Tornado Breaks the ton.

[tomparryharry]

Dave Proctor, the fireman last night described the firing in one word...'murder'.

 

Having said that his usual job is driving 66's out of Didcot.....

 

It's a hard job to keep that grate covered on high output/haulage runs. Add to that, the coal quality has to be top grade, to burn through properly. Although the wider grate can accept lesser grade coal, it was only lesser grade in respect to some of the harder coals that the LNER & LMS preferred.

 

Ian.

[PhilH]

As a piece of useless information Steve Hanczar was the driver for this run....he was also the driver for the A4's 90mph run and also drove the A4 on the Royal Train when it visited the Tweedbank line.

 

A cracking driver and a real gent as well, as is Jim Smith who was TI on this trip.

[Zomboid]

Wouldn't oil firing make sense, if it's such hard work to manually shove coal in there?

[tomparryharry]

Wouldn't oil firing make sense, if it's such hard work to manually shove coal in there?

Well, you could go for a mechanised stoker. Derby tried it on a 9f, If I remember correctly. Also means you can run on grains, instead of cobbles. However, the almost constant smoke pall would send the greens running to the papers!

 

Ian

[slilley]

It was on BBC News at 6 tonight.

 

Well done to all.

[Mallard60022]

We were lucky on Look North at 18.30 as it was the feature at the top of the broadcast and was a good five minutes and very accurate in content.

Most enjoyable shots of the train at speed and Tornado at Donny this evening.

Phil

[Liam]

We were lucky on Look North at 18.30 as it was the feature at the top of the broadcast and was a good five minutes and very accurate in content.

Most enjoyable shots of the train at speed and Tornado at Donny this evening.

Phil

Oh, I thought it was just between York and Darlington. They should have also run Tornado up Stoke Bank

[colin penfold]

We were lucky on Look North at 18.30 as it was the feature at the top of the broadcast and was a good five minutes and very accurate in content.

Most enjoyable shots of the train at speed and Tornado at Donny this evening.

Phil

On iplayer

 

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08lmdr9/look-north-yorkshire-evening-news-12042017

[Simon Lee]

As a piece of useless information Steve Hanczar was the driver for this run....he was also the driver for the A4's 90mph run and also drove the A4 on the Royal Train when it visited the Tweedbank line.

 

A cracking driver and a real gent as well, as is Jim Smith who was TI on this trip.

 

Hardly useless information, without their efforts the loco wouldn't have moved.  

 

Before I joined the ranks of the retired, Steve used to be one of my drivers for his mundane day to day jobs Phil's description is spot on. 

[Pacific231G]

Well, you could go for a mechanised stoker. Derby tried it on a 9f, If I remember correctly. Also means you can run on grains, instead of cobbles. However, the almost constant smoke pall would send the greens running to the papers!

 

Ian

Why so? Or are you simply assuming a particular reaction from the "greens" and using your assumption as an accusation based on no evidence. 

 

The most powerful passenger steam loco currently operating in Europe is  241P17 an ex SNCF 4-8-2 designed to haul 700-800 tonne trains on gradients  of up to 1:120 and with a service speed of 75 MPH and the last passenger steam locos built in France (1948-1952). These were fitted with a mechanical stoker but did not, so far as I'm aware, produce any more smoke than manually stoked locos. I believe that in Britain 3 9Fs (92165-92167) were originally built with mechanical stokers but it would surely require a fairly major redesign to retrofit an existing loco and tender with such a device.

Mechanical stokers were most effective when locos ran for long distances at a fairly constant speed that they could be optimised for.  Such conditions were fairly common in North America but far less so on European railways including those in Britain and generally far less efficient than a well trained fireman. Like compounding, mechanical stoking was less advantageous than expected so they weren't that common in Europe. However, a loco as powerful as the 4000HP 241P would be particularly hard (close to impossible?) for one man to fire manually on the fairly long continuous runs it was designed for.        

Edited April 12, 2017 by Pacific231G

[Mallard60022]

Oh, I thought it was just between York and Darlington. They should have also run Tornado up Stoke Bank

The loco is/was in a Depot at Donny; servicing and stabling. I missed the name of the Depot (used to be Colas I think).

Phil

[Gary H]

Good to see that the A1 Trust folk are taking this sensibly and are now reviewing the impact of really fast running on the engine - once that process is complete and they're satisfied that the 10% overspeed was successful then we might be seeing a justifiable 90mph service speed.  

