60163 TORNADO 2007 PRINCE OF WALES 3403 ANON New Steam for the Main Line Building Britain’s Most Powerful Steam Locomotive Recreating Gresley’s last design THE COMMUNICATION CORD No. 60 Winter 2021 The rather wonderful sight of one of the Trust’s two new boilers in the X-ray room at DB Meiningen for analysis of the welded seams. DB Meiningen THE RACE IS ON! by Graham Langer There can be no doubt that the Covid-19 push the P2 project over the line it will & Darlington Railway bi-centenary pandemic has had an extremely negative require a final herculean effort in both celebrations during 2025. We need all the impact on the heritage railway movement terms of fundraising and construction to help we can get from our Covenantors and it will probably be some years before ensure that we meet our deadlines, getting and supporters and one of the best ways the financial damage done can be mended No. 2007 Prince of Wales into steam during to achieve this is to bring new people to and The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust has 2022, into traffic by the end of 2023 and the party – after all, it’s not every day you not been entirely immune. If we are to “front and centre” during the Stockton get the chance to be part of history! TCC 1 CONTENTS EDITORIAL by Graham Langer FROM THE CHAIR by Steve Davies PAGE 1 The race is on! “Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, he Covid-19 essential pipe runs, conduits and the commitment to the P2; second, please and men are great only if they are determined to be so.” situation, and myriad of other small components act as an ambassador on our behalf and PAGE 2 T So said Charles de Gaulle. This year sees some significant the restrictions it which go to make up such a complex Contents bring friends and colleagues on board Editorial anniversaries of those great men who has placed on our machine, and we look forward to once whom we are unable to reach; and finally, form part of the story of the LNER. main line activity, more opening our doors so that we write in with ideas of your own as to PAGE 3 3rd March 2021 is the 70th anniversary could, if one were can show this beautiful machine off to how we can increase our fundraising From the Chair of Arthur Peppercorn’s death which a pessimist, put a you all again. However, notwithstanding performance in these difficult times. We PAGE 4 came just a couple of years after his major cloud over the current rate of progress, one major are not precious about the origins of A1 Engineering report retirement in 1949 following his short the motivation impact of not being able to hold the P2 constructive bright ideas and indeed I PAGE 8 but productive tenure of the role of CME of the LNER. of the Trust and Roadshows, and indeed of our inability would welcome your thoughts. Tornado on tour The Trust was extremely fortunate to have recruited its management team. But far from to open the doors of DLW, has been the Finally, I would wish to draw your PAGE 10 Pepp’s widow, Dorothy Mather, as its President, a duty she it. We would all dearly love to see loss of opportunity to bring on board attention to a Zoom online event Further additions to the team performed with energy and grace until her own passing Tornado in full flight, and it will surely new supporters and covenanters. We being hosted by The Leaders Club on Keeping Tornado on the tracks in November 2015 after a twenty-year involvement with Arthur Peppercorn. happen in the not-too-distant future, regularly put out mail shots and other Wednesday 31st March at 18:00hrs. PAGE 11 Tornado. but there is plenty to keep us occupied marketing literature (and I suspect some David Champion and I will be giving a Tornado Tour Diary 2021 This year also marks the 80th anniversary of Sir Nigel in maintaining her, and reference is of you are becoming mightily bored joint presentation on the amazing story PAGE 12 Gresley’s death on 5th April as well as the entry into made elsewhere in this journal to the with them!) but this can never be a of the Trust, its origins, its highlights V4 update traffic of his last design, the V4 2-6-2. Gresley left a lasting locomotive recently being steamed to substitute for the sheer thrill of seeing – and its challenges - and of course PAGE 13 legacy in terms of steam locomotives in preservation but ensure she remains in tip top condition the locomotive with your own eyes, and where we are going. The price for non- The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust his ‘unfinished symphony’ would have forever been the ready to be allowed back where she thus being incentivised to