(first posted 12/15/2021) Restoring a Morris Minor is probably quite straightforward if you have the patience; building one from scratch, with no example to follow, would be something else. The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust set out to do exactly that – but not with a family runabout; they went large and built an express steam locomotive using 60 year old drawings and techniques – and now run it at 95mph on Britain’s mainlines. Let’s review the history and ambition that is Tornado.
The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER), owners and operators of the East Coast Main Line (ECML) from London to Yorkshire, north east England and Edinburgh from 1923 until nationalisation in January 1948, was proud of its express locomotives. CC has already heard of Mallard, the world’s fastest, and will hear the story of Flying Scotsman, the world’s most famous, when she returns to Britain’s rails in spring 2016. But they were pre-war racehorses, designed to haul fast and relatively light trains, not to drag heavy loads. By 1945, after 6 years of war, their shortcomings for the post war world were apparent – complex, expensive to maintain and past their peak.
American troops boarding a troop train in Britain, 1944
Wartime overuse and neglect had left the network and its equipment ‘knackered’ (as engineers say). Funds for investment and innovation were short, and new power was needed – trains had grown from the 8 – 10 coaches that an A4 like Mallard could easily handle at express speeds to 15, and the need now was for an engine that could reliably haul heavier trains, albeit not at pre-war streamlined express speeds. The urgent need for power meant that experiments with diesel traction were not an option – steam would have to soldier on.
Enter Arthur H Peppercorn (1889-1951), the quiet son of a Church of England vicar, brought up in Herefordshire on the Welsh border and determined from an early age to drive and build steam locomotives. By 1945, he had worked for the LNER (and its predecessor, the Great Northern) for 40 years. He joined as an engineering trainee, alongside W O Bentley, and then rose from District Locomotive Inspector to Assistant Mechanical Engineer, before reaching the pinnacle of Chief Mechanical Engineer when Britain’s railways were at their lowest ebb.
His solution to the power conundrum was not a radical one, but it was a properly designed and built one – the A1 Class 4-6-2 ‘Pacifics’. A Pacific has a leading 4 wheel bogie (truck), six coupled driving wheels on three axles, and two trailing wheels, and was the largest type of steam locomotive used for express passenger service in Britain.
Earlier LNER Pacifics, such as the A3s designed by Sir Nigel Gresley, were racehorses – stylish, graceful and fast. Indeed, most of Gresley’s Pacifics were named after racehorses. The streamlined A4s like Mallard were even more obviously a speed machine, albeit with styling that was more for visual effect than aerodynamic benefit.
In contrast to Gresley’s racehorses, Peppercorn’s new A1 Pacifics were clearly designed to be load haulers. From the trackside, the A1 looked what it was – a modern, no-nonsense machine ready to do important, but not glamourous work. By British standards, this was a large engine, but not a flashy one – the styling was plain, practical and purposeful, just right for the times as post-war austerity began to bite.
The boiler was pushed to the maximum that Britain’s confined structures allowed, with a firebox grate area 20% bigger than the A3s – the better to cope with poor quality post-war coal. Peppercorn also fitted various modern improvements, including Kylchap double chimneys, Timken roller bearings and electric light.
The Peppercorn Pacifics had a long gestation. After Gresley died in 1941, his successor Edward Thompson experimented with a range of designs for a new Pacific, none of which succeeded. Anecdotally, his unconventional ideas (such as the location of the outside cylinder on this A2/2 example) were so unpopular in the Doncaster drawing office that, as he neared retirement, engineers and draftsmen conspired to slow down the development of his designs so that he would retire before they could be built, and thus could be redesigned after his departure.
There was one big mechanical difference between the Gresley Pacifics and the less flamboyant Peppercorns. The A3s and A4s were three cylinder engines, with one cylinder on each side and one between the frames on the centre line of the engine, all driving the centre axle. The valve gear for the centre cylinder was of Gresley’s own devising, known as ‘Gresley Conjugated gear’. Instead of a separate set of valve gear for the centre cylinder, it was driven from the Walschaerts gear on the outside cylinder. Gresley believed that this arrangement was lighter and easier to maintain; this was true, but only if the maintenance was of a high standard. Wartime exposed the vulnerability of the design to poor or delayed maintenance, resulting in weak performance as the centre cylinder failed to do its share of the work.
