WILL THE REAL TORNADO PLEASE STAND UP?
70000 mob reclaims name for the Western – and conjures up fond memories of the Canton ‘Brits’.
BRITANNIA HAS STARTED TO TAKE ON THE MANTLE OF ITS WHOLE CLASS – IN A WAY THAT WOULD NEVER BE APPROPRIATE FOR OLIVER CROMWELL
How’s this for what online warriors would call ‘top trolling’? Locomotive Services turned out ‘7MT’ Britannia for its recent ‘Pembroke Coast Express’ trip not as
No. 70000, but No. 70022… Tornado.
Very funny – and something that caused the A1 Trust to respond with ‘Beware of Imitations’ (ironic given ‘No. 60145’ the following month). But why?
“Taking the identity of an engine that was based at Cardiff Canton rather than one that wasn’t seems entirely appropriate,” the Royal Scot Locomotive & General Trust’s Peter Greenwood told me on July 30, the day after the run.
Was his tongue wedged in his cheek as he chose those words…? You can make up your own mind on that, I’m sure. Though given that No. 70022 was Tornado nearly 40 years before the ‘A1’ was even conceived, it’s hard to say the ‘Brit in drag’ is any the less ‘real’ than its modern namesake…
Yet let’s face it, whatever the historical truth, these days the name Tornado is much more associated with a certain new-build 4-6-2 than the former Western Region ‘Britannia’; even if a picture of No. 70022 itself does adorn the bothy wall inside Darlington Locomotive Works. For that reason, you have to say that Britannia’s flit can’t have done the PR for the A1 Trust’s own railtours any harm at all.
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” Peter continued, “I don’t know whether the A1 Trust knew or not, but they took it in jest and if they can make something of it, great.
“I must stress that it’s in no way derogatory to the trust,” which, he says, “we hold in the highest regard!”
So, a bit of fun at a time we could all do with a chuckle. But, maybe more to the point, it might not be the last time LSL/RSGLT do something like this either, because of course, it’s not even the first.
Remember less than a year ago when No. 70000 masqueraded as No. 70014 Iron Duke for the ‘Golden Arrow’? Or previous similar stints in the 1990s even before RSLGT ownership – or it assuming the ID of No. 70021 Morning Star at the West Somerset in 2015? So in a very real sense, Britannia has started to take on the mantle of its whole class – in a way that would never be appropriate for Oliver Cromwell as a national collection engine.
How good was the make-believe this time round? Well, pretty decent – although Britannia has smokebox handrails rather than the grab handles fitted to No. 70022 and other WR engines after the 1955
Milton accident. Plus, of course, there’s the perennial distraction of the air-pump, which on No. 70000 is mounted inside the righthand deflector rather than inside the frames. Even so – good effort.
Plus, don’t forget that Crewe has done this with another engine too: remember Braunton’s period as ‘Battle of Britain’
No. 34052 Lord Dowding?
So watch out for the ‘Brit’ backing down on your train in future. Maybe it won’t be No. 70000, but Boadicea, William Shakespeare… who knows?
Time to dust off the Abc…
Or how about Royal Scot as classmate No. 46152 The King’s Dragoon Guardsman, for which there’s at least some historical precedent (the parallel-boiler engines swapped identities prior to the North America tour in 1933).
After all, it’s just a brief bit of escapism… and that’s pretty much the reason we do this. So what could be wrong with it – especially at the moment? And maybe the A1 Trust could even get its own back: after all, could you really tell an ‘A1’ and ‘A2’ apart at 50 paces…
●● The ‘previous’ Tornado was named not after the RAF jet in the way
No. 60163 is – that aircraft didn’t even fly until 1974, eight years after No. 70022 was withdrawn from Kingmoor. Instead, like other WR machines, the identity of the ‘Brit’ took inspiration from historic GWR names.
The name Tornado adorned an ‘Iron Duke’ 4-2-2 from 1849 and, later, the very last pure broad gauge engine, a ‘Rover’ built in 1888, just four years before the final conversion to standard gauge. Separately, the South Devon had a ‘Tornado’ class of 0-6-0STs, designed by Gooch and launched in 1854.