Tornado

For anyone interested in boiler design "Raising Steam on the LMS" by AF Cook is worth a read. It quickly becomes clear that even at that stage in development locomotive boiler design was not an exact science and the experts were more than capable of getting the proportions wrong. One question that I don't suppose will ever be answered now is why, given the problems that some british railway works had with boiler design, did the private builders ( North British, Vulcan Foundry etc.) succeed in designing engines for the colonial railways that didn't appear to give as many problems. Or was it a case of "out of sight , out of mind"?

 

Could you explain or show where he has been ruthless, and your concept of ruthless. Presumably your reliable source has had sight of the contract, if it is in the public domain I'd like to see it. If it is subject to a NDA and your source was party to this... personally I'd be worried..

 

Yes thats more likely, as the Bond issue to cover it ( with contingency) was £ 500k.
Just stumbled across this which is interesting;

 

Aw! Come on chaps! I'm as disappointed as anyone with what has been happening with the A1 Trust in recent times. Tornado has been around for so long that we may sometimes forget what a huge achievement it was, deemed impossible by many, to build and operate a new express locomotive on the main line in the 21st century. The crucial factor in its success was the ability and commitment of a small number of talented individuals who made things happen and inspired many of us to cough up our cash and continue to do so with the P2. If you remove the critical factors(s)/prime mover(s) from anything, things will not happen in the same way.

There has been more than a hint of schadenfreude in some of the recent posts. Surely none of us wants the Trust to fail, even though we may not be inspired by how it is currently being looked after.

 

None of the current trustees were on the board from the launch of the Trust in 1990 to Tornado’s completion in 2008. The longest serving became a trustee in 2014 and all bar one other within the past 5 years. It‘s a completely different organisation, with a totally different approach to every aspect of what it does - and much the poorer for it.

 

Whilst I am less than impressed with how things are currently, it is worth remembering that Some Bad Things occurred prior to the current board - have people deliberately forgotten the Ebor Flyer incident, for example? There do seem to be some increasing flights of fancy in recent posts and for my part - I'm out of this.

 

It's a bit like the WSR*. None of us want either of them to fail, but we are disappointed (to put it mildly) by how the present managements have been running the shows and we are concerned that they might fail if things go on as they are.
*Edit: and the L&B.

 

The ones who truly want failure see that something is amiss and yet say nothing...

 

It could also be argued that those who want failure whinge continually and destructively on line yet do absolutely nothing practical or useful.

 

Only a fool wants failure.

 

Sorry, I think you missed the point I was making here, which was merely to counter the post I replied to. The "ruthless businessman" part was in response to someone else calling him that on the SRPS+LSL thread. I have no knowledge of nor interest in his business practices and have no time to look them up in order to make any sort of informed comment on them. Hope that's clear (& you can call off the lawyers now, please).

...And back to the A1...

 

Many apologies I didn't realise you were not the same indivual..
As for lawyers I avoid them like the plague..

 

No tornado did a trip which it was allowed to run at 100 mile an hour it was bittern that did the 90 mile an run and I was working on that one and we had no trouble with the London to York one I was just asking

 

Yes it did a 100mph test run and supposedly without problems during or subsequently, as a result of which Tornado was 'passed' for 90mph. A later trip, the Ebor flyer was, billed as a run where Tornado would run up to its speed limit hence 'a 90mph trip' - nothing to do with Bittern. This was the unfortunate run where the inside valve motion got the Uri Geller treatment and fell off.

 

@raisborough.smith - this is correct.

 

We got a reasonably convincing explanation of how the failure had resulted from a combination of several factors, but less explanation of how those factors had been allowed to arise. Then, despite the effort that had gone into the 100 mph test run, and despite a clear statement that speed was not a cause of the failure and at most had caused the failure to happen sooner than it would have at 75 mph, the Trust apparently decided that there would be no more 90 mph running and never explained that decision.

But why is this discussion in the 21st Century Steam Ltd Tours (Tornado Rail Tours) thread in the What's Going On section rather than in the Tornado thread in the Steam Traction section?

Edit: Corrected typo "76" to "75".

 

Reported to admins for relocation.

 

Posted by the A1 Trust on their Facebook page at the weekend …..