STEVE DAVIES INTERVIEW
The new chairman of the A1 Trust
The A1 Trust – builder of Tornado, a ‘P2’ and, in future, a ‘V4’ – is celebrating its 30th anniversary. As part of a series of interviews, TONY STREETER talks to new chairman STEVE DAVIES as he details how the organisation intends to continue constructing locomotives beyond that trio.
“We are steam’s Jurassic Park, aren’t we?” So says new chairman Steve Davies of the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust. With ‘A1’ Tornado built and running for over a decade, a ‘P2’ under construction and a ‘V4’ to follow, you can see his point. This is an organisation, the former National Railway Museum director says, that takes, “the DNA of engines that are long gone”, and brings them back.
This year, the A1 Trust celebrates its 30th anniversary, but while it’s recognisably the same organisation, in some ways it is now quite different to the one that started in 1990. Its chairman describes building No. 60163 as “a very crisp, clear initial objective.” In contrast, in well under a decade’s time the trust could be operating three engines. It is, Steve says, becoming “a much bigger beast than it was to start with.”
There is, he reports, “huge confidence within the team that it can do this. But at the same time we’ve got to make sure that we don’t expose ourselves to risk.”
All this was part of the thinking behind the review Steve launched after being named chairman in March. Since then, the organisation has announced that it won’t be pursuing 90mph running for No. 60163, or setting up its own train (SR507) – though the latter decision was actually made independently of the review.
As David Champion explained in the last issue of Steam Railway, the A1 Trust’s ambitions have always been so large that it’s had to have a clear focus on raising cash – and then delivering. Unsurprisingly, the new chairman’s thinking aligns with that which has long characterised the organisation: Rather than an ‘it’ll be finished when it’s finished’ approach, he judges, “there reaches a point when you are taking money in a very efficient and positive way from our covenantors and other supporters, where actually they’d probably like to see some results for their money.”
One conclusion of Steve’s deliberations is confirmation that the trust’s “board structure and the way in which subcommittees and so on interact, works well.”
But, he says: “We could not transition, today, into a three-locomotive operation tomorrow. We have to grow and we have to think about growing it, and the key thing that I’m looking at now is ‘where is the succession planning for 5-10 years in the future?’
“You’ve got to grow your own capacity in this day and age, not
expect to be able to go out into a workplace to find lots of people.”
As part of that, the retired colonel has been able to recruit an old military buddy who subsequently moved into project management – Richard Courteney-Harris – as an advisor to the board.
‘MIKADO’ MILESTONES
When the trust meets to discuss such things, a major driver for the deliberations looms part-built, right outside the Darlington committee room: the £5m No. 2007 Prince of Wales, the first Gresley ‘P2’ to be created since 1936.
“We’re about 2½ years away from what we believe will be completion”, says Steve. “In railway heritage terms, the finishing line is tantalisingly close.”
“The arrival of the first boiler will be another major milestone, and of course one of the great things is that all the crinolines and the sheetings are already done...”
“A project like this is a balancing act. One is obviously the rate of income. Second is the logical order in which you do things. Then, thirdly, there’s what I call the ‘illogical order’, which you do for fundraising purposes.
“So it may be in one’s interest to build a shiny component that’s recognisably ‘P2’ earlier than the programme would suggest, in order to excite the senses… That’s fundamentally the balancing act.”
You could argue that one example of ‘shiny’ was when a made-over and deceptively complete-looking Prince of Wales appeared on the cover of SR488 in early 2019.
As of mid-August this year, the trust reported that nearly 50% of the estimated £5m total had been spent, with £3m donated; the aim is to reach 1,000 regular donors (covenantors) by the time of the annual convention in September.
In terms of hard steel, the first of two new all-welded boilers ordered from Germany’s Dampflokwerk Meiningen is due in the UK imminently, followed by the second next spring. Once that happens, “Tornado’s current boiler will probably go to Meiningen for major overhaul. And that then becomes the spare boiler for both locos.”
As with the existing, 2006 version, the new boilers are to a modified LNER Diagram 118 design. Although those fitted to the original ‘P2s’ were slightly longer, on the new 2-8-2 they will be interchangeable with No. 60163. To accommodate that, Prince of Wales’ smokebox is to be longer than the LNER design. For, says Steve, “it made no sense to have a precisely accurate boiler for the ‘P2’ that could only be used on the ‘P2.’
