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Tornado

Discussion in 'Steam Traction' started by Leander's Shovel, Oct 20, 2007.

  1. Johnb

    Johnb Nat Pres stalwart

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    What I meant was it wont get as heated as some of the other livery debates on here
     
  2. Matt37401

    Matt37401 Nat Pres stalwart

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    Let's hang fire on that one shall we?!
     
  3. TH Railway Videos

    TH Railway Videos New Member

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    Tornado on yesterday run of the Pullmans, seen at Battersea, Near Richmond, Balham and London Victoria
     
  4. Where's Mazeppa?

    Where's Mazeppa? Member

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    This one seems to have crept up almost unnoticed, but I see that Tornado is now being billed as a special guest locomotive at the Severn Valley Railway "Season Finale Gala" next weekend 5th/ 6th November (alongside guest Crab 13065. guest GW heavy freight 2-8-0 4270, and home-based 813/ 4566/ 7714 GW tank engines). It is already committed to BBP Surrey Hills work on Friday 4th, but there's no sign as yet of an LE movement appearing on RTT to get Tornado into position on the SVR for Saturday's action.

    So no let-up within what has proved to be a very busy schedule for Tornado of late. Glad to see its back so soon, especially as this time there's no imperative to play second fiddle to a £6.8 million Show Pony***....or anything else for that matter. It seems to be becoming a real regular at the SVR, and, mated with the rake of Gresley Teaks, I'm sure it would rank as one of the finest sights known to man anywhere on a heritage line in the UK. I've been having to get my Tornado "fix" on the main line of late (sorry, not a good choice of words, but I know you'll understand what I mean) so this will represent a nice change of scene.

    *** Other rampant prejudices also available!!
     
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  5. 61624

    61624 Part of the furniture

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    Actually, I think that a Thompson coach and then a rake of Gresleys headed by Tornado and going up Goathland bank is probably a finer sight, but I have to confess that I'm biased!
     
  6. John Stewart

    John Stewart Part of the furniture

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    Looks like a train of camping coaches to me.:(
     
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  7. John Petley

    John Petley Part of the furniture

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    Going back to the plans to run Tornado at 90mph, one possible result could be that it ends up more or less monopolising steam working on the southern half of the ECML. I don't know the intricacies of timetabling on the line but I would assume that with a 90mph maximum speed limit, Tornado ought to make it to York in well under four hours even with a water stop at Grantham (and possibly three hours may be achievable if sufficient water was carried in a supplementary vehicle to make the journey non-stop.)

    Consider, for instance, the RTC White Rose of 29th October hauled by 46229: an 06:06 departure from KX arriving at York over 5 1/2 hours later. The return journey was scheduled to take almost 6 1/2 hours. Realistically, particularly given that non-enthusiasts make up the bulk of passengers on most main line steam trains these days, how many people would book on a train on which they may well spend over 11 hours in total when there could soon be an alternative that makes the same journey in possibly 3-4 hours less and still with a steam loco up front?
     
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  8. Jimc

    Jimc Part of the furniture

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    I'm not sure about that. Enthusiasts or non-enthusiasts, they aren't doing the journey to, well, get from A to A. The experience they are paying for must be the journey. Food and drink, sure, but also the scenery, the environment, the break from daily life. So if the train goes faster then the customer gets less of every part of the experience, especially the scenery.
    Of course waiting in loops isn't a major part of the experience, so if that can be minimised all well and good.
    But the tour companies must know very well what length trips are most popular with the customers, which is doubtless reflected in what they offer...
     
  9. class8mikado

    class8mikado Part of the furniture

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    If the length means a stupidly early start and a finish after all the connecting services have gone to bed fewer people book. and even fewer return book.
     
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  10. John Petley

    John Petley Part of the furniture

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    The point I was making is that you can have too much of a good thing! At the moment, there is obviously a market for steam-hauled trains from London to York. At the moment, this currently involves about 11-12 hours on the train. There is no alternative. You have to take it or leave it.

    If, on the other hand, people will be shortly faced with the alternative of making the same trip with 8 hours sitting on the train, still with the same interesting destination yet with the thrill of going at 90mph and less waiting in loops, they will still get plenty of "experience" without it dragging on for too long. As an enthusiast, I have found 5 hours on the train in a single stint a bit too much, even going Premier Dining and thus having a good meal to enjoy. I really can't believe I am the only person who feels like this.
     