 

But that in turn raises some interesting questions about sustained firing rates (although not impossible ones I think) together with others about the suitability of stock and even more importantly braking abilities.  It's one thing to get up to high speed - it's quite another to stop from such speeds so there might well be some interesting computations of brake power going on although in my view having come across poor calculations relating to Mk 2 coach braking in the past I would be far more inclined to look for practical tests  (and wonder if any braking trials also took place last night?).

They did also undertake some braking tests aswell, Mike so I heard. Full-service application from speed etc.

[TEDDYBEAR D9521]

Yes it might have a problem as any machine would. Tornado is designed to travel as fast as this so fear not.

Phil

 

Yes but how fast ?

 

The person you need to think about is the fireman

[2mmMark]

I doubt an extra 15mph on its top speed would incur much greater maintenance cost.

 

Sending WC class and Merchant Navys around backwater Southern commuter routes on the other hand.

 

I like WC class and Merchant Navys around backwater Southern commuter routes. Means I get to see & hear steam locos only a short walk away from my house!

 

And it's popular too. Whenever it's mentioned on our local Facebook forum, there's always a good turnout of local people to watch them come through.

Edited April 13, 2017 by 2mmMark

[2mmMark]

Anyway, how irresponsible is this!

 

Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.
- Dr. Dionysus Lardner (1793-1859), Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy at University College, London.

[t-b-g]

According to the report on the telly, she kept two firemen busy on the test run. That would be an answer rather than oil firing or mechanical stoking.

[LNER4479]

The loco is/was in a Depot at Donny; servicing and stabling. I missed the name of the Depot (used to be Colas I think).

Phil

Roberts Road Depot, Phil. Operated by Electromotive-Diesels (EMD), the manufacturers of the Class 66 locos. Usually a few GBRf ones knocking about as you run into Donny from the Sheffield direction. Bit more info in this link:

http://www.progressrail.com/en/about-us/news/corporate-press-releases/gb-railfreight-andelectromotivedieselcelebrateclass66projectwith.html

[tomparryharry]

Why so? Or are you simply assuming a particular reaction from the "greens" and using your assumption as an accusation based on no evidence. 

 

The most powerful passenger steam loco currently operating in Europe is  241P17 an ex SNCF 4-8-2 designed to haul 700-800 tonne trains on gradients  of up to 1:120 and with a service speed of 75 MPH and the last passenger steam locos built in France (1948-1952). These were fitted with a mechanical stoker but did not, so far as I'm aware, produce any more smoke than manually stoked locos. I believe that in Britain 3 9Fs (92165-92167) were originally built with mechanical stokers but it would surely require a fairly major redesign to retrofit an existing loco and tender with such a device.

Mechanical stokers were most effective when locos ran for long distances at a fairly constant speed that they could be optimised for.  Such conditions were fairly common in North America but far less so on European railways including those in Britain and generally far less efficient than a well trained fireman. Like compounding, mechanical stoking was less advantageous than expected so they weren't that common in Europe. However, a loco as powerful as the 4000HP 241P would be particularly hard (close to impossible?) for one man to fire manually on the fairly long continuous runs it was designed for.

 

It's an unfortunate fact of life that people will complain bitterly about locomotive smells, noise & smoke. I'm a dyed in the wool steam man, so giving someone a stick to hit the movement is not a productive outcome. If you cast your mind back a few years, I can well remember the fire brigade being called to Tornado, when it had it's first steam test.

 

I think you'd agree that the railways of today are a very different animal to the conditions 50 years ago. Not so many pathways for 60mph trains. Now it's 90mph, with a high percentage in the upper quartile. I entirely agree that a well trained fireman is essential to success, but his material is in a deep decline. I can't think of any railway in the UK that does an ash or volatiles test on it's coal, let alone main line outings. Getting the most from a given square area of grate is paramount to high speed/haulage work.

 

I entirely agree that mechanical stokers weren't common in the 40/50/60's. However, it's 2017 now....

 

Ian

[PhilH]

You don't get to pick and choose with coal, you get what you can.

[Pacific231G]

According to the report on the telly, she kept two firemen busy on the test run. That would be an answer rather than oil firing or mechanical stoking.

 

It's an unfortunate fact of life that people will complain bitterly about locomotive smells, noise & smoke. I'm a dyed in the wool steam man, so giving someone a stick to hit the movement is not a productive outcome. If you cast your mind back a few years, I can well remember the fire brigade being called to Tornado, when it had it's first steam test.

 

I think you'd agree that the railways of today are a very different animal to the conditions 50 years ago. Not so many pathways for 60mph trains. Now it's 90mph, with a high percentage in the upper quartile. I entirely agree that a well trained fireman is essential to success, but his material is in a deep decline. I can't think of any railway in the UK that does an ash or volatiles test on it's coal, let alone main line outings. Getting the most from a given square area of grate is paramount to high speed/haulage work.

