[VIC] Heritage, my final word on this

[James Brook <ajmbrook@ozemail.com.au>]

I have really had enough of these arguments over heritage, so I am going
to quit after this post (I will sensibly discuss things further in
e-mail if you ask a sensible question). If you are going to reply to
this please don't flame me, because I have tried not to flame any of
you. I would just like to clear up a few things:

1. Some of you appear to be under the impression that I want to see
locomotives restored fully to 1950's condition.

    I think there is room for compromise. I think that a running
locomotive is better than a static locomotive so I fully support any
modifications like an extended bunker or extra sanders that allow the
locomotive to run on a modern main line system. What I do not agree with
is things like headboards, nameplates and non authentic colour schemes
because these are clearly not required for modern operation. As far as
I'm concerned, if headboards were really needed then SRHC wouldn't be
around today.

2. Some of you seem to think that I am personally attacking the
volunteers at many preservation groups.

    Again this is incorrect. I think all volunteers do an excellent job
in maintaining and returning locomotives and rollingstock to service
that would have otherwise been scrapped. I have not gone out of my way
to attack any volunteer. I have criticised the general attitude of some
"preservation" groups.

3. People here seem to think that I am putting WCR and preservation
groups into the same category.

    I am not, most steam locos that are returned to service with WCR
(apart from Y112 because it is the only operational example of the
class) are in the same category as their diesels as far as I'm
concerned. I see no real difference between the status of R711 and S302.
Also I think that WCR are doing an excellent job in actually running
mainline steam on a regular basis. Because of this, I think the
preservation groups should take a more heritage orientated approach to
their operations. Heritage is the one thing that Steamrail or SRHC could
do properly but WCR can't.

Now we all know where I stand on this and I know where most of you stand
on this. So lets just respect each other's point of view and get back to
discussing the hobby we all enjoy.  I would like to stop this before it
develops into an all out flame war.


--
- James Brook -

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