Tornado

Others may be able to put a date for this, but along with several friends I went on a (steam?) special from London to Darligton to see 'Tornado'. This was just after the original boiler had been delivered. After looking over the boiler one of my friends (who retired as Chief Engineer of one of the UKs major construction companies), gave the life of the boiler at 10 years. I don't think he was far out.

 

Perhaps they need Leaky Finders on the job!!

 

On what basis of experience

 

Out of interest, does Tornado have a steel or copper inner firebox? It’s steel, isn’t it?

I’ve always understood that steel boxes tend to be cheaper to make but last less time before needing complete replacement - so you pays your money and takes your choice.

Tom

 

Worth looking at again (despite the wrong aspect ratio). There are comments about the boiler.

 

Steel. It’s an all steel, all welded boiler.

 

The ability to communicate accurately, honestly and in a timely manner with its covenantors, passengers and other stakeholders is another skill that the A1 Trust has lost in recent years… along with project management, engineering design, fundraising, volunteer motivation and leadership.

 

I have formed the impression that in Germany a steel firebox is considered a consumable, albeit with a long(ish) life. In Britain a copper box is 'for life, not just for Christmas' (so to speak).
Pat

 

They started with a brilliant team, good at all those things. What went wrong?

 

Then, why did the West Country / Merchant Navy class boilers have a long life with some working into preservation days? The unfortunate fact is that it's become apparent there's a fundamental design flaw with Tornado's boiler. Given the short and limited operating life it should not be cursed with stress cracking at the side stay welds. West Country / Merchant Navy boiler fireboxes have welded seams but the stays are screwed into place then headed over. This arrangement proved reliable.

 

This actually throws up a really interesting engineering discusssion.

1. Do we already have fully steel welded boilers in preservation elsewhere, or is the A1 the only one?

2. Is there an engineering argument that runs along the lines of, a copper inner box is gentler to stays owing to the softness of the material putting less strain on the stays, than less ductile steel would?

3. Is fixation having an efffect on the stays, welded V threaded?

4. If thermal stresses, in welding up the box, are a concern, per point 3, could it be a prudent move to heat threat the box, post stay welding, but pre-welding to the barrel? There are a few places where that could be done, but not many.

5. This really should be question 1 actually, but is Tornado's Boiler performing as we expect it to, or is it actually hitting life limits on stays and foundation rings long before we expected it to?

EDIT.

Ah, ok, im presuming MN boxes are steel inners?

Are the stays in a MN threaded, or welded?

If what you say is right, that stress cracking is happening as the stay welds, that does make a very stong implication that the root cause is residual stresses post-welding, that ideally need to be baked out with a post weld heat treat.

Or, is that cracking localised to sections of the box? Or is the cracking indiscriminate of location?

Stress cracking, particularly related to thermal and or residual stresses can often turn in to an excersice in chasing your tail. You fix one bit, but the sttesses just find a new place to come out.

Of course, weld repairs introduce new residual stresses and may expose weaknesses where none were seen before.

I dont have a complete picture of what is actually happening, and would appreciate the insight anyone might shed on this.

There must be a stress report for Tornados's boiler, someone must have been over all this already....?

 

Some owners have had real fun and games with their Bulleid fireboxes though. Granted that they're a bit older than Tornado's.

 

Succession planning? With no knowledge of the specific people or personalities, getting the right people depends on those right people being available. What drives that availability is of course a question for both the organisation and the individuals - I know that there are some people I'd go out of my way to work for, and others that I'd avoid like the plague.

 

Less common in the UK, commonplace on the continent. IIRc the trust rejected Meiningens original copper to steel conversion redesign of the firebox and asked for compromises that brought it closer to the original and in hindsight this has been shown to be problematic...

 

60163 has also taken quite a hammering. 130,000 miles in 16 years, and it's been out of traffic for a few of them. Lots of heavy trains as well at high speed and over long distances must be putting a lot of strain on the boiler. Add in the repeated preserved line visits with lots of start-stop operations and heating-cooling patterns and it's not a good way of operating a boiler.

 

That’s my understanding too. The Trust apparently wanted to keep certain dimensions strictly to the original boiler design - possibly including water space width (ie stay length) and/or grate L x W, contrary to the manufacturer’s experience and advice. E.G If the grate size is fixed then given the UK loading gauge there’s no way of increasing the water space width.

IIRC the new boilers address this problem.

 

Hit the 'edit' button and make sure the bits other people wrote are inside pairs of {QUOTE}...{/QUOTE} and that the bits you wrote are outside all of those. Make sure there are the same number of opening ones (without the /) as closing ones (with the /). And use square instead of curly brackets (I used curly ones that so it would appear here as text).

Or just don't worry about it too much.

 

Thanks very much... I've ceased worrying these days...my philosophy.. I can spend my money on a coffin....but can't spend it inside one....hope you get the drift...

 

The narcissists took over and drove out all of the decent, hard working volunteers who were only in it for the end result. Hence the mess they now find themselves in.

 

Show me a group that hasn’t been riven by internal strife at some stage.