Tornado

I did find it a bit odd that they should decide to divert resources to build a third boiler when the first one was and is still relatively new and they were involved in building a second locomotive. Did it mean that the first one was found to have major flaws? They seem to be finding extra work all the time that seems to suggest a lack of proper project management.
This is of course pure speculation but if you don’t keep people informed it just invites speculation.

 

Yes you are right as fundraising was (and still should be) front and centre at the A1 Trust. Of course Allatt had the amazing David Elliott as part of his team throughout his period as chairman before they were both sidelined by the current regime which can apparently neither do engineering, raise money nor run profitable Railtours.

 

And to think that but for a certain virus, it was hoped to have 2007 in steam by 2022...

As for the late David Elliott: to whom did he do his "brain dump" (as he called it) about the valve gear and other engineering matters?

 

Proposed railtour 29 June over the S&C now looking vanishingly unlikely?

 

I hope not I'm booked on that and I've already had one tour cancelled last year the Aberdonian due to this.

 

Which is exactly what they are missing at the moment, sadly the loss of David Elliott is being felt much more than is being communicated....

 

I think the rot goes deeper than that. The whole board has been churned in recent years with Paul Bruce (2023), Huw Parker (2023), Graeme Bunker-James (2023), Mark Allatt (2021) and David Elliott (2020) all leaving since the new chairman was installed and not all communicated to supporters. There is now no professional accounting, legal, company secretarial, marketing, fundraising or operations experience on the board of trustees. If you compare that to previous incarnations of the board under the two previous chairmen it is a shadow of its former self.

 

Big shoes to fill. As I've said before, I just hope that what's going on with 60163 doesn't impact the fundraising for 2007 too much. Maybe they really should resume the road shows.

 

If you read the Mikado Messenger and Communication Cord carefully and compare them with past issues you’ll soon see that fundraising for PoW has stalled. There is very little now published on the state of fundraising for Tornado other than headline covenantor numbers so very difficult to ascertain its current status. I suspect lots of intercompany borrowing underpinned by some very timely legacies.

 

The Trust started with an extremely competent team covering all the areas of expertise. It was correspondingly extremely successful at first. No longer, apparently.

 

I have taken the liberty of quoting this post verbatim in an email to the Trust. Let's see what they have to say.

 

Still amazes me that folk think engineering projects, particulalry of this scale, should go smoothly.

Then there is the cost of living crisis, that has squeezed charitible giving, whilst inflation has upped the price of everything on the other side.

Coded welders have always been a rare commodity.

Sure, its non-ideal, but a year or two's delay to an engineering project of this scale is really not beyond the pale, in fact, it really ought to be expected.

 

I give you what impact it has had on the Nene Valley Railway - cancelled twice now, will those visitors or participants on various charters, driving experiences, whatever, will they hope "third time lucky" or just give up?

 

"Whilst we look forward to updating you all with the news that our flagship locomotive, Tornado, is finally back on the rails, unfortunately that day is a little further away than any of us would ideally like. The overhaul has in part been delayed by the late return of Tornado’s boiler, not reaching Darlington until December. The boiler passed its hydraulic test on arrival at the Works, however some light remedial work is nevertheless still required to be undertaken in the coming days before the steam test in two weeks’ time.

Work on the ETCS project, installing the digital signalling equipment, has also impacted on the overhaul as our workforce has had to simultaneously deal with the conflicting demands of the locomotive and the new signalling system. As a result of this, the detailed scope of work now sees the locomotive returning to service in the spring, rather than late winter as we had hoped.

Consequently, and with deep regret, we have now rescheduled ‘The South Devon Express’, ‘The Cornishman’ and ‘The Yorkshire Pullman’ to the summer, with the new dates to be confirmed later this month. ‘The Aberdonian’ on 27th April and ‘The Clyde Aberdonian’ on 4th May have also been cancelled. At the time of designing the railtour programme there was every confidence that the overhaul would proceed according to plan but as afore mentioned, multiple factors have conspired against us to push back Tornado’s return to traffic. If you were due to travel on these trains or were planning to simply come out and witness the spectacle, we thank you for your understanding.

The Trust is absolutely focused on having the locomotive completed as soon as possible. This overhaul has undoubtedly taught us many lessons, as these processes always do, however we are confident that the hard work, high standards and attention to detail applied these last 12 months will be worth the effort."

That was posted on 11th January 2023, and still no sign of the loco returning to traffic!

https://www.a1steam.com/tornado/news/tornado-details/tornados-overhaul-and-plans-for-2023

The year-long overhaul is running about 18 months behind schedule. The boiler came back from Meiningen still requiring stay replacements, and more have needed to be replaced since then. Additional boiler work and replacement tubes have been needed as well since arrival back 18 months ago. Yes, delays happen, but the scale of the overrun, all the additional worked required, and lack of communication is a worry.

 

I have very serious questions about the standard of work done on the boiler, everything seems to stem from that work done, the questions have to be,
do the builders now have the same degree of expertise, as they had when the boiler was first constructed?
Was there anyone with better expertise available in the UK, such as leaky finders?
Why have stays been found to have broken, in a freshly overhauled boiler, that's not had many cycles, Does that raise concerns to the standard of work done?
Was Tornado the right engine to be a test bed for a new signalling system, wouldn't a simpler engine, such as a black 5 have been a better choice?

 

Although Tornado is indeed somewhat more complex, I don't think the third cylinder and associated stuff makes much difference to the task of designing and installing the ERTMS stuff; and the fact that Tornado already had a lot of electrical gubbins should have helped. It made sense to deal with the installation when the loco was going to be out of traffic for an overhaul. The trouble is that both jobs have taken much longer than expected. We don't know how much of that is pure bad luck and how much is due to poor project management. The decision to have the original boiler overhauled instead of having the first new one finished, with the aim of saving time, turns out in retrospect to have been a mistake. Was it a bad decision at the time? Hard to say.

 

Wasn’t West Coasts 44392 originally in the frame for ERTMS fitting but then dropped from the NR program?

 

The logic behind ordering two new boilers was that the per unit cost was significantly less. The plan was to be able to turn round overhauls more quickly on both locos by having a refurbished boiler ready to use, hence getting whichever loco back into revenue earning service more quickly. Times have changed since then . . .

 

Yes, though I've heard the words Smithy, Toys and Pram mentioned for it not continuing.