“So the objective is to get us into a situation where we don’t have to be out of traffic for too long with any loco, because there’ll always be a boiler ready to go in, should that be required.”
The steam-raiser is far from the only part of Gresley’s ‘P2’ design to have a makeover. The new engine is to receive Lentz valve gear, as originally fitted to first-built ‘P2’ No. 2001 Cock o’ the North (the later engines had
Walschaerts/conjugated valve gear). However, says Steve, “there is some valve gear redesign going on… to optimise its efficiency, and that’s based on the recorded technical evidence that it was suboptimal in traffic.”
One well known ‘P2’ problem was failure of crank axles; Steve recounts that the LNER’s solution “was to replace them quite frequently in advance of them failing. We don’t believe that that is a sustainable approach... and, of course, metallurgical standards are so much more advanced now.”
The new one will “be built to substantially greater tolerances and strength than the original.”
However, at least one aspect of the original design needs more than tweaks. Indeed, it has previously been suggested that the pony truck was so ineffectual that Gresley’s big ‘Mikado’ was effectively almost an 0-8-2.
The devised solution is to develop the pony truck design from the ‘V2’ – meaning that certification work is needed to allow it to run on today’s railway. However, the trust chairman says that “the scale of the challenge is entirely manageable… there was a lot of soul searching at the very beginning because if everybody thought that this was insurmountable, nobody would have committed to this.”
Ensuring No. 2007 won’t be an effective 0-8-2 is “why the dialogue with both the regulatory authorities and Network Rail, and others, has started in earnest.”
In addition, Prince of Wales’ builders have also planned for what Steve describes as “a very lengthy running-in and fine-tuning period.
“Because building it, steaming it and moving it slowly up and down a few yards of track is clearly only the start. And we’ve got to go through a huge confidence-building exercise in that first year.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, Steve explains: “There is no way at this stage we will ever say that we’ll be available to run on someone’s railway in November of a particular year. We’re taking it in one-year blocks at the moment.”
However, he points out: “We’ve got boffins who did a lot of this on Tornado.”
All the above notwithstanding, the trust anticipates that the first ‘P2’ since Edward Thompson had them rebuilt as ‘A2/2s’ in 1943/1944 will steam “at the end of 2022, possibly a week or two into 2023; 2023 is the final fitting out, running in and testing period, with a hope to get some mileage under it, mid to late 2023.”
Also in the organisation’s mind is that November 2023 is the 75th birthday of HRH the Prince of Wales.
“So we’re saying to ourselves, ‘wouldn’t it be nice to make sure that engine is in steam, sparkling somewhere, and if he would like to interrupt his birthday at some stage to name it, that would be even better.’”
In fact, assuming all this works out as planned, 2023 could turn out to be a bit of an ‘LNER fest’ because that year also marks the centenary of a certain National Collection ‘Pacific’. Might No. 2007’s completion end up stealing a bit of limelight from the ‘A3’?
“We look forward to sharing a glorious 2023 with Flying Scotsman, not planning to try and undermine each other’s fame for that particular year”, says Steve.
An anniversary that very much is in mind, though, falls a few years later – the bicentenary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway in 2025, which falls on ‘home turf’. So the aim, Steve says, is to make sure that the ‘P2’ puts in “a good solid year’s work” during 2024.
That’s in order that “everything is fine-tuned to perfection, confidence levels in the machine are high, so that, when it comes to 2025, it and Tornado can jointly play a major part in ‘S&D 200’.”
By that point, construction of the ‘V4’ should also be properly under way, too: “We’ll have two and a bit engines from 2024 onwards.”
A NEW HOME, AND ‘BANTAM COCK’
In one sense, constructing a Gresley 2-6-2 to replace the originals Nos. 3401 Bantam Cock and 3402 (BR Nos. 61701/61702) is tied in with another project
– a new two-road home for the trust. The existing ‘Darlington Locomotive Works’ in the historic Hopetown carriage works has served the organisation well since the council offered it in the mid-1990s, but it’s not railserved and feels cramped as activity grows and changes.
So, as part of the wider £20m Railway Heritage Quarter being developed by the town, it is envisaged that the trust will move to a new building on the north side of the railway, alongside Whessoe Road. The existing site could then become an exhibition space/open store for the wider heritage project (see diagram).
There’s also space for a turntable (currently unfunded) and a demonstration line which could link the trust’s HQ with the 1861-built engine shed further north that for a time was even mooted as a potential home (SR472/484). Long in industrial use, this is now considered a possibility to house the North Eastern Locomotive Preservation Group (which currently also uses part of Hopetown) and the Darlington Railway Preservation Society.
