Tornado

Tornado has been financed by the railway enthusiast community and therefore the railway enthusiast community has a perfect right to comment. The community doesn't have the right to slag off the A1ST but it does have the right to comment. If those comments don't suit then tough, that's part of living in an open society. The A1ST could help itself by being a little more open and honest about it's problems and what it is doing to resolve them. I get the impression that they have closed ranks and want to shut out the outside world, but ... that outside world has an interest in Tornado, and that interest was fostered by the A1ST itself when it needed that interest to finance the project.

I recently attended a presentation by the A1ST and a number of things struck me. The first was that although the project team was (and is) stuffed full with engineering experience, very few if any of those engineers seemed to have steam railway experience. I'm not talking craftsmen here (the project has enought of those too), I'm talking about engineers, the men and women who design, manage and deliver a project to spec, time and budget.

A number of changes seem to have been made to Peppercorn's original design, without any real understanding of the risks involved of doing so. The boiler is one of those. The change from a rivetted boiler to a welded one is a really major change, it's profoundly important, but I don't have the impression that the risks involved were understood. Also the risks involved in the way the loco is operated. In steam days a loco would be in steam for about a month depending on the condition of the water and the steps, if any were needed, to change that condition. This affects the 'cycles' of heating and cooling on the boiler. But Tornado is not operated that way, and the effects of the way that Tornado is operated on the boiler and by inference on the finances of the A1ST don't seem to have been understood at all.

I imagine that they are better understood now.

Regards

 

The A1ST have been open about the problems on their own website. At present the boiler is at / on the way to Germany for repair and fault finding. I would suspect at this stage that even the A1ST don't know the full repair requirements nor the causes. Until the boiler is examined by the people that manufactured it everything is speculation.
What is certain is that the way steam locos are operated on the mainline today is far far different to the way they were operated pre-1965. I will imagine a lot of loco operators watching the state of play with the A1. Ideally you would want to keep the loco in steam as long as possible even if only with warming fires or by passing heated water through the boiler via a steam plant.
I think / hope that the A1ST will consider going ahead with the spare boiler project. If one had existed the loco would be in steam in weeks rather than having to wait for the boiler to be returned and missing lucrative work. I would imagine that the 'cards close to the chest' may also be due to negotiations / legal discussions between A1ST and the boiler manufacturer. After all if you bought a car engine and ended up without with the engine being returned for 3 months, during which you couldn't use you're car, that you'd be pretty hacked off!

For now (as an A1 supporter) let the engineers find out what is happening before writing off / slagging off the A1ST or the loco itself. Lets also remember that not long ago there was uproar over the time its taking to restore 4472 (with still another 6 to 12 months to go).

 

What I don't understand is,

A loco has had a fault, problems with as has been said before, a prototype boiler.

Said loco instead of being allowed to run dangerously has been withdrawn whenever it needed to be for even precautionary maintenance to make sure, belt and braces, it's as safe as far as the A1SLT know.

This time boiler needs corrective maintenance, so gets sent back to the company who made it, best people for the job. The A1SLT have been pretty open about all this, they choose to divulge more information than alot of preserved loco groups for the sake of keeping Tornado's fanbase informed.

Why is this cause for such a huge debate? I honestly can't see the extreme negative or positive being banded around this thread. An essentially prototype loco is having teething problems and is being fixed accordingly. Surely thats normal for any prototype that goes out of the norm a bit?

 

To think this all started with this.............

 

Forgive me for pointing this out, but as an outsider there are perhaps 4 types of post in this thread.

Positive posts, supporting the A1 lot

Negative posts slagging the A1 lot off

Speculative posts, theories or rumours if you like of what has gone wrong. Both well and poorly informed.

Then you we have the ''you shouldnt be saying that'' tripe, and the moderator related tripe associated with it.

The way I see it is that both the positive and negative comments are fair enough, after all the A1 has been built with the support of the movement. Even I have contributed a little , so it is all fair comment even if you do not agree with it.

Then we have the gossip/rumour and theories. Well again, provided that the poster qualifies his post and does not report as fact what is the problem?. I accept that the Admin of this site has suffered with brown trousers in the past with threats of legal action, but sadly that is a fact of life on internet forums. At the end of the day it is the poster who will have to answer not Admin nor the moderators so they need to be a little less twitchy over it all.

Best way to discuss a poor argument is to shoot it down in flames with a better thought out argument. That way we all learn, and that is what it is all about isnt it?.

And as for the ''you shouldnt say that'' then the posts arguing the toss whether someone should have said it, well, GIVE IT A REST. Most of us are Adults and are thus reasnobly aware that we are responsible for our own actions (even if not all of us can spell!).

 

Oh don't get me wrong I see entirely why people would talk about Tornado, she's quite the hot topic right now.

What I dont get is the level to which the discussion on this subject in particular has risen in the way that is has, mainly through as far as I can tell, people focusing on being right instead of what is right.

