NO MORE 90MPH TORNADO AS TRUST SHIFTS PRIORITIES
Review by new chairman Steve Davies puts new Darlington base and future builds ahead of ‘A1’ high-speed running.
Anew HQ and two engines working for ‘Stockton & Darlington 200’ in 2025 – but not 90mph tours or operating its own train. Preparing a locomotive for 90mph, contends new A1 Trust chairman Steve Davies, would take “the intellectual horsepower of the whole organisation”.
Steve’s comments come after a review of the trust’s activities (SR505) – and as he eyes the looming arrival of a second boiler from Germany, and the steaming of Gresley ‘Mikado’ Prince of Wales in 2½ years’ time.
Speaking in June, the former National Railway Museum director said that
No. 60163’s owner “works well” and “is fit for purpose, for getting a ‘P2’ built and onto the main line, and at the same time to operate Tornado.”
However, he cautions: “The key issue comes at the point at which we start to operate a ‘P2’ in parallel with Tornado, so we’re a two-train operation, and we’ve got all the challenges of then building a third one, and moving into new premises and so on.”
“The current team would struggle to deliver all of that in three or four years’ time if we didn’t change anything. And that is the major focus… looking at how we are sustainable three, four years from this point onwards.” Running at 90mph had been a trust ambition long before Tornado’s motion failed on its debut public high-speed trip on April 14 2018 (SR479). A year previously, when the Peppercorn ‘Pacific’ successfully reached 100mph on overnight trials, trustee Mark Allatt described it as being the “culmination of the project that we launched in 1990”; ops director Graeme Bunker put the cost of reaching that point at “well over £100,000” (SR466). Not only had No. 60163 been specially trialled and certified – but physical changes such as different balancing of the wheels to reduce hammer blow at higher speeds had been baked into the locomotive’s construction; regular running at 90mph would set the new-build engine apart.
Indeed, until the disappointment of the ‘Ebor Flyer’, the trust had planned to promote a programme of trips taking advantage of the 4-6-2’s new-found status as the only 75mph-plus engine – and the easier pathing it allowed; around four such trains had been expected in 2018. The idea has effectively been in the long grass ever since.
“We have an engine that can do 90mph”, says Steve. “But we now will not be planning to use that for our own commercial purposes at 90mph.”
This column has documented the challenges of running at over 75mph before; one downside the new chairman cites is the extra inspection needed, that includes things like checking the infrastructure – “which can have the effect of putting the price of a ticket per person up by another £30. So there’s a commercial reason not to go down that route.”
Previously, the trust had given finding better paths on an increasingly squeezed railway as a key justification for 90mph running; one instance cited was an aim to drop the fiveplus-hour journey time from London to York to around four hours. However, Steve reports that the organisation believes the problem of pathing “has probably gone away now”.
“One rationale for running at 90mph was to get on the railway and get off it fast”, Tornado’s man says.
“Our view is that there is greater sympathy at the moment to produce the correct pathing.”
Extra wear and tear (“as any good engineer will tell you, you’ll wear out your engine quicker”) is noted by the trust’s chairman too. However, aside from all these factors, his point is that with a new HQ and more engines on the way, the trust has plenty else to focus on.
And so comes a formal end to ambitions to promote tours with Tornado at more than 75mph.
However, and despite all the reasons for concentrating its efforts elsewhere, the chairman’s position is actually not that the ‘A1’ will never run at 90mph again. Rather though, if it does ever happen, any future high-speed running will be more akin to Bittern’s special trio of Steam Railwaysupported 90mph trips in 2013.
NEVER SAY NEVER…
“Having said we won’t routinely do it, if we were asked to do it, let’s say by some nationally recognised body for a very specific purpose, and that it was endorsed by Network Rail and the ORR and others… then clearly we would consider it.
“I don’t think you need too much imagination to try and work out what a nationally significant event might be. There may be something that would be prestigious from a publicity point of view and we would consider it. Because the locomotive is, from our perspective, 90mph-capable.
“But the route inspection and preparatory work required to get the locomotive up to those speeds is an administrative issue with a price tag attached at the moment. So we’re not saying ‘never’ and the locomotive will always be maintained mechanically to a condition that allows it to do 90, but it will only be done, if asked, on rare occasions, and with the full prior agreement of all the regulatory authorities.”
Despite that, today’s position is a clear change over where the trust had been before – and even beyond – 2018’s ‘Ebor Flyer’. (A couple of months after the failure and with the ‘A1’ still out of action at that point, trustee Graeme Bunker reported that 90mph was “still the trust’s aim”, though with the caveat that any decisions would be subject to a review of what had happened – SR481).
However, says Steve: “I can’t comment on the nuance of every single meeting on the subject, but all I can tell you is as it is now. And, as I say, we have a huge number of things on our plate, the intellectual horsepower of the whole organisation is required to get an engine ready for 90, because, not surprisingly, you’ve got to get it right and you’ve got to get it right every time.
“And so as soon as you find that your entire intellectual capacity is focused on one loco, you’re losing the balance to apply that intellectual horsepower across the whole organisation.”
This is, he says, “a question of getting the whole organisation into balance, and the world as we know it is comfortable with preparing and operating engines at 75mph and we want to ensure that there’s no stress to our lives as well. Not stress in terms of worrying about whether or not it will do it… we’re highly confident that if it goes out and is asked to do 90 it will do it magnificently.
“But it is the preparatory work and so on, the paperwork – and you could argue actually the public wants plenty of time to eat its four-course dinner!”
So, might 90mph ever return? Or, as seems likely, will Bittern’s 2013 trips now stay the only successful high-speed charters? I’ll leave that for you to ponder…