Steve says that under current timescales the trust expects the new building to be up by the end of 2021, with fitting out through the whole of 2022.
“Therefore, we would occupy the new facility from the beginning of 2023”, he adds.
So, the plan is for the already well-under-construction ‘P2’ to be finished at Hopetown, but for building of the ‘V4’ to take place ‘over the way.’
The railway quarter proposal, argues Steve, is, “indicative of Darlington Council’s commitment to railway heritage.” That runs wider than just the trust but, he says, “construction of locomotives in Darlington has really helped to shape a hugely positive relationship with the council.”
Building a ‘Bantam Cock’ will be “a very interesting exercise for us”, reckons Steve. “I don’t think we’re an organisation that could stop at two engines.
“We’ve built up such an engineering knowledge base and a momentum as an organisation that actually, I wouldn’t say it would be easy to build another engine, but the challenges of starting up will not be there. And we will have nice shiny new premises and it’s natural that the ‘V4’ will be built in our new location.”
Compared to a ‘Pacific’ and ‘Mikado’, the much smaller 2-6-2 (70-odd tons compared to the more than 110 tons of a ‘P2’), “will be a slight departure from our current philosophy.”
Steve describes the trust’s next three-cylinder machine as a “powerful, chunky little thing”, but makes the point that, in contrast with the bigger engines, “we can go anywhere with it.”
The two original ‘V4s’ ran on the West Highland Line, and the trust’s man describes the idea of working West Coast Railways’ Fort William-Mallaig ‘Jacobites’ with a new one as “tantalising.”
Some bits (a chimney for example) have already been delivered, and a formal launch is expected in 2021. Replacing the 1941-built originals that were broken up in 1957 (after a positively long career compared with the decade of the ‘P2s’) is expected to take around five years and cost £3m.
What locomotive might follow? On this there is, says Steve, “a debate to be had.” Some people, he reveals, are already angling for a tank engine. That discussion only goes so far, though: “It clearly has to be a North Eastern or an Eastern engine, we’re an LNER-based organisation.”
As an outfit whose very reason to exist is to resurrect extinct machines, will it stop constructing new ones?
“There could become a point at which the volume is such, that the trust ends up building new engines for other people to operate, so they’re not wholly in-house. But I don’t see that being until we probably reach the four or five-engine point.”
That, he reckons, is “ten-plus years ahead at this rate.”
AMBITION… DELIVERY
The A1 Trust isn’t Steve Davies’ only railway involvement. Aside from the consultancy of International Railway Heritage, he’s also a director of the Wensleydale Railway. However, explaining his own motivation to become involved with Tornado’s builder, Steve says he has “always admired the A1 Trust for the… I wouldn’t say the glamour, but it’s the sheer scale and ambition and its ability to deliver what it says on the tin.”
In fact, he argues that the trust has “a design for the future, about how these things can work. It’s highly polished. It’s highly polished because it’s got some highly polished people in it who are not willing to accept low standards.”
Clearly, his aim is for that to continue. Plus, under its new chairman, it seems there’ll be no let up in the trust’s lookout for high-profile opportunities to show off its engines.
“I’m in favour of set piece, dramatic, impressive things”, Steve says. “Hauling the Royal Train is up there… appearing at very short notice to get somebody out of a fix for a major event… We are a ‘Wilco’ organisation that’s desperate to use Tornado, and [will] be desperate to use the ‘P2’.”
Just, perhaps, that might not even be exclusively in the UK – which is not to suggest that anything is fixed. There are, the chairman accepts, “technical challenges with going abroad.” “One such challenge is, of course, tyre profile. But that is not insurmountable. If somebody came along and said ‘we’ve got a major railway gathering, we’d love you to come… and, by the way, the money’s available to make these things work’, that’s definitely an idea that we would seriously entertain.”
Considerations in any decision would be “if we can do it, and it’s good for us in terms of sustaining our reputation, then great. Secondly, it would be great for Britain, and thirdly it would be great for our own people. So we would certainly consider something.
“But what we couldn’t do is sustain a huge loss to make it happen.”
Extraordinary as such an undertaking might be, more generally it seems the message under Steve Davies is that the A1 Trust is open to big ideas.
“The bigger the better,” he says. “So long as I can look my finance director in the eye.”