Tornado

Just flicking through the trusts website and perusing the news and travel sections, there appears to be a new North Briton tour to book:

https://www.a1steam.com/category/tours/

Sign of things to come? Exciting times! Definitely need to book myself on the Yorkshire Pullman...

 

A1SLT have sent me an email today announcing a new series of North Briton tours from 9 February through to 24 August next year. Whichever one you try to book welcomes you with:

"Saturday 24th February - Cambridge to Carlisle and return
The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust is delighted to announce its first railtour of 2018." (sic).

It's not worth bothering anyway because they are apparently all sold out already!

 

Do you want me to go down there and harangue them on your behalf on a daily basis? I can partake of fine nosh in the NVR cafe and remind them there's a gentleman in Dewsbury expecting a ride on the above date?

I might pop down to the NVR just to see if it's running about LE at the moment - but the NVR will be getting something out of it:
https://nvr.vticket.co.uk/product.php/43/tornado-driving-experience
https://nvr.vticket.co.uk/product.php/41/tornado-10
https://nvr.vticket.co.uk/product.php/42/tornado-10-jolly-fisherman

 

I think that was a glitch, if the email I had tonight was indicative.

 

You can tell them that there is an old lady from Dewsbury who will definitely not best pleased if it doesn't show up at Wakefield Westgate. And upsetting her is not a very bright thing to do.

 

Is that because it will be YOU facing the wrath of unfulfilled aspirations ?

 

Nobody is safe from a verbal lashing when she's upset. 5ft tall, 7.5 stone, and a mouth like a torn pocket.

She's looking forward to our day out. If all goes to plan it's Tornado to Scotland and Alycidon on the return. Table for two in first class, bottle of red on the way home, what's not to like.

 

not the stare followed by. make your own dinner tonight as she empties the gin bottle in one gulp followed by I expected Tornado, not that flipping 66 what ever it was , and its ALL your Fault

 

I believe the plan is for the new Darlington Works site to be the build and maintenance site for the Trusts' locomotives. These developments are ongoing. It may well be the case that the P2 is being built in the old site at the same time that Tornado is maintained and the V4 built in the new site.

 

I mentioned all this to an enthusiast friend and suggested he might like to contribute to the A1SLT; the response I got was somewhat... hostile, shall we say

It did make me think though; is there the appetite and money out there to essentially crowd-fund their very ambitious plans? After all, if Tornado was self-supporting financially there'd be no need of covenantors. In another vintage field I'm involved with, the niche of people interested is slowly dying and not being replaced; steam doesn't quite seem to suffer that problem - yet.

Will that curtail their ambitions? Will all these plans ever become self-supporting?

 

And therein lies my concern; the smaller operators in the field with more modest ambitions losing out. For example, I met someone from the Holden F5 group at the NVR the other week. Now there's a super little new-build project, ideal for a heritage line but will it - and others like it - get drowned out by the big and noisy A1ST? There is only a finite amount of money amongst enthusiasts after all.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have shovelled the money I have done into the P2 if I didn't believe in them; but I worry that other new-build projects may wither in their shadow and equally, I wonder how sustainable the crowd-funding model is for such a big player before people say "shouldn't you be earning your own keep?"

 

I have every faith in the trust being able to identify, apply, and win many funding awards, that they have identified, and progressed of their own back, and hard work.

Many other organisations could learn from "networking", with the people that have large sums of money to invest, in return for properly managed business project.

In light of the previous, and forthcoming success, that becomes easier from my experience in another field.

And likewise, if I was the trust, I would be reluctant to share this info, it could well reduce their long term success for them.

A lesson here, is hard work, in the right places, by the right people, will guarantee a pay back.

Good luck to them they are ground breakers in so many respects.

 

Oh, please not this sort of disqussion once again. Isn`t this a thread about the locomotive Tornado?

If you want to disquss/ speculate about the persuated "dark future for heritage railways" then start a new thread. Please.

Knut

 

It's a sad indication of our movement that tribalism is still rife.

One would argue, given they have raised over 2 million to build a P2 in less than five years and other groups have been unable to raise 200,000 for their Barry projects in two to three decades, both the appetite exists and also the skills of the A1 Trust include being "able to sell sand to the Arabs". Not a bad thing!

If you can name one locomotive that on its own is entirely self-supporting financially without:

• rich owner/owners
• covenantors
• preserved railway link up
• heritage lottery funding
• insert other method of fundraising

I am sure we'd all be happy to hear about it and learn from it. The late Sir Alan Pegler once said to me that in order to amass a small fortune with a steam locomotive you needed to start with a large one...! (and how sad it is that he has passed. I met him once at a book signing and he was possibly the kindest gentleman I have met).

I rather think the idea of "self supporting" purely through ticket sales/etc is dead. Everyone everywhere has multiple avenues of revenue. Why should the railway heritage industry be any different? Surely we should encourage multiple income streams and more varied skill sets and ideas to keep the industry alive - and flourishing?

 

Absolutely Al, and IMO many other groups can take advantage of this too without any problems.

I personally think we are, as an industry, in an ocean that many believe to be a pond. The issue is opportunity and taking those which present themselves, or making them.

 

very well said!

 

The comment was more barbed; he's an LNER man but it's the A1SLT he has difficulty with.

Alan Pegler belonged to that increasingly-lost world that is 'the Gentleman' (I take it you've both read the recent BBC piece and seen the 1968 documentary on iPlayer?) That's why I elected to lose a day's pay on the 13th October and spend the money I could have earned instead on giving him the send-off he deserves

By all means, I agree - I just worry about the other equally worthy projects that could lose out. But this is digressing radically from discussion about 60163.

 

The A1 Steam Trust have opened up completely new thinking on raising funds. Before they came on the scene it was not structured in any way, just 'we are restoring this locomotive so give us your money'. The Trust introduced the concept of a lot of small regular contributions from the many along with a facility to pay larger lump sums to identifiable parts of the locomotive. A contributor to the cylinder club can point to that part of the loco and say I helped pay for that for example. They have also been very successful in what I call corporate begging better known as sponsorship.

Other groups can do one of two things, stand aside and make snide remarks about what they have achieved or look at it and try and learn something from it.

The dilution of funds argument has been going on for decades, there was much correspondence in the railway press about how the Welshpool and Llanfair reopening would spell doom for the other Welsh NG Railways and who remembers the predictions of Michael Draper? The Covenanter scheme has brought in a lot of new money from what I will call the dormant railway enthusiast. I may have said before I was surprised to see a model of Tornado in the house of one of my work colleagues some years ago. He told me that he saw something on the TV about them and remembered seeing A1s at York during his childhood and thought it would be good to help. He has no other railway interest and if this type of funding brings people like that on board then it's all to the good.