Tornado

I'm sorry if you feel my general comments were aimed specifically at you, I understand you are not the only person active in this thread who regularly gift-aids money to the A1 Trust. Although I can understand as you do, that my comments and their timing may have felt like a personal attack on you alone.

I agree, your comment back on the 4th of January was that people should wait until the Trust announces to it's supports their side of the story before leveling any critisim. A strange comment given that the original poster hadn't been critical of the Trust, he'd simply posted that he understood there was a fault, the boiler was being returned to Germany and he was asking if anybody knew any more.

Your post was indeed one of the mildest, certainly compared to quotes such as "...Until then, rumour monging, third hand snippets etc.., do nobody any good.. ", together with Moderators attacking the person for making substantial allegations without carrying out research to back them up etc. etc. ....Eight days later, on the their website, the Trust announced that the boiler would be returning to Germany - Ho Hum.

Perhaps that original poster, like you, has unofficial contacts within the A1 Trust where they were able to hear non-public information? It didn't stop the public flogging on the forum and people calling for unstubstantiated comments about the Trust/Loco and their future plans to be stopped.

Who?

A1 Trust Latest News, 07 Feb 2011

I simply added 300 + 100 together to reach the conclusion that the A1 trust are saying that the nature of the current repairs are a consequence of the use of the engine on around 400 days since entering traffic. Perhaps I've misread their statement somehow?


The A1 Trust official statement above says, "...This work will return the boiler and firebox to 'as new' condition and provide for further reliable operations...". Therefore, since the only reason given for needing the current work is the usage it has received over the last 300+100 (=400) steaming days, then it would be fair to assume that in a further 400 steaming days it will be in a similar condition again?

...unless of course the A1 Trust's official statement contains more spin than a gyroscope, and is to be trusted as much as a Politician's promise?!

Well when the SVR started encountering unexpected boiler failures on their fleet of engines they admitted the fact, made use of the media and started investigating the reasons. They then subsequently published articles explaining what they found the reasons to be. If I remember correctly it was put down to burning poor quality coal having a high sulphur content, together with water quality issues.

What ever the causes, it resulted in their fleet of locomotives succumbing to serious boiler 'failures' which took them out of traffic. At one point I think their entire operational steam 'fleet' was reduced to one small tank engine.

What the railway didn't do was say that everything was perfectly Ok, just a bit of fairly routinue maintenance required comensurate with how much their locomotives had been used! They were open and honest about their problems.

I don't believe their behind the scenes practices are up for scrutiny - except perhaps by those who have said the Trust have learnt their lessons and will be operating the locomotive differently in future to prevent a reoccurance.

8/10's originial comment was simply that we have been led to believe by the Trust that the current repairs are simply, and only, down to the amount of use the locomotive has seen, and that the repairs will cost no more than £50,000. On that basis a similar amount of use in future will presumably see the same repairs and preventative measures being needed again in the not too distant future.

I've no doubt you're right - after all the Trust has had to cancel financially lucrative tours and periods of hire to get the boiler repaired.

Perhaps the Trust weren't aware that boilers of a similar type to their own would require such repairs as a consequence of the amount of use it has had? Afterall, if that is the only reason for needing the work doing (which it is, according to the Trust) then they should have been able to predict that it would be about due for major overhaul around now.

So in other words any comments made by posters on this forum that the Trust have learnt from the experiences and will be changing their procedures on how they operate the locomotive in future to prevent the current issues reocurring in a further few years are just unsubstantiated rumours and allegations, not based on information or facts from the A1 Trust?

I am mindful of the Moderator's comments from the 4th of Jan, "...we ask that members try to keep their posts on topic and as factual as possible."

I, and 8/10 have simply been quoting from the A1 Trust's official statement on why the repairs are taking place, and suggesting that £50k every two years due to 'normal usage' is pretty steep!

 

Welded steel boilers have been around since the 1930s. Clearly they have been made successfully around the world. Yet Tornado's seems to be a right bundle of trouble, and what I can't understand is the A1SLT apparently accepting these stay and plate failings as "just one of these things" when it ought not to be so, and hasn't been so elsewhere.

Reading articles on this subject in the latest 'Steam Railway' I get the impression that they are floundering and giving us a lot of b*llsh*t. From 'SR' pages 72 & 73:-

'Just as he's done before, Mark stresses: "We didn't suffer from any broken stays." Instead the 'A1' chairman says, this has once again been about weeping 'tell tales'.Tornado has hollow stays rather than the more conventional (to Britain) solid versions - the idea behind 'tell tales' is that they indicate a problem before it develops into fully blown broken stays'

Anyone care to explain how such a stay can weep water/steam without a fracture from the outside to the inner 'tell tale' hole?

