not counting Brunel's Great Western, but that's another story). Meanwhile the Ulster Railway used a broad gauge of 6' 2" and the as yet unbuilt Dublin & Drogheda proposed a gauge of 5' 2". This was a mess, so the, the board of trade decided in 1846 that Ireland should standardise on one gauge. Bizzarely the gauge of 5' 3" was selected as a compromise between the two gauges in use at the time. This seems wasteful, since rather than regauging the non-complying half half of the island's railways (if they had chosen one of the gauges in use), they would have to change them all!
The use of broad gauge would be fine so long as Ireland's railways remained separate from British railways. However, this might cause a problem if proposals for a bridge over the north channel came to fruition. That would mean there would be a break of gauge in Ulster, resulting in need for transshipment. Frankly, though, due to the depth of the north channel, such a bridge is probably nothing more than a fantasy. The biggest real life problem in today's globalised rolling stock market is producing rolling stock just for Ireland. If stock is transferred from Great Britain, as has been done on occasion, bogies need to be changed to suit the Irish track gauge and vice versa. This is of course an expensive undertaking. A recent rumour appeared in the Railway Magazine that ex-Transpennine Express class 185s could be transferred to Ireland. This might be cheaper than buying in new trains specially made for Ireland, but it would be so much cheaper if they didn't have to be modified. one wonders, if Ireland had used standard gauge, not only would they have had less track to reguage (only the Ulster Railway would have needed regauging; the Dublin & Kingstown would have stayed as it was and the Dublin & Drogheda would have been built to 4' 8 1/2" from new) but stock could have been bought "off the shelf" or even second hand from Great Britain, without modification. Alternately, Irish stock could be exported to Britain, opening up potential for Irish manufacturing and providing a second-hand market for Irish trains.