Home 

The A1s were designed by Arthur H Peppercorn ( 29 January 1889 - 3 March 1951), the last Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER) as the last in a line of famous express passenger steam locomotives for the East Coast Main Line that included the Stirling Singles, the Ivatt Atlantics and the Gresley Pacifics.

The original 49 Peppercorn Class A1s were ordered by the LNER and built at Doncaster and Darlington for British Railways (BR) in 1948/9, after the nationalisation of the railways. As designed they were ideally suited for the post-war world of poor maintenance and heavy trains, with their 50sq ft grate allowing them to use lower grade coal than their predecessors.

The final five were even equipped with roller bearings enabling them to go for an average of 118,000 miles between heavy repairs, making the A1s the cheapest to run of all British steam locomotives in the same category. They were also the most reliable of all of the express passenger steam locomotives owned by British Railways.

Unfortunately, the rapid onset of dieselisation in the 1960s meant that all 49 were scrapped, after an average life of only 15 years. There was an attempt to save the last, 60145 "Saint Mungo", but this unfortunately failed and it too was withdrawn in June 1966 and scrapped in September of the same year. As there was no equivalent of Barry Scrapyard for ex-LNER locomotives, here - apparently -  the A1 story  ended.

On 13 April 1993 the painstaking job of cataloguing, scanning, cleaning up and re-drawing began. The engineering team, led by David Elliott and including Gerard Hill, Bob Alderman and many others, spent several weeks at the National Railway Museum at York and in the end around 95% of the original drawings were discovered. These were mostly Indian ink tracings on linen and about 1,100 drawings were scanned in 1993 and a further 140 in 2001. These were then electronically de-skewed and cleaned with a few being completely redrawn due to poor quality originals.

The completed 60163 "Tornado" would also have an all-welded boiler with a steel firebox and a coal grate.  Unlike all other mainline steam locos the engine would be air-braked throughout with vacuum brakes the secondary system. 60163 "Tornado" was also designed with a sophisticated electrical system, deriving power from a Stones turbo-generator, batteries and a tender mounted alternator. 

The head and tail lights of the finished locomotive are also cab switchable and match current group standards on Network Rail. The 50th A1 also carries frame inspection lamps and injector overflow lighting and - unlike the other Peppercorn A1s, is fitted with a chime whistle.

However, all of these refinements relied on the essential components of a boiler and chassis.

All twelve locomotive tyres were delivered to Ian Riley & Co. at the East Lancashire Railway in Bury ready for fitting to the wheels although due to their size the driving wheels had to be turned at the Bridgnorth workshops of the Severn Valley Railway before going back to Bury for the tyres to be fitted and then back to Bridgnorth once again to have the newly fitted tyres profiled.  

Today most railway wheels on modern vehicles are fitted to their axles by heating them so that they expand and then shrink fit on to the axles as they cool.  However, due to the possibility of heat damage to the Timken roller bearings already fitted to all but the trailing wheels the A1 Steam Locomotive trust reverted to the traditoal method of pressing the wheels on to the axles.  Tests then revealed that an initial interference of 0.00025 per inch of diameter, a taper on the axle of 1 in 500 and lubrication by Tesco's rape seed oil would facilitate the required 110 to 12 tons per inch diameter of pressing force.

The Cartazzi wheelset had outside roller bearings - enabling the bearings and axle boxes to be fitted after the wheels had been pressed on the axle.

In an ironic twist to the flow of British railway modernisation, rolling stock leasing company HSBC Rail donated two sets of brake control and sanding equipment from two ac electric locomotives being disposed of at Shoeburyness: 86223 and  86209.The brake equipment required overhauling by an approved brake equipment repair shop before it could be used but it turned out that only the sand traps - which needed new air strainers -  were usable. Volunteers made adaptors to allow them to fit 60163's sand boxes. 

