Tornado

You made that comment several pages back. Where is this [lack of] data from? Is there a comprehensive record somewhere of problems arising on the road? While I have no reason to think you are not correct, in steam days, they tended to get on with it rather than make a song and dance.

 

The LNER kept works cards for individual locomotives. Where they have survived, their overhauls and their failures are recorded.

We have also had the benefit of many people involved in the design and building of the originals writing on them and time keepers studying their work at length.

There is so much material on them out there if you care to look for it. There is no “lack” of data where the LNER Pacifics are concerned, just individuals looking to spin things for their own amusement I find.

No one is trying to make a song and dance of it now either aside from same said people trying to turn this into something bigger.

The difference between now and steam days is that Tornado is currently active on the mainline and there is no other locomotive currently active to compare with (60532 will provide a very close comparison once back in steam).

So whereas you had 49 A1s, 15 A2s, 26 Thompson Pacifics all with virtually identical setups (connecting rod length and bogie position excepted) it is easier to compare and contrast when you have many examples to draw from than just the one engine in service.

 

I don't think a bird strike would do it! However, compared to the 50s, the track is different, the ballast is different, the clearances are different, and the other railway vehicles are different. I very much doubt the hypothesis advanced by @class8mikado but strange things can happen. Just watch a few episodes of Air Crash Investigations.

 

Thank you. Loco repair cards come up in random lots at auction fairly regularly, so I am wondering to what extent a comprehensive collection exists in one location.

 

Not on my part. I think she is a wonderful machine. I am merely engaging in a minor theoretical quibble about the reliance on 1950s statistics to dismiss an hypothesis, the probability of which is vanishingly small anyway.

 

The NRM hold engine record and repair cards for the A1 and A2 Classes.

 

There’s very few they don’t have of those classes. Makes interesting reading when you consider the classes’ histories and the current accepted thinking behind them.

 

Thanks.

 

A bit of O-level physics would yield the answer as to how much force is exerted by an unfortunate bird hitting a locomotive.

 

Well it gave us something to Chew on for a couple of days. I did wonder whether anything solid would pick up in the slipstream of an 125mph streamlined contemporary train. but surely other contemporary trains would have experienced something...

 

Maybe it was a stray hare that caused the problem...there have been enough running in this thread recently

 

i think it was Coyote trying to catch roadrunner did the team find remains of an Acme rocket pack in the valve chest ?

 

It would be a bit higher level than O-level as the equation will be non-linear and one would also need to know something of the anatomy of the unfortunate avian.

 

Maybe birds are bigger and angrier these days

 

No frikkin Sharknado available, angry-mutant-seagull as substitute....

 

Well there's a Wandering Albatross (a big bugga) flying round Dewsbury and somebody has been feeding it laxatives, it seems to enjoy defecating on my car.

 

Nah - it was a mutant sea bass, with frikkin laser beams...

 

You are lucky then, Victor, if there is only one. Try living near the sea close where there are fishing fleets. They tend stay around harbours but do move from there in certain weathers. They also have good sight and are often seen following the ploughs in the fields. A final act of idiocy is by new residents and tourists who attract them into residential areas by feeding them - most of the food they provide is actually harmful to them (ask any RSPB person).
Many seaside places now put up signs to ask people not to feed them, Dartmouth has done it for years. Encouraging them by throwing the odd chip or bit of fish has developed, in some instances, to swoops by the birds - often perceived as an attack - which does frighten ladies and children.
Addendum: I just noticed that this is a Tornado thread - some drift here I guess.
However, Tornado is a frequent visitor to South Devon and I am sure she gets 'christened' every time she comes here.

 

Funny you should say that, I'm a Dewsbury lad myself (albeit removed to Manchester these last couple of decades) and my dear father has been making a similar complaint in recent phone calls.

Clearly the pigeons are getting restless.