'"There is some minor plate deflection- it is within the accepted tolerances. However, we are going to replace that plate."'

If it is within the 'accepted tolerances', why replace the plate?

This is the third session of these problems. Surely someone must be asking "Why is it happening? There is something seriously wrong somewhere."

 

Well I cannot speak for the trust but I would assume that replacing the plate is precautionary given that they cant 100% guarantee that it wont get worse, such is the nature of a prototype design.

Fact is, as the A1SLT have said themselves, the loco has done the equivalent of a term of service between major overhauls in BR days. Heavy maintenance is expected. As has been pointed out by those "in the know" as it were, the extent of the maintenance required was a shock and the cause I am sure, is being looked for.

Its clear something is wrong with the boiler. What and stemming from where is anyone's guess and as always the A1 trust will keep us informed. They are doing the right thing by only presenting fact with explanation. It leaves no room for misinterpretaion. Anything else is pure speculation which is fine, but we should remember that it isnt fact and we can't base an opinion on the trust or the locomotive solely on that.

As it pertains to the broken stays issue. I beleive what Mark Allatt meant by his comment on the stays was that when the stays fracture they weep steam or water and this tells the trust that they need to be replaced, before they break fully and cause damage to the locomotive. I think he was trying to say that the loco didnt suffer any damage from completely broken stays because they caught them when they were only fractured.

Can totally see the other interpretation of the statement but thats what i took from it.

I certainly don't think we're being fed a line here, because surely they'd come up with something better if they were. I think they are just presenting the information as and when there is the core fact AND an explanation to back it up thats all. We just have to wait and see.

 

These two statements don’t add up to me – we are been” fed a line” here, locos in BR servive did not require such major work after only 30,00 miles – read the books - don’t keep this spin going !

I do think that when you push out on press releases you do sometimes have to be ‘economic with the truth’ as its very easy for the uninitiated to get the wrong end of the stick, however the speculation is ramped up because the way the facts or the lack of them are being currently presented. This may be because of the negotiations with Dampflokwerk Meiningen are delicate or there is a bit of face saving going on within the trust. Personally I don’t care what’s going on, just that the causes of the failure(s) are fully understood and we don’t have any further problems with this, or indeed with other boilers of similar builds (i.e. the Australian 3801 – see http://3801.com.au/ - for some interesting photos of the foundation ring on here take a look on New Boiler Takes Shape page . . . is this the same with Tornado’s boiler? )

I await the developments with interest . . .

 

I have followed this thread from its outset, contributed regularly, and hold my hands up as a covenantor.

However the efforts of some on here to knock the fantastic tribute that is Tornado to engineering make me wonder if the effort is worthwhile.

As it is now a mainline steam icon, surpassing in popularity anything else at the moment, people see it as a way to take a pop at its unfortunate extended maintenance period.

Im quite relaxed at the current sequence of events, the trust are acting in a prompt professional manner, and if part of that means that they cannot disclose technical details, or the finer points then fine. If you are that interested take a more "hands on" approach and help them in an engineering or support function.

But for people to smoke on their pipes and say told you so, stinks of sour grapes, this loco has done more for YOUR preservation movement in 2 years, than countless other mainline loco's, dont forget that.

And as for accusations that it has been ran on the mainline with chances of a serious boiler malfunction, do us all a favour, do you think it would pass a FTR exam prior to a run, maybe WCRC have the right idea, tell you nothing....

 

Is this a British Railways locomotive, with two major locomotive works at its disposal, with hundreds of shed staff, fitters, cleaners, crews and engineers all working on 48 other examples of the class at the same time?

No, it is not. It is a new build Peppercorn A1, and the only hands on work we've seen done on a Peppercorn locomotive in the last fifty years, has been on the K1 and A2 respectively. In preservation, the only comparable locomotives are the eleven preserved Merchant Navy Locomotives with steel welded boilers, and they had the advantage of a full and demanding rebuilding midway through their service lives, after years of minor to major alterations by their original designer.

Tornado is a prototype. Let's not beat around the bush here. Yes, she's the "50th" A1, but she incorporates all of the modifications that the class would have had, not did have, if they had continued in service. They didn't - they have one of the shortest working lives of any of the pacifics which worked for British Railways as a result (accepting the standards 6MT, 7MT and 8p of course). Their reliability in service, for a design which came out of Doncaster in 1948 and went pretty much straight into service, is testament to the methods of the time, and the ruggedness of the design.