  11. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    True, though the flip side of that is that presumably they know much less about the reasons why non-customers don't buy from them. Probably lots of reasons, but very long trips (early starts / late finishes) would be amongst my reasons, especially when you factor in that for many people, the early start is compounded by the need to get to the start / finish point, on time, which may in turn force one or more overnight stays.

    I'd take a reliable 8 hour day with a couple of hours leg stretch in the middle over an unreliable 15 hour day any time - even accepting the point that for many travellers, it's about the journey rather than the destination, you have to wonder just how much extra value those passengers perceive in making that journey significantly longer in duration. It's notable that one of the most successful mainline steam charter services - in terms of passenger loadings, and I believe reliability - is the Jacobite. It's about two hours each way with two hours break in the middle. There doesn't seem to be any passenger demand to make it an epic slog by starting and finishing in, say, Edinburgh and turning a nice day out into a marathon, even though presumably Edinburgh would open up a bigger catchment area. So I don't really buy the argument that says "if you are paying primarily for the journey, making that journey longer is inevitably a good thing".

    I can't think of too many other leisure products for which stamina is considered part of the appeal ...

    Tom
     
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  12. Enterprise

    Enterprise Part of the furniture

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    About 4 hours each way suits us. That provides enough time to relax, read the paper, watch the scenery go by and eat and drink. We don't like stops in loops whether for watering or pathing and we don't like the tedious routes back into London that zig zag round the houses. Late returns to London mean we can't get back home by train and those tours are off our list. Nothing wrong with a swift diesel return especially if it's a Deltic, a 50 or two, or a Western.
     
  13. Paul42

    Paul42 Part of the furniture

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    I think destination plays an important part in it in the choice. Graeme Bunker when Steam Dreams Chief Exc. , on a trip in 2009 explained to a party near me, that they looked how popular destinations were and run trips accordingly, at that time Bath, York and Canterbury were the top three. Marcus Robertson of SD has said on many occasions that a typical customer travels twice a year, and does not want to visit the same places each year.Therefore a quite a variety of destinations nneds to be offered.My Mum and Sister have been on 1 or 2 trips a year since 2007 and for them it is about the destination. Bath being the most popular, at least 4 times. They have only been to Canterbury once by train ( and ditto Salisbury), and I think at least twice by car to Canterbury in that period.

    The Jacobite does not have dining, and trips in the South East have typically at least 3 coaches for dining, and 5 1/2 coaches has been done from one kitchen car. Therefore with a number of pickups you require 4 hours each way plus a break of at least 3 hours ( 2 hours to service loco plus time to shunt stock). If stock can be left in the platform, a shorter break is possible.
     
  14. Big Al

    Big Al Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Moderator

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    If it comes to pass, what 90 mph running will do if give more flexibility to the planning of the day and make it easier to slot steam into the other schedules. However, there are only a countable number of departure slots from, for example, King's Cross but hopefully what it will do is avoid the need for any departure in the 0700 to 0800 window and likewise allow charters to be back by 2200.

    Perhaps one of the distinct advantages may be the ability to get from London to Scarborough and back in a day. In steam days, The Scarborough Flyer took four and a half hours to Scarborough with stops at Grantham and York. If pathing now allows that journey to be done in around 5+ hours then this is a destination that adds further interest to a London-York trip. The other obvious destination is Carlisle with a return via the S&C but even with 90 mph running that will remain out of reach from London with steam. However, what might be possible is to slot steam into the tight paths via Weedon and avoid that drag through Northampton thereby bringing points north nearer to the Capital on the WCML.
     
  15. class8mikado

    class8mikado Part of the furniture

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    Base (Darlington) to London With Pick up at York/ Overnight / London -York return/London -Base via York - offers a potential southbound weekend break/ day trip out Northbound... A combined Pick up/ Waterstop somewhere roughly half way...
     
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  16. Where's Mazeppa?

    Where's Mazeppa? Member

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    Having travelled on three of the last four Tornado outings on the ECML and in particular June’s Scarborough Flyer (which I felt, taken in the round, was the best of them), I am greatly encouraged by Big Al's pragmatic vision of likely features, benefits and opportunities that would arise with 90 mph running. Some reduction, certainly, in London-York and thus end-to-end journey times. But more crucially for the enthusiast, the ability to pack yet more punch into some of the smartly timed runs between intermediate stopping points – already the best feature of the rather heavily punctuated paths that Tornado enjoys on the ECML. And perhaps in future to better exploit opportunities for fast line running that may arise with delays to/ late running of following services.

