WITH FULL REGULATOR LOCOMOTIVE PERFORMANCE THEN AND NOW
THIS time I am covering the successful return of popular A1 No. 60163 Tornado to the main line after a difficult period of nearly 11 months following the hiatus on the East Cost Main Line last April. As this year is the tenth anniversary of its first main line runs, I have included a very good run from the early days as well as the two recent efforts. To conclude, I managed to persuade Graeme Bunker-James to write a section on his perspective of the first 10 years.
The Auld Reekie
The long-awaited return of Tornado came on Sunday, March 3, with UK Railtours’‘Auld Reekie’charter from Doncaster to Edinburgh – the return of which would be hauled by Deltic No. 55009 Alycidon, thus leaving the Peppercorn Pacific in Scotland for‘The Aberdonian’on March 14.
“All the early momentum had been lost and the engine blew off, wasting the fireman’s efforts just as the gradient steepened to 1-in-118. Nevertheless, the A1 steadily accelerated uphill to pass Cove Bay at 37½mph and the Summit post at MP234 at 42½mph.”
I decided not to be on the Doncaster trip as it would have involved a very long drive at either end of an already long day. Alan Rawlings however, did go and his logs for two sections of the trip are shown here.
Alan writes:“It had been a long-awaited return to the main line for , but after an absence of nearly a year, it was a stylish comeback to the East Coast Main Line on the ‘Auld Reekie’. The charter started at Doncaster and headed north to Edinburgh, but with a diversion via Wakefield and Leeds to York. The locomotive had not travelled part of this route before and it