 

I entirely agree that mechanical stokers weren't common in the 40/50/60's. However, it's 2017 now....

 

Ian

I think they're NIMBYs rather than greens though some NIMBYs do disguise their real motives.

 

I did have a look at mechanical stokers in France and could find only eight pre-war locos fitted with them, two of them in clases of one so prototypes.

Of locos buit for SNCF during and after the war all of the roughly 700-800 coal fired 141-Rs (built in N. America to a design partly based on the USRA light Mikado) had mechanical stokers as did all 34 241P "Mountains", 318 141P "Mikados" and most of the 115 150Ps."Decapods". These three classes, express passenger, mixed traffic and heavy freight respectively, shared a common tender design. Apart from the 141Rs the stoker equipped locos represented a tiny fraction of even the large locomotive fleet.

I'm not sure that stoker design has advanced at all since the late 1940s- certainly not for locomotives. Apparently the type fitted to three 9Fs was a single archimedes screw type. It did have steam jets controlled by the fireman to control where the coal went on the grate so they weren't just shoving coal onto the back of the fire but I don't know whether that was a feature of most locomotive stokers.. 

I did find references to coal pushers on some French tenders (not those fitted for mechanical stoking)  but have no idea whether they were ever used in Britain.

Edited April 13, 2017 by Pacific231G

[Horsetan]

....I'm not sure that stoker design has advanced at all since the late 1940s- certainly not for locomotives. Apparently the type fitted to three 9Fs was a single archimedes screw type. It did have steam jets controlled by the fireman to control where the coal went on the grate so they weren't just shoving coal onto the back of the fire but I don't know whether that was a feature of most locomotive stokers.. 

I did find references to coal pushers on some French tenders (not those fitted for mechanical stoking)  but have no idea whether they were ever used in Britain.

The three 9Fs were given the Berkeley Stoker, similar to that which 35005 (in its original air-smoothed form) also carried for tests. Phil Atkins, in his book on the 9Fs, suggests that the Berkeley may not have been the most appropriate type for a 9F, and alternatives were available.

 

Coal pushers were used on the Stanier 10-ton tenders (for Duchesses) and also on the BR1D/1E/1J tenders.

[Nelson Jackson]

The footage is simply stunning and well done to all involved.

[The Stationmaster]

You don't get to pick and choose with coal, you get what you can.

 

And unless things have changed since I was involved in such activities even if you do try to pick and chose coal you still get what you can.

 

Mechanical stokers tend to work better with small coal but can prduce high firing rates when not needed with a consequence of a lot of cinder throwing and unburnt coal going through the tubes - but good for constant high output.  I suspect taht it would eb difficult to find a suitable mechanical stoker for modern British mainline steam working and it quite possibly would not be an economical proposition in respect of coal consumption.  Two Firemen is a far simpler approach.

 

Incidentally further to Gary H's comment I have had it on good authority that the test run did involve some braking tests which were monitored in detail.

[Arun Sharma]

There is an illuminating report of what happens when the mechanical stoker on a 9F breaks down and why trying to fire it using the specially broken up correct sort/size of coal for such a 9F is even more hard work in Terry Essery's second volume of "Saltley Firing Days". 

[45156]

There is an illuminating report of what happens when the mechanical stoker on a 9F breaks down and why trying to fire it using the specially broken up correct sort/size of coal for such a 9F is even more hard work in Terry Essery's second volume of "Saltley Firing Days". 

I was just about to say that when you pipped me, Ted.

 

My uncle was a Stanier man through and through and "commuted" from Crewe to his native Edinburgh mst weekends by hitching a ride on the Duchess or Princess on the Perth - this "hitch" also allowed him to work his passage as he took the shovel frequently (not to mention the regulator) and that often meant two shovels at work at once, as all three occupants of the cab were firing from time to time, as the official fireman also got a spell on the controls.  He said that the Duchess would eat as much coal as two firemen could push through the door, and the reward was steam in abundance, and as much speed as was permitted (and then some).  So in my opinion, this is the answer for high speed running, as the mechanical stoker was a bit of a disaster in the UK for reasons stated by other posters.

 

However, although a Stanier man, he said that the next best thing to one of his beloved ex LMS pacifics was an A1 well looked after.  He would have been proud if last nights achievement, for sure, as am I - and having stood on the footplate of 60103, I have complimented the A1ST team on their achievements in bringing a dead class back to life in such a sypathetic way.  Now then, what's about getting 6233 fettled up to see a real competition - or indeed a 3 way contest with 71000 - the loco which he vehemently condemed on frequent occasions.