TORNADO upDate
£60,163. For anyone who knows Tornado, it’s a familiarsounding figure. But it’s also the target for a planned tenth anniversary appeal intended to fill a gap in income arising from the engine being out of action for months this year – it’s not yet run on the main line since its 90mph-run failure in April (SR479).
A chunk of the costs associated with resurrecting the ‘Pacific’ is expected to be covered by insurance (SR481) but, says Trustee Mark Allatt, “This is a contribution – it may be all of it, it may not – towards the costs of getting Tornado back into traffic. It’s also funding a new set of tyres.”
More details are expected at the A1 Trust convention in October.
●● Graeme Bunker, the man well known at the ‘hands on’ end of working the ‘A1’, is stepping back from his role as operations director. He will though carry on as a trustee.
Graeme pops up all over when it comes to the main line – and in the last decade he’s been there when No. 60163 was launched, hauled the Royal Train, took part in Top Gear, hit 100mph, and provided the motive power for Northern’s ‘Plandampf’. After nearly 20 years’ involvement with the ‘A1’, Graeme said he “wanted to step back earlier but it wasn’t appropriate after the failure in April. It totally dominates your life and there are other things I wish to achieve.”
He says he will still be taking “a full role in the current and future projects the trust has in hand” – such as the ‘P2’.
There are other activities too: Graeme is vice-chairman of the Gresley Society (owner of ‘N2’ No. 1744), and says he has agreed to become a director of the Severn Valley Railway’s Holdings plc. These, he says, are “not compatible with leading the operation of a main line locomotive full time.”
●● Although Tornado has been hauling passengers at the Nene Valley in recent weeks, you may have noticed that it didn’t make September 29’s ‘Ynys Mon Express’.
Target now, says the trust, is the November 3 Linlithgow-York excursion for the SRPS, following planned main line trials in late October.