This persuaded Peppercorn to abandon the conjugated gear for a more conventional arrangement of a three sets of Walschaerts gear, one for each cylinder, which was much more reliable and easily maintained in the less forgiving post war world.
The A1s were large and powerful engines by British standards, with an overall length of 62 feet – 2ft more than the A3 and A4s. Weight was 164 tons. The driving wheels were 80in in diameter, boiler pressure 250lb / sq ft, and tractive effort was calculated as 38,000 lb.
By way of comparison, Union Pacific’s preserved 4-8-4 (or ‘Northern’ type) no 844, the last steam loco built for UP, in 1944, is substantially larger, at 114ft with a total weight of over 400 tons, and a tractive effort of 63,000lb. Much of this difference in size is down to the tender – 844 was designed for long journeys across the American West, and carried over 6,000 gallons of fuel oil and 23,000 gallons of water in a 14 wheeled tender. The additional power is possible through a boiler far larger than Britain’s rails can accommodate.
The A1s carried 9 tons of coal and just 5,000 gallons on water – enough coal (manually stoked!) for 500 miles, but reliant on water troughs for supplementing the water at speed. And, as we noted with the ill-fated Advanced Passenger Train, Britain’s cramped railway infrastructure puts tight limits on the size of rail vehicles.
The first A1 appeared in August 1948, eight months after nationalisation, numbered 60114 and named W P Allen, after a Great Northern Railwayman who became a trade union leader and eventually a member of the Railway Executive, the government body which controlled British Railways. The 49th and last, 60162 Saint Johnstoun (an old name for the city of Perth in central Scotland, and one of a series of names referencing the books of Walter Scott) was completed in December 1949.
Of the 49, 26 were built at the LNER’s main works at Doncaster, on the ECML in Yorkshire, and 23 at the former North Eastern Railway works at Darlington, 45 miles north of York in County Durham. They were all named, after an eclectic mixture of racehorses, Scottish places and characters from Scott’s novels, the LNER’s predecessor companies and some of their significant locomotive engineers.
The A1s were a success – they did what was asked of them, with simpler and cheaper maintenance and better fuel consumption than the older Gresley designs, and had the power to meet the heavier loads of the 1950s without drama. Their dependability made them popular engines to work on, and by British standards the cab was spacious, well laid out and straightforward to work.
But by 1963, after barely 15 years of an expected 35 year working life, all the A1s were gone, swept away by rushed dieselisation.
Britain invented railway preservation, and it is now a flourishing industry. Estimates of the number of preserved and restored locomotives vary, but one website lists nearly 500 mainline engines – mostly rescued from scrapyards like the famous Woodhams Yard, at Barry near Cardiff. But none of these is an A1 – which deserves its place as the last in a 100 year line of East Coast steam express power.
This is history lined up for British Rail’s camera in 1976, to mark the introduction of the inter City 125 – there should be an A1 between Mallard and the Deltic. Enter the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust, and their ambitious plan to fill a gap – allegedly dreamt up in the pub! The idea to build what became Tornado became a serious proposal in 1991, and led to the formation of the charitable A1 Steam Locomotive Trust in 1993, able to attract funding in a tax-efficient way form from individuals and companies and later from the UK National Lottery.
From the start, the aim was to build an A1 to the original drawings, with updates only as necessary for new health and safety standards and features such as a welded (rather than riveted) boiler, and work began in 1992 to assemble drawings saved from BR’s Doncaster and Darlington works. By 1995, the Trust had secured a building in which to assemble the new A1 – a remnant of the Stockton and Darlington Railway’s 1854 carriage works in Darlington, offered by the local council and now known as Darlington Locomotive Works. 23 of the original A1s were built in the historic town, at the now demolished North Eastern Railway works, so the location was very fitting.
