Tornado

I was pointing out that Tornado will be operated under a very similar arrangement to Ian Riley's locomotives. He retains ownership and control. Interestingly 45212 has not appeared in LMS livery since entering a mainline agreement with Riley's and West Coast - coincidence, maybe..
The signicant factor here being that nobody is criticising this arrangement with Ian Riley, (that has been that lucrative he is now overhauling a 4th Black 5). Why is it heracy for the A1st to consider a similar arrangement?

 

I believe both the BR livery and late crest are stipulations of the owning KWVR

 

Re the driving wheels having been reduced by 1" diameter, has anyone any ideas as to what this amounts to in terms of loss of mileage that ended up as scrap swarf?

 

About 1/3 of usable thickness I heard. What’s the average life of a new tyre, I can’t remember how far the first set lasted, but the loco has clocked up over 120k iirc.

Don’t forget that despite turning down the tyres the boiler still didn’t fit until the firebox cladding was cut away too.

 

That axe is still being ground.

 

A fag packet calculation is that it has probably added somewhere in the region of £0.50 per mile to the operating cost, perhaps a bit more.

Probably the bigger problem is it has made it incrementally harder to try to align the end of tyre life with the next major overhaul. That latter point is always a balancing act: if you have to stop a loco because of tyre life when you still have two years of boiler, everyone calls you a muppet. But if you stop for boiler life and the tyres have an estimated two years left, you just write that off because it doesn’t make sense to put a loco in service you know will have to be withdrawn in short order. But no-one would be any the wiser about an inch of wasted tyre life in that situation.

Tom

 

Asking how long the tyres will last is akin to the proverbial how long is a piece of string. Much will depend on the lines that the loco works on. A route with no sharp curves isn’t going to wear the tyres anything like as much as (say) a stint on the NYMR. As the tyres are used, they also work harden so if you can go a long time without having to skim them to maintain flange profile they will get harder and last longer as a result. The late Roger Barker once told me that Gresley’s tyres lasted from its overhaul at Crewe in 1967 until the early 1990’s without requiring any turning but, once that hardened surface was removed and with regular use on the NYMR, skimming to maintain profile became more frequent.

 

There is the other factor of gauge clearance.
Lowering the locomotive by taking 10mm off the tyre radius may well give better gauge clearance. 35018 and 35028 have slightly different driving tyre diameters. Resulting from this, the gauge clearance on special traffic notices specify to which individual loco they apply.

Cheers, Neil

 

Im old enough to remember when the A1SLT was touting acquiring a set of MK3s and a service vehicle for its own branded rail tours. What ever became of that?

 

Not enough money available perhaps? Or not seen to be the core aim of A1SLT, although not having to hire rolling stock makes rail tour promotion easier..... Cheers, Neil

 

I think they realised it was A Bad Idea.

 

I think that was mooted not too long before Mark Allatt stepped down as Chairman if I recall.

 

Still no answers either

 

If you think steam has problems you should study the situation with freight traffic, especially containers. Gauging is now managed with great precision, and it's a measure of that precision that inches count.

 

Who are you expecting answers from?
I don’t believe there is an A1ST spokesperson on the forum.

 

“Stepped down”? - ah yes, that’s how Davies announced it wasn’t it?

The deal with WCRC is interesting insomuch as it’s been a widely held tenet on here that the A1 Trust and WCRC would never work together for a whole range of alleged reasons. One I recall was that WCRC didn’t approve of the contractor that had re-bored Tornado’s cylinders, but there were other apparent differences too iirc.

Whilst some or all of this might be true, I’ve discovered that Davies and Smith have done business in the not too distant past.

I’m informed that during his time as a director of the Wensleydale Railway, Davies organised the sale of the railway’s property at Aysgarth - buildings, land etc. The chosen bidder was Smith, but I heard his wasn’t the highest bid. In addition, apparently the buildings contained a model layout and railwayana which weren’t intended to be included in the sale, but ended up going to Smith too. This didn’t endear Davies to the supporters, but wasn’t the reason he departed later on.

So the tie-up with WCRC is perhaps less surprising than might at first appeared. I wonder if we’ll ever see any details of the contract.

https://www.richmondshiretoday.co.u...looking,extending westwards towards Hawes too.

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/15496139.plans-sell-aysgarth-station-spark-fears-future-wensleydale-railway/#:~:text=of Wensleydale Railway-,HERITAGE: Concern is growing over plans to sell Aysgarth Station,into keeping the railway going.