On 3rd July 2008, 60163 "Tornado" rested on her springs for the first time, exactly 70 years to within an hour since fellow LNER designed locomotive Mallard reached the world steam speed record of 126 mph.  The rest of the month was occupied with final fitting miles of electrical cable and wiring up the components in the cubicles, finishing the cab fittings, completing the air braking systems and preparing and painting the loco and tender in works grey - the latter task undertaken by Ian Matthews to a very high standard.  

Rob Morland fitted and commisioned much of the extremely complex electrical gear including the frame and injector overflow lights, the safety equipment in the cab cubicles, cab lighting, headlights and the roof mounted switch gear.

While at the Great Central Railway 60163 hauled her first passenger trains, initially for covenantors and then for the general public, and was the star guest at the railway's gala.  It might have been expected that some teething troubles would need fixing but the loco worked perfectly "straight out of the box" and delighted the team that had built it.  Test loads were gradually built up and culminated in the loco hauling eleven coaches and a "dead" diesel and developing an estimated 2,000hp in doing so. The opportunity was also taken to run at 60mph and conduct track force tests for Delta Rail.  

By the beginning of November 2008, 60163 "Tornado"had been transferred to the National Railway Museum which would act as her base for the three planned mainline test runs.  These were a stepped series of trips with increasing loads and speeds finishing with a 75mph dash to Newcastle and back on 17th November.  

To facilitate Network Rail running,  on 7 August 2008 "Tornado" entered the Total Operations Processing System as 98863.  Within TOPS, 98 describes a steam locomotive, 8 stems from the power classification 8P and 63 comes from 60163.  In the same way, TOPS reconises 3440 "City of Truro" as 98240.

60163's test runs were generally a success but the failure of the white metal of the inside and one of the outside crossheads led to an improvement in lubrication to the inner one and re-metalling of both.  Delta Rail were once again on board for the Newcastle run and the loco and support coach were festooned with cables to facilitate this - after an astonishingly quick start from York the loco showed it had an incredible appetite for hard work and high speed running, recording an amazing average of 71.2mph before the scheduled emergency stop just beyond Chester-le-Street - which also showed how well the brakes worked!

With 60163 returned to York for a visit to the paint shop at the NRM, the final pieces were added to the certification data and paperwork, allowing Delta Rail to report that "Tornado"  had met the requirements for acceptance onto Network Rail, the Office of Rail Regulation issuing their own authorisation on 27 January 2009. 

Meanwhile, Ian Matthews and his team worked their magic in the facilities kindly offered by the NRM, rubbing down the works grey and applying a pristine coat of LNER apple green with "BRITISH RAILWAYS" in full on the tender.  This enhanced the cabside builder's plate engraved with the legend "No 2195 Darlington 2008", the small white "A1" on the red buffer beam and the "51A" Darlington shedplate on the smokebox.

On 13 December 2008 the final result was unveiled before hundreds of covenantors and supporters of the Trust in the Great Hall at the National Railway Museum.  

The Peppercorn class A1s had one of the most eclectic set of names of any British locomotive class. There were seven different categories in all, the largest being the thirteen that followed the noble LNER tradition of using the names of racehorses. Thankfully, this selection, each of which won at least one of the Derby, the St Leger or the Doncaster Cup, does not contain names that are ludicrous (such as Class A3s ( later A10s ) 60061 "Pretty Polly" or 60091 "Captain Cuttle") or unpronounceable (the infamous Class A2 60530 "Sayajirao" ).

There are six A1s named after birds, the last four, all birds of prey, having been previously attached to A4s. Six are named after locomotive engineers, three each from the Great Northern and North Eastern Railways, while four have the names of constituent companies of the LNER (the name of the fifth major constituent, Great Northern, having already appeared on Gresley’s first pacific, unhappily rebuilt by Edward Thompson as the prototype A1/1). To keep folk north of the border happy, ten had names drawn from the life and works of Sir Walter Scott while nine were given names associated with buildings, cities and areas of Scotland, though one of the latter also has Scott connections. Most of these nineteen names had already appeared on North British Railway locomotives. And last, or rather first, one was named after a local hero.