But they had the supreme advantage over Tornado in that such workforces were available instantly. An engine failed - was looked over - taken to a works - and fixed. Tornado, whatever modern advantages she has over her predecessors, does not have that advantage.

30,000 miles is a lot for something to work straight out of the box and without major problems every few miles, especially as a one-off. As an example, I've been keeping tabs on the new class 70 diesel locomotives, and whilst I would say their working straight into service is not comparable to Tornado's, it hasn't been without some mechanical or electrical problems along the way. So much so - the second batch has several key re-designs implemented that the first batch will have when shopped for general overhaul.

The advantages of having a fleet, and not a single locomotive, at work! You can compare and modify at will based on your experiences of all the locomotives, not just the one engine and a variety of mildly similar pacifics.

How short memories we have that Tornado came out for the first time, in steam, in 2008, and then spent the next two years touring the country on railtours and visiting preserved lines, with very little let up inbetween. Now, the boiler has had problems so we know somewhere in the operating procedures of the locomotive, something has been amiss, or/and the boiler when built had problems. That's pretty much all we can speculate. The exact cause is presumed to be the cooling/heating cycles of the engine. Okay, so you fix the boiler and change the operating practises as a matter of course.

It's not been said explicitly by anyone in the Trust, but it is both the logical thing to do and something I am sure they will do. Does it need to be said? To my mind, no, I had already anticipated that as a matter of course. I'm clearly in a minority, however, so perhaps some more information would be helpful.

A little in column A, a little in column B...I don't know (rightly), but it's human nature to want to save face to some extent. I'm not suggesting the Trust itself is at fault here, but if mistakes have been made, and lessons learned, then the next stage is to build on that and move on. Further, you make a very good point that negotiations with Meiningen may well be delicate - we simply don't know. Should we know anything right now? Will commentary on the negotiations help? I don't think so personally.

This ^ exactly. Calmly await events!

 

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick - I would guess that most of the postings on here are not trying to knock what has been achieved but are concerned that this magnificant achievement gets back to where it belongs, I certainly do.

And as a private company they are perfectly at liberty to do that, however as a trust one has certain obligations don't you think?

 

Clearly you've never had dealings with the Phyllis Rampton NG Trust - they are probably even more secretive than WCRC!

Anyway, back on topic... Tornado is a majestic creation, that we all want to see back on the mainline.

I don't know what the problems are, and whether they're expected or not, and whether designs and/or practises will change as a result of them. I don't know enough to speculate, so I'll leave it to people with real know-how to get on and do the job, and I'll try to get a ride behind her at some point later in the year as my little contribution to the coffers.

This is one of those threads that just reduces to petty bickering every now and then, and it and others have really shocked me. As a reasonably new user of NatPres, I had really expected a bit more reasoned debate, less House of Commons mudslinging.

 

With reference to what a lot of people on here are saying about what the A1SLT are making public........there are such things as confidentiality clauses in contracts. And it's just a thought that maybe the Trust is bound by something like this and so are limited as to what they can say publicly.
As with all these things, no doubt we will hear the full story when it's right for the Trust to tell it.

 

When will some people get it in their heads that it's not just the mileage but the thermic cycles that are involved here? Depending on the nature of the work, different locos can go through all sorts of numbers of cycles for a given mileage. Even locos used as stationary boilers developed boiler problems and no mileage at all was involved there.

 

Nobody did'nt say that the number of thermic cycles is an issue (I've lit up more than enough loco's to see first hand some of the issues with a quicker than ideal warm through) its just one of the factors in the foreshortened life which could be a factor in the stay faults or cracking to the foundation ring - but I can not see how this would effect the 'quilting' reported earlier, the use of the number of miles clocked up was a illustration that we've not got yet the full picture and as I stated . . . I await the developments with interest.

 

Good post. It seems a peculiarly British trait to knock anything/anyone which becomes successful. 60163 has given pleasure to me and countless others from both on board and on the lineside and has raised the profile of steam in the public eye. As an active preservationist I can well imagine the anxiety felt by the engineers and covenantors of the A1 Trust. It's never a good moment when your pride and joy goes sick and needs surgery. That's when you need the support of your fellow preservationists. What you don't need is lots of people pointing fingers and telling you that you've got it all wrong. I'm still of the opinion that if the boiler had been built to exactly the same spec in the UK and run into exactly the same problems, the criticism would have been less strident than it has.