Gradually, through the mid-1990s, parts began to come together as funding was slowly accumulated. The cost was originally estimated at £1.6m, but ended up closer to £3m. Funding came from regular, tax-free payments from individual rail fans; one-off gifts linked to particular parts, of up to £25,000; sponsorship in kind from engineering and railway companies (reducing the costs of some parts by over half), and a bond for £500,000 issued in 2004.
One early donation of £50,000 secured the naming rights, and the donor chose Tornado to honour the RAF pilots of the First Gulf War. The choice was a good one – a clear contemporary link to something many people could identify with, and with a sense of power, rather than a backward and inward looking name that might appeal to railfans but be a mystery to the general public.
The name is carried in traditional brass nameplates on either side, alongside badges of RAF Tornado squadrons. She is numbered 60163, the next in the sequence after the original 49 A1s.
Tornado’s fire was lit for the first time in January 2008, and the official boiler pressure test was passed on 11 January. In July, exactly 70 years after Mallard set the steam world record of 126mph, Tornado sat on her wheels for the first time, and in August 2008, the first British main line steam locomotive built since Evening Star in 1960 moved under her own power for the first time, still in grey undercoat.
Testing continued at the preserved Great Central Railway, and by November 2008 was far enough advanced for a 75mph mainline run from York to Newcastle upon Tyne; she was accepted as an approved mainline locomotive by the regulatory bodies on 27 January 2009.
In December 2008, she made her formal public debut, at the National Railway Museum in York, looking spectacular in the traditional LNER apple green livery but with her tender lettered British Railways – just as the first A1s had appeared back in 1948 – and to a predictably enthusiastic reception from large crowds.
Next was a formal naming ceremony, in railway tradition, by the Prince of Wales, heir to the throne and noted advocate for Britain’s heritage.
From 2009 onwards, Tornado has been a regular and popular performer on the British railtour scene and on the many preserved railways across the country.
She has roamed far from the East Coast mainline frequented by her predecessors, and travelled over most of the country’s mainlines.
And, several times, hauled the Royal Train. And, on one memorable occasion, rescued passengers from a snowbound electric commuter train.
She has also appeared in 3 liveries – the original LNER apple green; early British Railways dark blue – a livery that was not popular at the time, but looks very impressive to me – and the later, darker BR Brunswick green – all liveries that the original A1s wore during their working lives, but Tornado is kept a lot cleaner than they ever were!
Here she shares the limelight with preserved Great Western King class 4-6-0 King Edward I and A4 60009 Sir Nigel Gresley – all in the short-lived blue livery
Tornado is deservedly popular with railfans, and has a large following among photographers and volunteers across the country. It has been estimated that the A1 Steam Trust is, in financial terms, the largest and probably the strongest of the many groups operating steam locomotives on the mainline.
She also has a high public profile, in part at least thanks to the BBC’s Top Gear. In 2009, it staged a ‘race’ from London to Edinburgh on the premise of recreating the travel options of 1948 – a steam hauled express, a Jaguar XK120 and a Vincent Black Shadow motorbike, each driven (or, in Tornado’s case, fired, by Jeremy Clarkson) by one of the muppets presenters.
It certainly made for entertaining television, with the Jaguar declared the winner, and Tornado very close behind. Allowing for water stops necessary in 2009 but not in 1948, when water troughs were still in place, Tornado covered the 392 miles in 6 hours 30 minutes – the same as the crack non-stop Elizabethan express of the 1950s. And only a pedant would point out that the Jaguar had to use motorways and bypasses built in the 1990s to win!
Tornado has also sparked a trend – there are now over 20 similar projects in the UK, at varying stages of completion and pace of progress. There’s even a counterpart in the US – the Pennsylvania T1 Trust, which acknowledges the inspiration of the Tornado project.
Of course, Tornado is not the most modern British express train. That honour rests, for now, with the West Coast tilting Pendolino or the new Eurostar Siemens trains. But they are electric multiple units, and modern diesel locomotives are built for mixed use – so the newest British express locomotive really is a recreation of a 70 year old design, built with voluntary donations by volunteers, and operated for pleasure.
