[PRCo] The Tornado

[Schneider Fred]

Guys:
This BBC film strip is as far as it gets from the mission of  
Derrick's address list.   But some of you will smile looking at it.    
Enjoy it.   But think of this as analogous to someone today building  
a brand new Sprague Richmond car from scratch because no one saved  
it, only even more expensive.

For those of us who were there in the old days, this is something  
that brings tears to the eyes.   And for Fred, who has journeyed "up  
the East Coast mainline" behind steam at 75 miles per hour," this  
took me back home.    As our friend Phil Craig said, "there will  
always be an England."

Here's a video from the BBC on the first run of the newly built steam  
locomotive in Britain.
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7865518.stm>

If, after viewing, you need an explanation, there were A2, A3 and A4  
Pacifics preserved but no A1s.   The enthusiasts just rose up and  
spent three million pounds (that was about $6 million at a declining  
dollar value a few years ago) to recreate the Tornado.   But recreate  
the really didn't do.   The number is one higher than the last A-1.    
The name was never used before but in keeping with British naming  
conventions, it follows that of a military aircraft.   John would  
know the specific details.   And it isn't exactly like the original  
A1s that were retired 40-odd years ago.   They had vacuum brakes.    
This critter is fitted out with both vacuum and air brakes so it can  
haul old or more modern consists.   The boiler is welded because no  
one still has the technology to rivet one.   Actually, no one in  
Britain could build a boiler ... it was done in eastern Germany.    
You only imagine what it took to get a new steam locomotive certified  
to run at 75 mph in Britain today!

Trains magazine took a survey recently to find out what the Americans  
would like to see recreated and discovered we are so regionally  
fragmented that it would be impossible to recreate one engine that  
everyone could accept.

Realistically, a lot of what we might like to see is impossible to  
build, such as a New York Central "Hudson" because there is no  
foundry around today capable of producing a forged steel frame.

Fred