Now, I couldn’t go without mentioning Tornado, the newest Peppercorn A1 steam locomotive to be built, a 30-40 minute drive between my home and the locomotive works in Darlington where the locomotive was built, and since that time, it’s been well talked about
It has been up and down the East Coast main line more times than I can count, it’s been at NRM in York, it’s been to King's Cross in London, and it’s had the honour of pulling the Royal Train
Now, as a fan of trains, I would like to see this locomotive at some stage but every time I find out about it being somewhere I tend to be the last to know or something silly, so, next time it’s at York or Darlington I shall be there, IF I know in good time, lol
I now leave you with some small facts about Tornado
1) The number 60163 appears on Tornado, however, it’s number for use on the main line is 98863, this is because a) all steam engines are British Rail class 98, b) all locos and multiple units require a TOPS number to run on the mainline, and c) the third 8 applies to power classification (8P) and the 63 is from the painted number noted above
2) it is the ONLY A1 locomotive left, all other A1s were scrapped long before Tornado’s construction
3) The name was chosen in honour of the RAF Tornado fighter pilots from the Gulf War
4) It wears the LNER Apple Green livery, although it says “British Railways” on the side of the tender
5) Some small changes were made to the original design to meet with current operational and safety requirements for the modern railways, for example height differences for OLE safety, fitting of AWS and TPWS, and several other modifications for modern manufacturing methods