It’s hard to see a Pendolino generating the following and enthusiasm to achieve that.
Pretty neat I think .
I assume the boilers are now gas fired ? .
-Nate
In the videos, there’s no black smoke to indicate the use of coal, or the engine has a very good pollution control system if they are using coal. I’d say that’s a safe assumption, Nate.
I love the speed they can get out of these steamers. While the Mallard gets all the credit for being the fastest steam locomotive ever, there are some rival claims that the PRR’s prototype S1 engine (similar looking to the related T1 pictured in the article) unofficially broke its record. Whichever engine wins this argument, they’re all north of 120 MPH for a top speed. While not exactly a Japanese Bullet Train, that’s still freakin’ fast!
Some of the later steam engines were able to achieve very surprising speeds. While not record-breaking, the Norfolk & Western J-class streamliners reached speeds up to 110 MPH in revenue service.
That S1, nicknamed “The Big Engine”, was a remarkable beast. 140 feet in length–bigger, though not heavier, than the famous “Big Boy” 4-8-8-4 freight engines. It also had a highly unusual 6-4-4-6 layout. Sadly, only the one prototype was ever built, and while it was usued in revenue service for a time, as a non-articulated design it was too big for many of the PRR’s tracks. It was retired in 1946 and sadly scrapped in 1949.
Brit steam locos often have a charm about them due to livery paint, smooth boiler jacketing, & compact dimensions, whereas American types are usually more aggressive & functional-looking, with some exceptions like the T1.
Re fuels, Disneyland RR now uses biodiesel instead of oil in their locos, recycled from deep-fat fryers in their concessions. BTW the crews love their jobs, as one might imagine. Animator Ward Kimball had his own 3′-gauge backyard railroad, this inspired the theme park routes.
No – coal, manually stoked from tender to firebox. Back breaking work! The shot of the tender from above shows coal being loaded. But 844 is oil fired.
My favorite locomotive EVER is the “GG1” used by the PRR and subsequently the Penn Central. I would LOVE to see a restoration project to put one of THOSE back in service. Heck, the infrastructure is still there on the Amtrak lines on the Northeast Corridor. I grew up when these were still in service and can distinctly recall the 60 cycle hum of its horn blasting out two longs, a short, and a long, as it passed the Chesaco Avenue railroad crossing east of Rosedale, Maryland (where I grew up). Two of these engines even pulled Bobby Kennedy’s funeral train (which went by the aforementioned crossing) after his assassination in 1968. It was such a cool engine. It looked the same going backwards as it did going forwards. ;o)
They still used coal in the Top Gear episode. The episode with the 3-way locomotive v Jag v Black Shadow race is one of my favorites, there are some fantastic aerial shots of the locomotive running alongside the sea.
Do you know what series/episode it is? It’s one I haven’t seen and would like to
Series 13 episode 1
http://www.topgear.com/videos/top-gear-tv/great-train-race-part-14-series-13-episode-1
My goodness! I’ve seen and ridden on a number of restored steamers here in the states. I’ve heard of a number of ground-up recreations of priceless classic cars, Jay Leno’s Bugatti Type 57 SC Atlantic coupé perhaps being the highest profile of the bunch, but this is a truly remarkable undertaking. Thanx for the great write up, BP!
This article is one of the reasons that Curbside Classic is one of the top two or three sites on the Internet. It is always a treat to read something written by one who possesses the subject knowledge and enthusiasm for that subject. When this beast does burn coal is the boiler still fired by hand? That seems like a lot of work for someone.
Awesome I love these steamers the real version of locomotives, they guy who is letting me raid parts from a dead Singer in his paddock has a full size train to play with part of a steam museum I must go and sere it one day.
Wonderful article! Whoever writes about the Flying Scotsman eventually, let me know in advance – I have a photo of my Mom and I in front of the engine when it toured the US back in the 1960s.
Ed – Flying Scotsman’s restoration is nearly complete, and she will be back in steam in Jan 2016, so I’m planning a CC to coincide.
