Introduction
Those under restoration or stored unserviceable fall into distinct two categories; those that have previously been operational since their last working for British Rail (BR) but now require repair or further restoration and those that have never run since their disposal from BR and are still in the process of being restored.
The first category comprises 50002 Superb, 50017 Royal Oak, 50021 Rodney, 50033 Glorious and 50050 Fearless. The second category is largely those from the failed bid by Operation Collingwood, an engineering charity established in the early 1990s. The aim had been to train young engineering apprentices by getting them to rebuild railway locomotives. These ambitions failed when sponsorship did not reach the required level and the charity was wound up in 2002. From the examples that had been chosen 50026 Indomitable (now fully restored), 50029 Renown and 50030 Repulse were sold to preservation groups for their restoration, the remainder being sold back to scrapyards since their state was such that they deterred any further serious attempts at preservation.
Class 50s
from the