John Cobb- Crusader/Railton Special

[f1steveuk]

Mr Chapman hadn't, last time I spoke to her, bothered to contact Rosemary, and was ploughing ahead with his regardless. I suppose in the meantime, he may have been in touch, in which case, I'll have to think of something else!! Really fancied a change form record breakers and motorsport!

[f1steveuk]

Bugger, still, I have the pictures she gave me and one of Syd's sketches, signed. Back to the drawing board or learn to write quicker!

[Terminator]

Thanks Steve- interesting stuff for a total numpty on the subject!

You said it Mike

[f1steveuk]

I have to say, having done Leap, I wasn't too keen to go through the whole process again on a different boat, but Railton's daughter can be quite persausive, at least the cause of the accident is easily proved this time!

[Ratliff]

Mike, my report to Sally Joslin on "The Last Crusader" runs to thirty one pages, so I wont post it here. Some is picky stuff (Rolls Royce without the hyphen etc) but much is to do with how Vospers put Railton's concept on to paper, and how even those drawings missed crucial problem areas, which although Railton constantly begged Du Cane to resolve, both he and Vospers failed to do so. The letters between RAR and PdC just about the the V ing of the shoes goes into the hundreds of pages, and when these are used in conjunction with the internal memos, it is quite obvious that there was a lot of "we know better than Railton" and worse still, simple cost cutting. RAR expalained at great length the need to V the point sufaces, Du Cane and Vospers choose to ignore this, yet in The Last Crusader it is made to appear to be Railton's fault/problem. This had amassive influence on the outcome of September 29th, as did a monumental peice of cost cutting/arrogance on the part of Du Cane.

The underwater picture I believe, is a piece of sponson shroud, about 24 inches long, and apart from the engine and the mounting hoops, probably the size of the biggest bits. I have seen one picture of the engine, which isn't even in it's mounts, it's just loose on the bottom. I think you'd get more up using a net! No sign of the hoops at all.

As a taster




That is all plywood, so at 200 into water, not many big bits left. Please don't copy this image, I would be in a lot of trouble!

http://www.bluebirdproject.com/message/ ... &start=100

Steve - Check out these photos of Lee Taylor's Discovery II rocket boat, the only other reverse three-pointer besides Crusader to complete high speed runs through the flying kilometer.

[f1steveuk]

Been and looked. I have seen a couple before, but it doesn't make them look any less scary!

[Bahnstormer]

Just got back from the talk by Barry Stobart-Hook at Brooklands. Some really high definition photos and videos of M. Campbell's water speed records.

Ron Ayers said a few words a the end about Bloodhound, and also how the 'baton' of land speed has been passed from person to person in the 'land speed family', which was very interesting.

Great evening.

[Pullman99]

As promised, I am posting some pics from my visit yesterday to thinktank – Birmingham Science Museum. The museum is in Curzon Street, close to Birmingham’s original railway terminus and is in an area that is subject to much redevelopment. Indeed, the Railton and other exhibits on the ground floor can be seen from outside.



The Railton was of course previously exhibited at the Museum of Science & Industry at Newhall Street and, whilst still out of context there, at least felt comfortably at home with a fairly representative display of Birmingham made vehicles – and a Blitzen Benz – for company. There must be a lot in storage. The new museum shares space as part of a large complex that is home to Birmingham’s City University and an IMAX cinema and is accessed via a fairly gloomy shared entrance and atrium with the museum entrance being on the 1st floor. Effectively, it’s a rectangular “box” with one wall of the entire ground floor, and stretching to the upper floors, being glass. The layout is thus constrained and very badly lit and is, in my view, one of the worst museum displays that I have ever encountered and making exhibit photography very difficult indeed.

Thinktank is administered for Birmingham City Council as an “arms length” charitable trust. The adult entrance charge is a steep £11.75 although this also includes entry to the museum’s Planetarium, but not IMAX. However, unless you want to sit through a half-hour lecture on Key Stage 2 on the Solar System, this may be of limited value. The main displays are mainly interactive Science exhibits and are individually very well done. The main appeal clearly being to attract school groups and whilst I was there yesterday there were at least three groups visiting.

What was a little surprising was that there was no attempt to secure a Gift Aid declaration. I visited a few years ago when the museum first opened and I noted that omission then. The advantage to the visitor is that doing so allows repeat visits within the year.







The large exhibits are all on the ground floor and the transport items include a Hawker Hurricane (Mk IV I think), a Castle Bromwich assembled Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX, a Birmingham tram, the Duchess Coronation Class locomotive “City of Birmingham” and the Railton. Of the road transport exhibits, there are a couple of early bicycles, three motorcycles, a Star, an Austin Ten, and an experimental Lanchester, all mounted on a Goodwood style “sculpture”. Elsewhere, there is an early Austin Seven and a Mini. And that’s it. For a City that rivalled Coventry for its motor manufacturing.



Of the Railton itself, it’s at least relatively clean and dust free. The display panel contains a short video using archive footage and there is an acknowledgement to the car having been “donated” by Dunlop. Dunlop had purchased the car from John Cobb’s estate to essentially safeguard their wheels and tyres. The tyres were, of course, made at Fort Dunlop and the wheels (I think) were made at their factory in Coventry, so they’re local products in that sense. During the half-hour or so that I was with the car, I did not see any other visitors stop to look at it, and hardly to the other transport exhibits either as far as I could tell. Most of the schoolchildren completely bypassed all of them although I did overhear one pupil mention to his friend as he was passing by the display panel that he knew where the Bonneville Salt Flats were. So there’s some hope for future generations!







the seat cushions have been removed at some stage, presumably in store

And there is a minor bit of nose damage although the whole body structure looks a bit fragile









I do believe that the case for keeping the Railton on display in thinktank is no longer valid and that there should be an attempt to arrange its display elsewhere. Dare I suggest an enhanced display at the NMM? There are precedents. Earlier this year, Babs was exhibited at Beaulieu whilst the 350hp Sunbeam was at Pendine and the Railton was exhibited at The Donington Collection whilst thinktank was being built. So, you never know!

I have posted this response here as it is directly related to John Cobb and I felt it would be appropriate to keep it in context. Could Mike perhaps rename this thread “John Cobb, Crusader, and the Railton Special”?

[f1steveuk]

Excellent pictures, thank yo Ian. It does seem a very much wasted opportunity, but so pleasing to see it looking very mch as she did in the day. One curious note, it appears to have been retro-re-fitted with the anti-stall system, wonder why?

[malcolm uk]

Although the link is through Dunlop and just four bits of LSR rubber the Railton is located within sight (well if you could see through the motorway flyover) of Fort Dunlop and waht remains of the manufacturing heartland of the Midlands.

The current condition could owe a lot to the Donnington Collection who had the car in its care once the Science Museum on Newhall Street closed. But none of the informative display material used then appears to have reached the new location. Requests to Birmingham to have the car removed from the old location were always met with - "it cannot be done as the body is too fragile". But when you have no immediate home for an object it is amazing what can be achieved (even if the nose gets tweeked).

Whilst it would go well with the other record breakers at Beaulieu, I am not sure it would be in the best place for the future. Once we are out of recession it might be the time to get displays 'sorted out'.

Malcolm