The photo of Tornado on the viaduct passing in front of Durham Cathedral is quite exceptional. The Cathedral was built by the Normans, around 900 years ago; yet its magnificence is only enhanced by having an A1 steaming past it!
That bridge is pretty cool too.
A whole area of Durham is known simply as “Viaduct”. Built in 1856, it is magnificent from every angle. That’s the Norman castle in the photo showing the double-header steamers, btw – after all, if you have a cathedral, you need a castle to protect it…
The bridge red bridge is the Forth Bridge, crossing the estuary of the River Forth just north of Edinburgh. 125 years old, and never out of use since 1890. Unlike the adjacent road suspension bridge, 50 years old and the busiest bridge in Britain – and closed for the whole of December (at least) for emergency repairs!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-35001277
The Forth bridge is an amazing piece of engineering–structure as art. I’d never seen it before now, but it’s pretty incredible, especially with a steam locomotive racing across!
Britain started railroads earlier than the US and both engines and infrastructure was better than the US up to the 1880’s. It was equal for a while but by the 1910’s US began to pull away. By the late 20’s the US was definitely ahead. 300 lb boiler pressure, cast 1 piece frames, force feed lubrication, roller bearings, stokers instead of hand fired, air brakes, steel disk wheels, full cabs that could hold 4 or five people and the list goes on and one. 200-250 lb boiler pressure, fabricated plate frames, hand lubrication, friction bearing, vacuum brakes, spoked wheels, small or 1\2 cabs or in some cases no covered cab is what Britain was building. The US after WW2 converted Diesel-Electric so by 1955 it was almost completely converted where in Britain it was 1967. Of course conditions of rail operation in both countries are very different.
The A1 Pacific is a nice looking engine. I cannot for any reason think why anyone would want to resurrect a Pennsy Duplex. They were an expensive failure and the K4 Pacific’s that were supposed to replace the Duplexes were put back service to replace the Duplexes pulled and scrapped after only a few years of service.
Wonderful article. I could never understand why British trains didn’t use bells and didn’t seem to use headlights. I’m sure there were lights, but were never apparent on old photos – either that or I need to take a second look!
Re headlights, I suppose UK right-of-way has been better-protected than in expansive N. America & thus drivers had less need to see, or be seen. This might also explain cowcatchers (aka pilots).
British right of way has always been fully fenced, with virtually all grade crossings (we say level crossings) controlled by gates / barriers interlocked to the signalling system. Plus platforms are all raised, and stations have footbridges / subways to link the platforms – so passengers have no excuse for getting on the tracks. Nowadays, headlights are brighter and we are rightly fanatical about protecting lineside staff with training, hi-vis clothing, warning systems etc
They weren’t needed as in the UK all lines had to be completely fenced.
On Tornado the white lamp above the left buffer is the headlight.
ssteam dosn’t look out of place on Britan’s current rail system.
Fantastic article, thanks for this. I remember hearing about this steam locomotive being built from the ground up some time ago, it’s nice to read the full story and the heritage.
Never knew it was this one that featured in Top Gear. The shots in that episode were truly impressive.
Simply splendid. We are living in quite a time when folks start building steam engines from scratch again.
Thanks for this.
Trains and trucks aren’t really my thing, but it’s articles like this that make CC such a holistic transportative pleasure. That graveyard invokes the same indescribable feeling within me that those plane graveyards in the desert do. Quite literally indescribable.
Interesting saga, and so British. Excellent.
So, the A1 came after the A3 and A4, and the boiler test was on a Mallard anniversary. Even more British – it almost sounds like it was planned or something. Also, it’s a great name, and a right and proper way of choosing it. Do we know the name of the donor?
You’re right about Britain’s rail heritage – we invented trains and then invented preserving them, and, although some may feel I have vested interest, we do that rather well, both in museums, working steam centres and operating trains.
Access to the original design drawings was obviously vital, and I’m surprised to hear they were still available. It’s all very well having a cylinder or connecting rod or whatever to copy, but if you don’t know the full details, like the specific steel used or the heat treating for example, you’re not going to make a certifiable and usable item. IIRC, the boiler had to be designed and/or built in Germany, in fact in the old East Germany, as this was the only place in Europe that still had the necessary skills and equipment to do so in an affordable and/or practical way.
