Tornado

Just been reading the latest Bluebell News. Apparently the no show of Tornado in the summer saved the railway £25000 in transport and steaming fees!

 

I wonder what they would have gained in visitor numbers had she actually visited?

Of course it's a moot point as she was unable to attend, but to be fair other visits to preserved railways have always reported passenger numbers and revenue up when Tornado visits. So much so, it's been labeled the "Tornado Effect" by Steam Railway & Heritage Railway magazines...!

 

No doubt she would have pulled some extra visitors in, not sure they needed them on the anniversary weekend but either side of it would have been good. I didn't realise it cost so much to hire in loco's.

 

I didn't realize either. Makes you think. The costs of running these locomotives and the railways must always be to the wire somewhat. I can only speculate given I'm not privy to any details.

Boiler arrives at Meinengen

Some shots of the boiler in Germany.

 

How many days were the Bluebell planning to steam her?

 

For most it doesn't - do you think the mega galas with seven or eight engines hired in would be viable if all locos were that expensive? - but I believe that with Tonado they ask for a revenue-sharing arrangement, on the premise that the engine boosts visitor numbers.

 

Not sure but I seem to remember her going to be there for 3 weeks, there were a number of evening dining trains planned too.

 

When Tornado visited the MHR in the March gala it was reported that revenue was up by a considerable amount and this was also seen when she made a repeat visit towards the end of last year. I don’t think another loco would have this amount of impact apart from Scotsman. The extra cost of having Tornado would easily be recuperated with the amount of revenue gained in ticket sales and items purchased from the railway shop/café

 

When the Strathspey hired in City of Truro for a month in 2006 is cost well over £30000 in steaming fees and transport (think transport was one way though).

 

I've got a question, seeing as the boiler is out of the frames will the A1 people go for a re-tube and restart its boiler ticket or would that be too exspensive to do after only two years use?

 

I think at this point, without knowing the extent of the damage/repairs, we couldn't possibly speculate on what they can/can't spend on the boiler. I don't think it would be prohibitively expensive to do the above if the total cost of overhauling the boiler was X amount and it was, say, a certain small proportion more, but as I say, I don't think at this point in time we have any solid information to go on that would allow speculation to that degree.

 

In fact nothing larger than a Stroudley "Terrier" has had a completely new boiler. By reboilering a medium sized 4-6-0 and now a 4-6-2 Australia, more particularly New South Wales, has put the U.K. to shame.

The A1 Trust can have had little option but to go to an organisation whose current staff had recent experience in building large locomotive boilers. Equally there was little option but to adopt the construction methods which this workforce were experienced in. Reasons for any problems experienced are pure speculation at present.

There can be few people in the U.K. who are not of retirement age who have assisted in building large locomotive boilers of any kind.

 

If the tubes are servicable after the limited use so far, Meiningen has the facility to reclaim and fit new ends to them.

 

Didn't the Dutch (NS) 4-6-0 3737 have a new boiler 10 or so years ago? Also the Austrian Goelsdorf 2-6-4 before that?

 

This may seem a silly question to ask but has anyone any idea how many miles Tornado racked up in her two years of running compared to most other locos?
She seems to have been either belting around the mainline or trundling along preserved lines almost every week since she was certified.
Now to my non engineering mind it seems that she will have suffered more wear and tear than most other locos, despite her being "brand new". Simply because of the amount of work she has got through, and maybe this has some bearing on her present woes.
Mind I don't blame the A1 trust for taking the work, after all they have to get back the money she cost to build and to bank enough to cover such eventualities as this.
Just something to bear in mind rather than heaping blame on all and sundry.

 

This may well be so but it adds force to criticism that, amidst its enormous achievements, the British standard gauge scene has not addressed this problem and native skills have atrophied as a consequence.

By contrast, with the smaller sizes and costs involved, the narrow gauge world has reboilered extensively and completed several totally new machines such as "Lyd" and Kew Bridge Steam Museum's "Thomas Wicksteed".

 

I think you might find one of the major reasons that British preservation hasn't built new large standard gauge boilers is to do with "grandfather" rights for existing boilers. Replacement of 1/3 to 1/2 of material has been undertaken several times - in the last couple of years, the NYMR have replaced boiler barrel rings on two locos and first replaced an outer firebox wrapper in the late 1980s. It might well be simpler to build new boilers but gaining insurance company approval is a time-consuming and complex task. Even such things as getting a slightly different grade of copper for tube ends or an unusual repair to a firebox agreed by an insurance Company has been known to add months to an overhaul.

In short, it is often the paperwork that drives the UK towards repairs rather than new. Given that this seems not to be the case in Europe, it doesn't seem to be much good blaming the EU either! I suspect that tackling the paperwork side is going to be the next move forward. It should also be remembered that there is a difference in cost. Even with repairs, and extra £100k to £150k could give a boiler that would not need major attention for at least a couple and may be up to 4 decades but if an overhaul is already costing £ 1/2 milliojn plus, where is the money going to come from? The work done ends up being for 10 years life and then the same will need spending again whereas had a comparatively small extra sum been spent, much less would be needed next time. (Not my opinion, that of a very experienced ex-BR Rolling Stock Engineer).

BTW, it is rather insulting to dismiss the skills of the new generation of boilersmioths as "never having assisted in building new boilers of any size". In steam days, there was always the main works to send the results of a Shed Boiler team back to when keeping the loco in traffic was no longer possible, and a large scale industrial process for renewals of boilers. The actual skill and iniatvation ijn order to achieve the same results in much smaller facilities that is necessary today will match and in some cases exceed the skills that were "standard" in the past - and there are still boiler smiths who are not yet 30!

Steven

 

In the article in Heritage Railway they say 30,000miles in he last two years.

 

Not very much compared to an original A1 but very different operating conditions.