"This engine is named Tornado and my god bless all who are lucky enough to locomote behind her." - the former Prince Of Wales, Charles during Tornado's naming ceremony at York in February 2009.
Took me forever to upload this in 4K format... 🤦🏽‍♂️
As I said in the teasing community post I recently paid a trip to Britain with my father and the main purpose was to ride behind new build Peppercorn A1 No. 60163 Tornado of the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust.
If you feel able to support to the A1 Trust and their other projects such as P2 Prince Of Wales you can do so here: www.a1steam.com/
The timing for the visit was absolutely perfect! No sooner had we walked up onto the platform having drove here, Tornado was pulling in with one of the previous trains.
When we tried to leave the gates were shut, giving me the incentive to get one last shot of Tornado before leaving.
Tornado's based on the former LNER A1s to the design of Arthur Henry Peppercorn (the last cheif mechanical engineer of the London North Eastern Railway) which were derived from the previous A2s which were in turn were development of the Thompson A2/3s.
49 original engines built at the former London North Eastern Railway's Darlington & Doncaster Works between 1948-49 for use on express services on the East Coast Mainline between London Kings Cross and Edinburgh Waverly in Scotland.
When the Class 55 Deltics came into the picture as a result of the Modernization Plan under Anthony Eden's conservative government they'd all be withdrawn between October 1962 & June 1966.
Despite engine No. 60145 Saint Mungo planning to be preserved by Geoff Drury this wouldn't be successful and all locomotives would be scrapped by the summer of 1966.
Tornado was first concepted in the 1990s and construction took place between 1994 & 2008 making her Britain's first mainline steam engine since 9f 92220 Evening Star back in 1960 and as a result many other new build steam locomotive projects have sprung up not just in Britain but the wider world.
Since its first steaming in 2008 Tornado's become very popular with the public (me included) and has gone as far to to be featured on Top Gear's Race To The North and also going 100 miles an hour in April 2017 to test if it was capable of running at 90 miles an hour (this would sort of be for naught as the engine's inside motion failed during its first 90 mph run whilst pulling the Ebor Flyer from Kings Cross to York almost exactly a year later).
Now after 16 years and a major overhaul that included fitment of the new European Train Control System or ETCS (and unfortunate delayed return to the mainline due to a warped firebox grate), I've finally gotten my chance to ride behind this incredible piece of engineering as of October 26th 2024.
Having finished Tornado, the A1 Trust are now focusing on building their second locomotive P2 No. 2007 Prince Of Wales in reference to who's now King Charles III. After that they plan to build a Gresley V4 (Sir Nigel Gresley's final locomotive design), a possible V1/V3 tank engine and a then K3 Mogul.
Enjoy!