The basic case seems to be that the Gresley engines were fast, light and innovative, and that the A1 was effectively as fast, bigger (for longer trains and more passengers), easier to maintain and therefore made more economic and operational sense for its user. Am I the only one seeing a de Havilland Comet and Boeing 707 parallel in this?
OOI, why did coal get poorer in quality during and after the war? Did it not still come from Yorkshire?
Probably a case of (1) coal being in short supply and (2) wanting to cut down the cost of it, so although it was still proper Yorkshire coal, it wasn’t the really good stuff all the time.
Yes, the boiler is German, and welded rather than riveted for safety but also because not even the Germans know how to build a riveted boiler anymore. So good were the drawings (from Yorkshire) and the boiler builders (from East Germany) that the boiler fitted perfectly first time.
the A1 / A3 / A4 saga will become clearer when I do the Flying Scotsman
I suggest the VC-10 as a better comparison to the B-707; it was more sophisticated & quieter, & more popular with passengers. But it was more expensive to operate, too.
The coal quality issue bugs me, though I have limited knowledge of the subject. Since I doubt they had to switch to inferior seams, my suspicion is they took shortcuts in processing, omitting cleaning & sorting stages, perhaps to free up labor or compensate for wartime price controls.
It surprised me to learn that British coastal shipping, attacked by the Luftwaffe during the BofB, included civilian colliers.
My best guess on this one is that it was easier and cheaper to get the poor coal out of the ground. Tens of thousands of miners were conscripted into the armed forces in WW2 – so many that there was a serious manpower shortage in the coalfields, and eventually the government started to conscript young men into the coalfields (the “Bevin Boys”). The stuff nearer the surface – sea coal etc – was poorer grade than deep-mined coal, but who was going to sink expensive new deep shafts in wartime?
There was a point in mid-war – 1942/43 – when as a nation we were down to about 3 weeks supply of coal. This problem continued after the war, when the big freeze of 1947 exposed how small our reserves were, and large parts of the nation closed down.
I seem to recall that the Great Western’s thoroughbred locomotives were particularly averse to low-grade wartime coal, having been designed to use the top-quality Welsh valley product.
That makes sense, & thanks for the details. Germany also had lots of coal resources, but you can’t run tanks & aircraft on that; hence, synthetic oil.
Daniel Yergin made the excellent observation that WW2 was a conflict between oil-rich & oil-poor powers.
And Britain’s last deep coal mine closes down at lunchtime today: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-35124077
Does Tornado run on Polish coal?
Great story, well told, thanks!
I hadn’t been aware of this, but it’s a really remarkable story! I’m something of an amateur railfan–my knowledge is small but it’s a subject I’d love to know more about, and fantastic articles like this one are something I’m keenly interested in. Truly amazing that they were able to recreate something as big and complicated as a steam engine from scratch, and I’m heartened that the success of this Pacific is driving an effort to recreate the Pennsylvania T1–perhaps not a success but a very innovative and beautiful locomotive.
Here in the US mid-Atlantic region, just this year a restoration was completed on the one remaining Norfolk & Western J-class locomotive, #611. While that was a restoration of course rather than a new build, there are a lot of parallels with the A1 class–it’s a very late build (1950) steamer that represents a high point of late steam, with a relatively short service career before the railway dieselized in 1959. I got a chance to see it in person this summer when it stopped at the Petersburg, VA, station during an excursion–hope to write that one up at some point.
I grew up in Doncaster, when it was an industrial town prior to Mrs Thatcher. If you needed a name for something, a train or a tap, pub, shop, school or street you used Danum, to reference the town’s Roman past. Doncaster = camp on the river Don.
More popularly you referenced the St Leger horse race, established in 1776 in Doncaster or other horse racing associations. Hence the trains being named after race horses.
Incidentally Clarkson ex of Top Gear also has Doncaster connections. His mother ran a soft toy factory on the outskirts of town. They made Paddington Bears, named after the railway station.