    The important point in all of this is the frequency and hourly distribution of the high speed paths that commit the utilisation of fast lines and constrain access for 75/ 90 mph paths. There seems to me to be two key problems (in the down direction), the first of which is the Peterborough-Grantham section, where for example on a Saturday, there are typically five high speed paths per hour with a maximum intervening interval of 17 minutes and a maximum transit time (in the various start-pass-stop combinations) of 18 minutes. So barely an opportunity here for a fast line path to support a 90 mph capability that in any event would be unlikely to deliver a start to stop result in less than even time for this 29 mile stretch. So the need to retain relief line running looks here to stay.

    The other problematical section is then the onward Grantham-York leg. This may be a rather crude appreciation of what the real science of pathing might look like, but I note that the longest intervening interval between the passage of a VTEC/ GC service through Grantham and the arrival of the following service into York is about 73 minutes (around x.34 at the former/ around xx.47 at the latter). I don’t know what an all-out best performance could be for Tornado running at 90 mph, but I am almost certain that it couldn’t accomplish the 83 intervening miles in significantly less than the 73 minutes that it would need to achieve to avoid delay to following services. So some sort of pathing stop would inevitably be required over this section.

    Put all this together and it’s possible to visualise aggregate overall running times for London-York of around 3 hours 30 minutes. In my imaginary path, dwell times would include station stops at Potters Bar (but not Stevenage) and Peterborough, a water stop at Grantham, and a pathing stop somewhere further north, which would probably be collectively worth another 25 minutes on top of running times. So overall a shade under 4 hours for the 188 miles. Definitely the kind of timings that would enable an improvement to the Scarborough Flyer itinerary that A1SLT/ UKRT managed to achieve back in June, with just under three hours in Scarborough and electric traction for the return from York, to contain the overall outing to what we would call a sensible length of day.

    I’m sure that the eventual shape of 90mph running on the ECML would, in detail, look somewhat different from these rather amateur musings. But Big Al’s post stimulated the imagination of how good things could be. So yes please, bring it on!!
     
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  17. John Petley

    John Petley Part of the furniture

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    You know much more about the ECML than I do, but your informed assessment of the logistics of running to York with a 90mph steam loco makes interesting reading. I live in Sussex, some 50 miles from Lomdon. I'd love to do York and back behind steam. With 75mph maximum it's not feasible without an overnight stay in the Capital, which doesn't come cheap! The timetable you suggest nay enable someone living in this part of the world to do it, so absolutely, bring it on!
     
  18. Big Al

    Big Al Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Moderator

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    I think that the other thing to remember is that I would be amazed if Tornado does much more than run at 90 mph for some of the time. Nobody in their right mind is going to wind Tornado up to 90 at every opportunity up hill and down dale even if the loco were physically capable of doing so. All this higher maximum speed will do is give more flex in the pathing and give the DBC crews the opportunity of driving the loco more economically. That may seem bizarre but it's true. In other words Tornado will run on the ECML much as steam used to 50+ years ago.

    So in the down direction you have potential for faster running between Hitchin and Offord for example and more likelihood that it will run FL rather than SL. In the up direction there is obviously Stoke that Tornado could drift down at a faster pace. But it is worth remembering that the saving in time on the Stoke - Werrington Junction section is only about three minutes (75 v 90) so don't let's get over excited about what will happen in practice.

    It's all about what the computer will now provide with a new maximum programmed in. We know on that incredible Newcastle to York run in 66+ minutes what is possible. But even a 75 minute schedule is quite feasible and a lot quicker than what is offered currently.

    As DBC was very influential in the Bittern runs I imagine that they will also be 'on the case' for any acceleration of Tornado. So I reckon that the A1ST/DBC combination is exactly the pairing that will make this work.
     
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  19. Foxhunter

    Foxhunter Member

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    The 2016/17 revised Tour Brochure has just been released by the Trust, it can be seen here.

    Foxy
     
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  20. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    I just wanted to say - having watched the news live in my office today, surrounded by work colleagues who took great interest in Tornado's exploits - what a wonderful day to see the first timetabled steam service for 50 years.

    I am so proud to support this locomotive. She and her team make dreams come true. Long may it continue. Well done to all involved.
     

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