It's gone from a place where rumour can be brought and then either dispelled respectfully to further knowledge between enthusiasts, to a place where a negative rumour will be posted without any substantial evidence, because it is a popular thing to do. People in support of the loco obviously then get riled up and before you know it we've got an OTT argument/debate.

Now I truly do get why these things happen through simple misunderstandings, its in our human nature. What I don't understand is why this subject which is quite clear, has degenerated in the same manner. The facts are there I stuggle to extrapolate the many different conclusions being banded around other than its a simple case of a prototype boiler has failed and is being given corrective maintenance. What more is there to it?

 

No arguments from me here. I might add, the best posts here do come in both the factual and speculative categories, but at no point do they specifically call into question the maintenance given/design development of 60163, implying something rather more extreme and beyond that known.

Ah, but that does not seem to be wholly the case here. People seem to forget that on an open forum, their posts can have consequences which go beyond that of their own sphere of influence. Certainly the possibilities for damage to the preservation world, here on this forum, are in black and white for all to see.

There are some things you can't take back - the written or the angry word.

And that is where I will leave it.

 

This is the advert I saw when looking through this thread lol.

I have been watching this thread with great interest and also taking note, especially when it comes down do the level of moderation. It's a very fine line to tread, and we don't always get it right, however we are always assessing the way we do things and if needed will revisit items we have dealt with and debate on how things could of be done differently.

Cheers

PS, sorry the attachment seems to be quite small, was not that way when I done a screen grab!

 

And THAT is how 'targeted ads' work...keywords. You never know who (or what, in this case) is looking in

 

I wonder if DB Meiningen of Germany is reading this thread. We could be doing them a great injustice regarding the state of Tornado’s boiler. With all bad press being banded around this thread about the boiler construction would they be willing to build any more boilers for the UK loco market. It can’t be to long before another new build project will be looking to have a boiler maded?

 

Based on events behind the scenes and off the forum.. I think you could say this is true.

 

post number 2119 has been edited / moderated.

I believe we should now be able to move on in the discussion which remains open to all and any new (factual) information or discussion.

 

The forum owner and moderators may infer who reads this forum regularly but when a business decision is to be made do you think it's likely that the concerned parties will refer back to what tittle tattle has been said on here? I would have my doubts.

 

The Admins.

 

I think the new Patriot builders are talking about theirs been built at Crewe, as for the others, and theres quite a few now, I couldn't say, so thats a very valid point. I just hope that if those who count at DB do read it, they understand that most of the wild speculation has been done by a very few posters and the majority realize and understand that a prototype design would be very fortunate indeed to be 100% fault free.

 

Spot on, here. I was always told that it took at least 5 years to iron out faults in a new design on a locomotive.

The right decision, IMHO.

I couldn't agree more. The A1 team are being thoroughly professional in their decisions and actions.

The A1 team are acting in the most professional way and what they are doing is right, both for the loco and the public. I'm 100% behind them in what they are doing.

 

And in mine. Steve's post says all it all, please now may we leave the investigations to the concerned parties to resolve

 

Absolutely right!

 

Well i have to start by saying, this whole thing with the boiler comes as no suprise to me & many other people. Yes i can understand the decision to go with a steel inner fire box might of seemed like a good one to many, mainly for the cost im sure & perhaps the ease of construction but there is no beating a copper fire box pardon the pun!
Whilst a steel box can be welded slightly easyer than a copper one, the latter is far less prone to cracking & has much better heat transfer propertys.
Yes a copper box would of been more expensive, but in the long run this would of been a very worth while investment. Now get this, there was a loco at darlington that the A1 board had full access to which is almost identicle to the A1!
Does this loco have a steel box? No it does not & to those who have no idea which loco i refure to it is indeed 60532 blue peter. I Feel very sorry for the people who helped finance this project as in my opinion the board has made a very bad choice to go with a steel box, yes they ran very simlar boilers on the southern in the form of of the west countrys & merchant navy pacifics but the board or the german maufactures have chosen to deveate from those plans to an extent perhaps to try & improve the design. This loco is a fantastic peice of engineering from the frames down over, as the perfomance records have proven. If i was a share holder, & very nearly was i would not be very happy with how my money was spent. You dont have to look very far to see why steel boxes are a bad idea, fine if you want a WD stile design that needs to be cheep and do a job for a short while. Many locos were built like this, but like the 2-8-0 WD locos they only had a ten year life expectancy!
Why spend that sort of money & cut corners like this ? Why change from tryed & tested designs, i no the A1's had there fair share of problems with snaped stays being a problem ect. Just to give you an idea of the cost for this copper box, we are talking between 250- 275,000 pounds max based on todays copper price, great value when you think there are many locos ex BR (BIG) locos that are still running around the country with the same c boxes that they were given in the early 60's!
The thing that conserns me is that when the boiler returns from germany how long will it last? I for one hope that no more locos are built to this boiler design & do hope the A1 is back on the net work rail metals asap where she belongs trouble free!