contribute. members is £30 of which £15 will be is your legacy P2 Mikados, the improvement of which was superseded belongs. With the maintenance of This lack of fresh fundraising opportunity donated to the Trust. by the A4s, World War 2 and his own untimely death in Tornado entrusted to a very competent PAGE 14 exercises a lot of Council’s time and A1 Accidents 1941. If these events had not occurred it is interesting team, in which your Council has full which is why I am constantly addressing to conjecture how the great man might have further confidence, the main focus for thought, the subject with you all, at the expense PAGE 16 developed the class (having already abandoned the Lentz planning and manufacture has therefore, of being accused of being the proverbial Osprey Sir Nigel Gresley. A1 profile - No. 60131 valve gear in favour of Walschaerts). not surprisingly, been the P2. stuck record. The longer the lockdown PAGE 19 And so, we come to our own great man, our ‘Chief Mechanical Engineer’, David We have seen solid progress with restrictions are in place the more The Leaders Club link for booking a Covenantors' Diary Elliott, without whom it is unlikely that Tornado would have been brought to life or Prince of Wales , and not just with the urgent the need to think outside the place is as follows: https://www. Darlington Locomotive Works 2 a ‘new, improved’ Class P2 realised and created with such a degree of refinement. eye-catching star items such as rods, fundraising box. Could I therefore theleadersclub.org/events/ PAGE 20 Having just celebrated his 70th birthday, David boiler and pony truck, but also with ask you all to consider one of three category/virtual-meetings/ The big picture would be the first to acknowledge that he is the often hidden but nevertheless things? First, increase your financial TCC PAGE 22 part of a talented team but he has led that P2 engineering update group of people on an extraordinary and PAGE 30 ground-breaking journey and even now is Charlotte Graham Fluid Dynamics passing his undoubted skills on to a younger PAGE 31 generation. It must be a function of the Trust The P2 Support Coach Appeal to continue this work and to foster the talent P2 Roadshows that has found its way to Hopetown (what PAGE 32 an apposite name!) for the future of both The Boiler Club new-build steam and the heritage railway PAGE 33 David Elliott. movement as a whole. The race is on to get up steam! Powering No. 2007 to completion “What is being achieved in Darlington in a small and restricted workshop is with The Turbogen Club simply awe inspiring and is a tribute to the dedication, foresight and determination PAGE 34 of a small team.” - Chris Milner, editor, The Railway Magazine, January 2021. Steady progress despite the impact of covid-19 In other news we’d like to congratulate Jenny Chapman who has been given a PAGE 36 Peerage in the Christmas announcement. Jenny was MP for Darlington for some Workshop notes years and a great supporter of the Trust and its ambitions, ‘christening’ the P2 PAGE 37 frames at Darlington Locomotive Works among other things. We have been very The Tender Club fortunate that politicians of every shade have taken the Trust seriously and backed Club Badges our endeavours, a mutually beneficial relationship has developed which, we hope, will culminate in the celebrations surrounding the bicentenary in 2025. PAGE 38 Meanwhile Tornado, an East Coast thoroughbred champing at the bit, remains Come on, come on, do the loco- confined to her ‘stable’ at York, impatient for another gallop along the old LNER motion with me! main line as soon as she is allowed to do so. With the locomotive fully re- PAGE 39 certified for another season we are all awaiting further news on the resumption From the archives of UK steam tours and hope to have a better idea of how and when this will PAGE 40 happen soon. Please keep an eye on our railtour news section and join us on one Sponsors and contact information of these great days out as soon as permitted. TCC Tornado sits astride the Skerne Bridge in Darlington, hopefully both the locomotive and bridge will be at the centre of the S&D 200 celebrations. 2 3 rd A1 ENGINEERING REPORT by Richard Pearson On Monday 23 November the NYMR sent a fitter and their weighing equipment to York to allow us to weigh the engine. This process allows you to measure the With Tornado side-lined at the National Railway Museum during the winter and little prospect of any work until the spring we weight on each wheel and then adjust the tension on have taken the opportunity to change five locomotive driving wheel springs.