The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust

[Red Firecracker]

Whilst the country seems to be imploding under the combined efforts of Broon, knife crime and reality TV, it's nice that blokes in sheds are still free to pursue their dreams.

Tornado, the first new mainline team locomotive to be built in the UK for 50 years is to make it's first public run today. It would be even nicer to say it was built entirely using this countries engineering skills but large lumps of it were built in Europe, the boiler for instance. Still, a thumbs up for all involved.

BBC Story

The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust

A sneaky YouTube video of a test run

[xiphias]

You can make a steam engine quite efficient though?

[Red Firecracker]

xiphias said:

You can make a steam engine quite efficient though?

Yep, they can be made to be very efficient, however they do tend to get uglier the more efficient they are, with condensers etc bolted on.

[andy400]

Where's it running? Do we know?

[Red Firecracker]

andy400 said:

Where's it running? Do we know?

I'd presume within the works at Darlington. I'd guess they'll then transport it to a preserved railway to do some trial running before going onto the mainline.

[srapl]

It's supposed to be going to the Great Central for running in

[Apache]

Nice one Red, I heard about this on the radio....all self financed too

[Pigeon]

Red Firecracker said:

xiphias said:

You can make a steam engine quite efficient though?

Yep, they can be made to be very efficient, however they do tend to get uglier the more efficient they are, with condensers etc bolted on.

Uglier... more complex, more expensive, harder to maintain, harder to drive, less flexible, less reliable...

For a railway application, one of the biggest advantages of the steam engine is its utter simplicity. Really, Stephenson pretty much got it right back at the beginning. History has showed that if you want a steam locomotive more powerful than the Rocket, the best thing to go for is essentially a bigger Rocket... fire tube boiler, exhaust blast draught, single-expansion reciprocating engine, scale up to suit, more or less.

There have been loads and loads of attempts to improve the not especially impressive efficiency of the basic Rocket design but the only ones that have proved themselves worthwhile are basically improvements in the design of the components at a fairly basic level - optimising boiler size, tube size and number, draughting, etc., for maximum heat transfer; superheating, improved valve gear geometries, internally streamlined steam passages, that sort of thing... essentially smoothing up the clunky bits.

All the more complex improvements have showed themselves to be not worth the candle. The gains in efficiency never live up to expectations and the corresponding increase in maintenance costs, operating difficulties, reduced - often seriously - reliability (along with loss of a lot of the basic steamer's ability to be bodged to struggle home somehow), increased burden on the driver, and plenty of other difficulties wipe out any savings from reduced fuel consumption.

Even such simple design advances as compounding - so successful in marine installations - or the Franco-Crosti boiler never really made an impact on the railway scene, though the few classes that did have those features were usually reasonably decent machines. Well, most of them. Some compounds were utter disasters.

Static or marine steam engines can indeed be made very efficient, but railway ones it just isn't worth the hassle.

[onomatopoeia]

Heard this on the radio this morning, fabulous news. Nearly as exciting as Virgin Trains hiring one of the preserved Deltics (Royal Scots Grey?) to run a service a few years ago.

Wonder if they are going to need to run it with two tenders since I doubt there are many watering facilities left on the main lines nowadays.

[Red Firecracker]

onomatopoeia said:

Wonder if they are going to need to run it with two tenders since I doubt there are many watering facilities left on the main lines nowadays.

Shouldn't need to. None of the other preserved steam locomotives on the mainline do and I believe the Trust have built the tender with greater water capacity than original.

Pigeon said:

Stuff

Certainly agree with you, never said it was worthwhile making them more efficient

[Busamav]

I get to see a steam locomotive running in the distance most weeks.

I see it on the line between Newbury and Reading , I think there are 2 different engines , one of them i believe is the Orient Express

[Mr_B]

Slightly related - I remember reading that the goverment had several steam locomotives as part of a cold war contingency plan. Anyone know if that's true and if they are still kept ?

[Red Firecracker]

Mr_B said:

Slightly related - I remember reading that the goverment had several steam locomotives as part of a cold war contingency plan. Anyone know if that's true and if they are still kept ?

Urban legend.

The strategic reserve has been talked about for years but nobody has ever come up with a location for the 10's of mothballed steam locomotives. Not sure how many hollowed out volcanoes there are in the UK

[Mr_B]

Red Firecracker said:

Mr_B said:

Slightly related - I remember reading that the goverment had several steam locomotives as part of a cold war contingency plan. Anyone know if that's true and if they are still kept ?

Urban legend.

The strategic reserve has been talked about for years but nobody has ever come up with a location for the 10's of mothballed steam locomotives. Not sure how many hollowed out volcanoes there are in the UK

Made sense when you read about some of the cold war paranoia. Oh well.

[MX-Si]

Mr_B said:

Red Firecracker said:

Mr_B said:

Slightly related - I remember reading that the goverment had several steam locomotives as part of a cold war contingency plan. Anyone know if that's true and if they are still kept ?

Urban legend.

The strategic reserve has been talked about for years but nobody has ever come up with a location for the 10's of mothballed steam locomotives. Not sure how many hollowed out volcanoes there are in the UK

Made sense when you read about some of the cold war paranoia. Oh well.

Hmm, I too thought it was an urban legend, apparently not:

http://www.willys-mb.co.uk/strategic-reserve.htm

All gone now though

ETA:

Piccies from Sky News:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Full-Steam-Ahead-...

Edited by MX-Si on Saturday 2nd August 10:41

[Red Firecracker]

MX-Si said:

Hmm, I too thought it was an urban legend, apparently not:

http://www.willys-mb.co.uk/strategic-reserve.htm

All gone now though

Behave yourself, Mr Clout

I love this picture'



where the censor has blanked out the locomotive on the background, but not the modern metal shed or the re-enactors

Here's a link to the supposed location, Tunnel Quarry, an arms depot;

http://www.chocolatechipdesign.co.uk/nettleden/tun...

The really big problem with the SSR, is that all the locomotives of all the classes supposedly included are known to have been scrapped or preserved, not just through paper records but also through photographs.

Perhaps the most logical location for the SSR would have been Barry Island though.........

[MX-Si]

Red Firecracker said:

MX-Si said:

Hmm, I too thought it was an urban legend, apparently not:

http://www.willys-mb.co.uk/strategic-reserve.htm

All gone now though

Behave yourself, Mr Clout

It's true I tell you, I found it on the internet so it must be (I guess I should have looked at the mention of Corsham being an English Area 51 and donned my tinfoil hat accordingly).