ANOTHER ‘A1’ DElAy – NOw IT’S SEpTEMBER
Tornado now planned to return on september 29, after major repairs.
Tornado’s return to the main line has been put back to September, more than five months after it failed on April 14 (SR479). The new target for the ‘A1’ is a Leicester-Holyhead trip towards the end of the month. September 29’s ‘Ynys Mon Express’ was intended to run in April, but was one of the trains postponed after No. 60163’s failure on its debut public 90mph run. ‘A4’ No. 60009 Union of South Africa is expected to deputise for Tornado on the northbound leg of September 15’s ‘Talisman’; the return run is with ‘Deltic’ No. D9009 Alycidon. A planned August 27 trip from Peterborough to Canterbury is to be cancelled, while the Birmingham-Plymouth ‘Devonian’ on September 8 will be postponed. Reassembly of the new-build Peppercorn engine was still not completed as Steam Railway went to press on August 8 – but that was expected to change by the following week. Re-weighing was to follow. The locomotive remains at the Nene Valley Railway, where it was taken after April 14’s failure. “Our view is the engine will be ready by around the Bank Holiday weekend, but it won’t be tested, run-in and certified,” A1 Steam Locomotive Trust Operations Director Graeme Bunker told Steam Railway.
Mr Bunker added that “it wouldn’t be right to rush that”; the process is to include 750 miles of running-in on the Wansford line, some 250 miles more than standard.
While the ‘Pacific’ has been stripped down, work has included a new crosshead, union link, combination lever and drop link for the middle engine, plus valve liners, heads and rings, as well as pins and bushes. The slide bars have been machined.
Tornado’s lubrication system has been overhauled, the outside motion has been dismantled, inspected, and, “given we had the right people in”, the valve liners skimmed. New valve heads and rings have also been fitted. In separate work, the engine has also received new springs. “We’re only a small team, we only have a small supply chain, we’ve had staff illness, and it’s holiday season,” Mr Bunker said in response to why repairing the ‘A1’ was taking longer than hoped. He added that with recent falls in the value of Sterling, “people have been ‘on-shoring’ manufacturing, whereas before they were sending it overseas. Manufacturing in this country is buoyant and busy.” For 75mph running, Mr Bunker said, “we need to show that we have dealt with the issues and put the engine back together properly, and that any agreed mitigations are in place; but there isn’t a prohibition on the engine or anything like that. We’ve just got to be thorough.” The trust has already said it will not pursue 90mph running this year (SR480).
The findings of the investigations into the failure will not be made public until after the engine is operational; discussions around the cost of returning the ‘A1’ to steam are ongoing.
“We apologise that we haven’t got the engine back together sooner,” said Mr Bunker, “but we’re working as hard as we can.”
In reference to the failure, he added: “Fortunately, we don’t have much experience of this kind of thing!”