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Speaker: David Elliot, Director of Engineering, The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust

About this Event

The Peppercorn A1 Pacific’s were a class of forty-nine locomotives built just after the Second World War for heavy express passenger work between London and Scotland.  The design was accomplished by the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER), however all were built by the then fledgling and newly nationalized British Railways Board in 1948/9.

The A1’s were cheap to build, cheap to both run, and maintain; all this being taken into account by a very bruised railway soon after the War, when steel and labour were in short supply and coal was often of a poor quality.

Arthur Peppercorn, from whom the class take their design, was the last Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME) of the LNER, and the first, and only, CME British Railways, Eastern Region.  His career followed that of Sir Nigel Gresley, designer of the A4 class, of which the unbroken world steam speed record holder ‘Mallard’ is a member.
All 49 of the Peppercorn A1 locomotives were scrapped under the British Railways Modernisation Plan after fairly short working lives.  Sadly, none were preserved.

The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust have now created the 50th member of the class in 2008, some 60 years after the original Peppercorn A1’s first ran on the ECML. No. 60163 made her first public mainline run from York to Newcastle on 31 January 2009, and was officially named ‘Tornado’ in February 2009 at York, by HRH the Prince of Wales, thereafter hauling the Royal Train to Leeds.  Tornado is booked, yet again to haul HRH’s train in 2010 to Manchester.

Tornado is one of the newest and most modern additions to Britain’s railways, and is the first steam locomotive to be built in the UK since the last BR Standard class 9F, named ‘Evening Star’ in 1960.

The Presentation will cover the creation of the Trust in 1990 and a brief history of the class of locomotive that the Trust has built.  Note that this is Re-creation not Restoration. The management of the Trust - especially the engineering side - will be covered as well as the means of fundraising. The Trust has already spent over three million pounds to build the engine!  The initial funding concept was to raise small amounts of money from a lot of people, so began the motto, "An A1 for the price of a pint".

The construction will be illustrated using original engineering drawings and the new components.Accompanying these illustrations will be a description of the engineering behind the creation of the parts comparing the resources to hand today with those for the original engines. The Trust’s base in Darlington where the locomotive has been assembled will be shown as well as details from the testing of the locomotive on the Great Central Railway at Loughborough in 2008 and the subsequent fast mainline test runs. The Trust’s hopes and aspirations for the future, plus all the latest news on Tornado’s mainline and heritage running will conclude the Presentation.