Up-date and appeal to create a committee

by Richard Benyon | Jan 31, 2022 | Uncategorized

Hello Valued supporter of Project 22

When this project was started in 2014 we were full of excitement and optimism at the thought of building another Class 22 locomotive. A committee was quickly formed through a Facebook group and a Society formed. The level of interest and positive support was encouraging and P22 when on tour on the Heritage Railway circuit, it was very interesting and the membership grow very quickly.

A lot of work was done with a small committee of 7 people. Over the next 2 years, the committee was reduced to only 4 active members and the realisation dawned on us that P22 was formed with nothing that was technically tangible other than an initial feasibility review and it was going to take years of work to complete the technical and design requirements required to take the project forward.

Being a society with membership required a lot of work a hundred members paying £15 a year needs a lot of attention for very little return, so In 2018 it was decided to put the Society aspect of the group on hold, no longer have members, and only ask for Investors to make a monthly contribution to help fund the technical work needed. This was successful and the income increased from £150 a year to £5000 a year of donations. We managed to buy an engine, hundreds of drawings needed for the design and fund the website. We also purchased some unique Class 22 memorabilia for the stand, including a builder’s plate and set of gauges from D6319. Other than this spending P22 funds does not happen we just save. As of today, we have nearly £20,000 saved from donations and sales of our two Class 22 books. We do have 2 loans, which are long-term and would only be paid up if the project stopped, to the value of £4000.

So today we find ourselves in the difficult position of deciding what to do next. With people expecting regular up-dates, which isn’t unreasonable if you are making donations to the fund, we find that we don’t have the people to produce the “Lister” Journal. The technical design work is progressing but only at the pace that would be expected be from two people doing this as a hobby, even though it is being done very well, it is impossible to forecast a time scale of when the project could be relaunched and make substantial progress, other than to say we are almost ready to get quotations to build the mainframe with all of the CAD and design work completed. (This has taken 3 years to complete)

We were able to locate a Voith transmission, the exact type needed for the project from an Italian Company, Dinazzano Po. Unfortunately, we were not able to raise the funds needed because we have stopped proactively fundraising, our marketing has stopped. It’s a shame because we spent 3 years locating it by making contacts across Europe. However, we now know that transmissions are available and what they cost, leaving us in a better position. We have always believed that the only thing that would stop this project is us deciding we didn’t want to do it anymore. It’s still feasible if we could find the right people who would want to see a Class 22 built, but more importantly, would have the times and skills needed to really re-launch the Project?

We have had a number of people offer to volunteer but we struggled to find something practical to do, especially without the stand visiting shows. So this small group has a decision to make about the future where we don’t want to waste the good work already done so far. We have an excellent springboard for a great project, if we had what we had today when we started things may have been very different now. This up-date is also an appeal to see if any people would like to come and take this forward as it would need a committee, there are only a few left from the original organisation.

We know that we can find the right committee of dedicated people, it just takes time. The positions we are looking for include, Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer, Website Manager, Newsletter Editor, Archivist, Education Officer, Membership Secretary, and Project Leader. We need ideas and a new plan going forward and create a new proactive committee. The eventual aim is to create a Charitable Organisation to take over our society so that our committee will become the trustees. This is a big step but needs to be done if a Class 22 locomotive is going to be built.

Please contact us if you would like to take up one of these important roles on the committee so we can all make the right decision to go forward. If we can get enough interest we will organize a meeting where we can meet and discuss plans for the future.

Dough Parfitt and Richard Benyon

News update February 2020

by Richard Benyon | Feb 16, 2020 | News

What’s happened to Project 22

Well we are still here, not that you would notice if you were waiting for any news or an update! Project 22 is still the most realistic organization if you want to see a North British diesel locomotive re-created. This is a new build project, not a rebuild or a conversation, this route was adopted when the difficulties of converting a diesel-electric locomotive was investigated and ruled out due to the amount of work needed to alter the mainframe to take a hydraulic transmission, as the structural complication outweighing any saving in cost to build a new mainframe.

With that explained what about an update, well that’s more complicated as P22 doesn’t really have the infrastructure to be pro-active with any aspect of the society or even the website, consequently the lack of updates which has given a poor impression of the Society to investors and the public and has been for 12 months or more.

Internally, P22 is progressing, admittedly slowly, but, certainly. There is a small technical team beavering away building the CAD designs, purchasing drawings and manuals and we are still investing money into the group with the view of purchasing a transmission when we are ready (or when we find one)

P22 started out of the traps like a whippet and made fantastic strides in the first 2 years, we seemed to have a winning formula. It wasn’t long before we could see that we had to acknowledge that our marketing was working so much faster than our ability to provide any real technical or tangible progress allowed. We were also experiencing some real issues within the committee on the best way forward for P22, which did very nearly finish the project. If it wasn’t for one or two committee members refusing to give up it would have folded 2 years ago.

This was the point we realized that P22 was a fantastic project and as a team, we knew how to build the loco and we were confident of raising the funds. Our downfall was maintaining a committee, there were some big egos in there including mine. At this stage, we had the option of stopping and honoring our promise of returning any funds donated back to investors or keep on going with a low profile and building a proper sustainable technical case for building a new locomotive. We chose the latter, even though I didn’t believe we would be able to hold it all together. My job has been to look after the money and keep it safe and not let anyone spend it unless it provides value to the build.

We have an original NBL/MAN engine and a number of other components in storage, we have gained an incredible amount of information and specific details relating to Class 22 locomotives and how they were built, maintained, the history and the data we have is vast.

We are not yet ready to relaunch, but we are not far away, our aim of starting some form of construction by 2022 is certainly on the cards. We would like to take to the road again next year with the sales stand. Unfortunately, our current committee can’t support this action and this needs to be addressed we need to attract enthusiastic committee members who can pick up the reigns and help take us forward. Over the past 4 years, we have many dozens of people volunteers to help P22, but we haven’t had the resources to allow us to utilize this help and give leadership and guidance.

It would be a shame to see all the hard work and commitment that has been put into P22 be wasted as we still firmly believe there is a will to see this locomotive built. This project is possible and very probable, but it’s also very vulnerable. While this isn’t an appeal for help, it’s the truth about where P22 is today.

Having said that, we really do need help! We are open to hearing any comments or advice and welcoming any hard-working like-minded people to step up as we need to build a strong committee again, something that must happen if P22 is to succeed. We especially need people who know how to run and manage a charity, a full-time webmaster and a host of others.

Richard Benyon

Chairman,

On behalf of the Committee.