Tornado

The welder in question did a brilliant job on 34081’s firebox but sadly passed away soon after he’d finished the job.

 

It just seems to be going wrong for them at the moment - two cancellations of 60163 (and associated charters/experiences) and now the appeal for funding

 

Just to save a lot of wading through previous postings, is this the boiler that the loco was built with? I have a vague memory that there were stay problems with the as built boiler at quite an early stage and it went back to Germany for remedial work. Again, I understand the stays are welded , not threaded and headed?

 

One of the many questions this raises that requires an answer is just how at this stage do you suddenly discover that the gauge frames need welding? As for the broken firebox stays, God forbid the loco ever has to do any real work. Remember that this is the original boiler that was supposed to be replaced by one of the two new ones that we were asked to fund, but then the Trust in their collective wisdom decided to patch up the old one ‘to save time’ on this endless six month overhaul.

For this Covenantor it’s the final straw and the gravy tap is getting turned off right now. Regime change is a must before the flow will resume.

 

This refurbished boiler seems to be more troublesome than when it was originally built. Tubes have had to be replaced if I remember correctly, and it apparently wouldn't fit the loco without some sort of fettling. As for the new boilers that Covenantors have funded, neither of them have yet arrived in UK. I hope that when Tornado is finally out of the works that things go more smoothly.

Dave B

 

This is just getting really embarrassing for the A1 SLT. I can see that they are going to lose a lot more supporters with the way things are going at the moment.
Still, the tender has made it to the GCR. I guess the loco might follow at some point.

Sent from my XQ-BT52 using Tapatalk

 

I don't know how much damage this is doing to their reputation but they'll be very fortunate if it has no impact upon their funding model.

 

The problems would on the face of it stem from that decision, to overhaul the boiler, rather than wait for a newly constructed one, and to then, overhaul it in a longer time span, it has all the signs of being a rushed job, starting with not knowing what actually needed doing, then of course, as each repair was made, so more work was found to be needed, and mistakes get made, in hind sight, it would have been better to have just replaced the entire firebox, with one of new construction, and ordered a boiler for the P2, and two spare fireboxes, because it's the fireboxes that suffer the most wear, and at each overhaul replace the entire structure,

 

Thanks for that, sad news indeed, however, reading some of the inane comments here, for some, it seems that was very inconsiderate of him.............

Cheerz,

Alan

 

That's probably a bit harsh - whatever you think of the loco now, it remains true that its initial construction was highly inspirational for the movement and I am sure has been held up many times an example of "if we as a movement can do that, we can do [X]" (add seemingly "impossible" project to taste).

What strikes me though is that building something, and maintaining something, are different activities, require different skills and, I suspect, appeal to different personalities. My sense is that the A1 Trust were at their strongest when all their focus was on building the loco; and they seem not to have been able to manage the transition from builder to maintainer very well. It's a different set of skills needed.

Tom

 

The author Neville Shute in his autobiography 'Sliderule" made the point that in business there are 'starters' and 'runners', and these qualities are seldom combined in any one person.

 

Needs Mark Allatt back at the helm...

 

That is very true, speaking form my own experience. I was very much a ‘starter’, taking new processes from the chemists in the lab, scaling up to production, building the plant, commissioning it and then getting the hell out before the years of refining the process and screwing the extra 20% out of it that the accountants were convinced us engineers always had hidden in the design. Meanwhile I was off on a the next quest for Eldorado

 

If they knew the circumstances of his passing they’d hopefully feel ashamed.

 

There is no guarantee that the money given to Tornado would have ended up elsewhere had the project never been started. If it were true then you could say the same about any new project but IMO you can’t. I doubt many who contributed to the A1 as LNER fans would have given the same level of support to the Saint for example had there been no A1 project.

 

I'm sorry to hear that...at least he's left his mark on history for sure....

As an engineer too.... I've always considered accountants as historians...

 

Things go wrong, jobs take longer than expected - we all understand that. But the Trust’s current leadership appears to have not only repeatedly underestimated the work needed during this overhaul but also failed to be open and honest with its covenantors, passengers and other customers. And now we are told that the overhaul has cost around £1m. How has that been funded? How much has been ‘borrowed’ from the P2’s construction fund and how/when will it be repaid? And what news on the two new boilers of which the first is already almost 2 years late and due to the decision to overhaul the existing boiler (which has clearly cost far more and taken much longer than originally stated to do) won’t now be needed for probably another 5 years. The A1 Trusts board have many questions to answer on this and the lack of progress with No. 2007 and owe its long standing supporters of which I am one a full and frank explanation of what has gone wrong, what the financial consequences are and who will be held accountable.

 

I'm not so sure. Mark Allatt struck me as very much an organiser, communicator and fund-raiser - but not an engineering manager.

If you look at his website here those are the strengths he plays up to.

Hopefully, the A1SLT will learn from this utter fiasco. Or is that a case of "hope springs eternal"? I keep thinking of another locomotive numerically 60 away from this one.

 

I agree wholeheartedly. I've put a goodly five-digit sum into 2007 and I really would like to see some real progress with it now - and similarly, the board of the A1SLT (of which I can no longer find a listing of?) have some explaining to do. Maybe that's why there's been no roadshows (a feature of Allatt's tenure) - because they may not like what they hear from their supporters?