 

All my working life, as an engineer I, have had people, mostly engineers, telling me whats wrong with a particular design or whatever. I used to get quite hurt on occasions, but as I have grown older it goes over my head. I am all for lateral thinking and readily admit to saying to myself it would have been better that way or this way, and if it can be changed I,ll change it. And I have always accepted other peoples input. Remember some of our great locomotive engineers benefitted from teamwork, And I never forget reading somewhere how Sir N Gresley was horrified by footplate conditions, hence the bucket seats. My favourite responses now are "oh well here,s a blank piece of paper and pencil you design it", that shuts a majority up. Ladies and gentlemen lets wait until the boiler returns from Germany, followed I,m sure by some of the findings which no doubt will be very inteesting. I, for one, cannot wait to see it back up and running and doing what it,s supposed to do. Amen!............and in Brunswick Green!

 

I do "read the books" and I also read the statement.

She may have done less miles but as has been rightly pointed out shes done more thermic cycles with combined with the distance she's travelled would about match the amount a BR locomotive would do between services. she doesnt have the benefit of being kept warm for weeks on end, I mean some bulleids with their own welded steel boilers would have 30 day cycles, that is simply not practical for any steam locomotive these days. This is true for all preserved locomotives but they for the most part arent worked as hard as tornado is, and they don't have a prototype boiler design.

I have no doubt they are being a bit diplomatic and careful with the press releases, but I am sure it's for the purpose of not putting out information without some sort of explanation behind it. I mean they could say "ok today we came to work and the boiler barrel had a huge hole in it, we're looking as to why." This would prompt a huge surge in speculation andpotential bad mouthing in the public sector. Of course if they waited and found the explanation "The boiler barrel had a huge hole in it but that's because of something falling from the ceiling overnight" not a great example i know, but it demonstrates how a little reasoning can make the difference and so can waiting unitl all facts are there before telling the public. It's not "spin" at all.

As has been said previously the extent of work required has been a surprise and has been cause to have the boiler fully examined by the manufacturers as the repairs are undertaken. A solution I am sure will be found in due course. The comment regarding BR overhauls was simply to make the point that the boiler hasnt simply fallen apart out of nowhere. It has come as a result of perhaps not doing the same mileage but suffering the EQUIVALENT punishment that a BR loco would between major overhauls, which is why she was due for overhaul anyway. The boiler held up until this point which has to say something for it. The trust I am sure will be looking at what they have to do with the boiler to make sure they dont get this every 12 months.

Agreed wholeheartedly, she'll be sight to see indeed.

 

I do not believe that is the case at all. This is the second time in a few days I've read a post by you dissing the British. What the issue is that the A1T appear for one reason or another to say that whats happened to the boiler is to be expected, when evidence from other similar built boilers it isn't, and geniune enthusiasts are concerned that issues are not going to be addressed and we'll end up with a repeat of this. NOBODY wants it to be a failure.

 

Can you or anybody else on this forum inform us what work would have had to be done on an A1's boiler when it went into Doncaster works for its FIRST heavy general overhaul after two years in service? From looking at the A1 class engine record cards this was the normal time between heavy generals for the Class and the A4s, A3s andA2s.

 

[/QUOTE]
That's done! Menttioning Collection X is sure to get this thread locked by the Mods!

There's been a lot of posts on here about Tornado's plight and most of them have been contributing to a sensible discussion. I hope it continues. It may be none of our business but it should not be a reason for not talking about it. I do think that the A1 trust are putting a positive spin on things but I would do exactly the same and I think most people would. It's part of the professionalism that the group is renowned for. They are probably right to say that there were no broken stays - the tell-tales are there to detect cracked stays before they become broken and replacing them is what you'd expect them to do.
I don't really subscribe to the 'it's had 300 steamings so you can expect it' argument. Yes, heating cycles contribute to fatigue but 3-400 cylces is nothing and the boiler should be capable of far more without problem. If it isn't, it's a design problem. Or a material one, but I don't think so, in this case. (unless we are talking about copper or monel stays, which can't be used.) If I were guessing (and that's all I am) I'd guess that the A1 team would very much like to substantially re-design the firebox but, practically they can't; it would be prohibitively expensive nad keep the loco out of traffic for even longer. This probably means that they are going to have to live with the problem, do their best to contain it and plan for the worst case of a repeat performace in a couple of years time, which is what they've intimated. Again, that is being professional and balancing the options.

 

Quilting of the inner plate.
That can only happen when there isn't enough water, I'm not suggesting that the water level was ever so low as to only a few inches round the bottom of the firebox.
Bulleid Pacific boilers had the problems of U channel (and plate above foundation ring on 1st 10 MNs) cracking and of plate quilting when they first came out.
After replacement/ repair, the problems were drastically reduced by use of water treatment.

 

There are two mentions of quilting in your post. One seems to argue against the other.