A1 June 26, 2010

Tornado temporarily withdrawn

Two suspected faulty stays in Tornado's boiler were identified during a routine inspection of the locomotive by fitters at Stewarts Lane depot on the morning of Saturday 26th June. These faults were not present when a similar inspection of Tornado was conducted on Friday 25th June during the locomotive's lay-over at Crewe Heritage Centre following her use on 'The Border Raider' excursion the day before.

This new discovery follows the identification of five defective stays in late May/early June and the subsequent replacement of these five stays and seven neighbouring stays during repairs at Hither Green depot.

The A1 Steam locomotive Trust has therefore taken the safe and prudent decision to temporarily withdraw Tornado from service to enable a comprehensive repair to be put in place. Since the earlier defects were discovered the Trust has been conducting a thorough investigation into the likely causes, which has yet to be completed. All of the Trust's customers have been advised of the situation and will be informed of Tornado's planned return to service date as soon as possible.

From the UK National Preservation board (Monday):
"Interesting story in the latest issue of Heritage Railway (out on 21st) which says that 60163 will be moving from Southall to a "new home" for her planned Winter overhaul. The boiler may also be sent back to Germany for work to be carried out as part of the overhaul. She may be out of action for 6 months."


Dave L,

This thread is typical of why RYPN is in the doldrums. Several confessed "not an expert"s that profess multiple times they know reality without any research, even into the RYPN archives.

For the newbies:

First run Nov. 2008
First staybolt problem May 2010
Rework at Meiningen Feb-Mar 2011 renewal of stays (some 1,100 to be replaced)
Five year anniversary of first run Nov. 4, 2013
First trip canceled for stay problems with second set of side sheets Nov. 23, 2013
History repeats itself.

This page on here...
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30711&p=159520&hilit=tornado+stays#p159520

OK, now we're getting somewhere....less than 2 years of (presumably) fairly intensive use by today's standards and 1100 stays are in trouble. There's clearly a problem with the design, workmanship or materials in the new boiler. Matt, few if any of the rest of us are privy to the investigation and conclusion as you are. I think we'd like to be clued in.

Moving along....now something a bit over two years later and we have 5 stays in trouble but only two being replaced and mention of new side sheets? I could easily understand 5 stays if intensively operated under heavy load, 2 stays as a result of some other problem even if only used in light occasional service. It would be interesting to see how the root cause compares to the previous situation, certainly this is much improved in any case.

I'm left to wonder if there are design considerations that aren't obvious that may be getting overlooked when transcribing historic plans for riveted boilers to welded modern construction. Comparing to Puffing Billy and the new generation welded Na boilers, which proved to be far more robust than their riveted predecessors......questions.

dave

One other factor to remember here:

I presume that this boiler was returned to Meiningen for repair in part because the boiler was still, in either a legal or moral sense, "under warranty." We modern guys don't have the luxury of being able to take a boiler back to Altoona, Doncaster, Roanoke, Gorton, Eddystone, Richmond, Mihara, or Lima and saying "Hey, you screwed up; make this right!" (Oh, if only we could do that with a certain couple PRR steamers now.....)

Having said that, the degree of scope between 1100 stays and two/five stays is on the order of magnitude between a crankshaft failure or blown cylinder and a fouled spark plug or fuel injector. Though the issue is worth examining and stroking the chin in thought, I agree that Brother Austin appears, in actions, to be on something of a "witch hunt" against Meiningen, or displaying an inordinate degree of prejudice in examining the situation.

If I recall correctly, at least 650 of those "1100 stays" were the necessary consequence of plate replacement, and I suspect some fairly large number of others were 'preventive maintenance' replacements done at the time the defectively designed mud-ring rebuild was done. (If I remember correctly, the overall maintenance cost for all the work done when Tornado's boiler was at the German shop was something like 50,000 pounds, which does not seem too god-awful considering the amount of work actually involved...) Some mention has been made about the combination of very severe 'working' needed for modern mainline operation, combined with a frankly disastrous-sounding operating policy which saw the locomotive repeatedly thermally cycled to working pressure for 1-2 days and then cooled completely for a substantial time. I am inclined to believe that a few stays 'here and there' might be expected to fail in any boiler, Meiningen or otherwise.

But there has been an abysmal failure to document exactly which stays have failed, and the precise mechanical and metallurgical analysis of the failures -- I for one have had it up to here with cutesy British/Australian excuses and official stonewalling regarding both the failures and the possible reasons for them. I know Mr. Austin is the most likeluy to know not only what the likely cause of these failures may be, but also to know, or be able to find out, exactly what the cause of each of these failures is -- so I give him more than usual credence even if he happens to have an anti-Meiningen 'bias'.

I don't think, however, that there's a 'sickening here-we-go feeling' that five stays in the spring and two more slightly accelerating a scheduled maintenance is a herald of another hundred-staybolt fiesta. On the other hand, I'm a Christian Scientist with appendicitis regarding how far I trust that only a couple of 'normal' popped staybolts will be the only concern... and if Mr. Austin in fact has knowledge or reasonable suspicion of massive intrinsic design problems with Tornado's staybolt design or implementation, I'd like to hear all the technical details in full.

I'm not going to speculate on Matt's motivations other than to inform. I think a certain amount of concern about the possibility of a pattern of problems is appropriate, and he's one of the most knowledgeable boiler people I know. I think unvarnished real information in legitimate and meaningful context is what we most need to understand the situation as whatever it is in reality.

dave

Lots of foam here (again) with little but rumor to hang it on. We need to act like railroad guys and not lawyers here. Only lawyers argue that imperfect systems must be perfect. It is a little late to ask the old timers about the frequency of stay failure in regular U.S. mainline service, but we all know that that hammering stays to find broken ones was (and is) a requirement at every inspection and that stay replacement was an everyday occurrence. Who are the folks who are currently operating steam full time? Ask the C&TS, the Durango & Silverton, TVRM, Strasburg and Cass what their experience is. Yes, they ARE running heritage equipment, but if it is supposedly better engineered than Tornado, we may learn something important

This has nothing to do with US mainline historic practice or with US anything......

dave

Aye, but we're not all xenophobes here......

..... (says this "part owner" of three British mainline diesel locos......)

Quick question. Does anyone know if the failing stays that are currently being discussed are adjacent or not?

Thanks,
Stephen

hamster

Because a good engineer knows that if they do their job right they do not have to talk to lawyers. Look up Mr. Austin’s old post on New York Central Niagara performance. You will find the Tornado is not matching a Niagara’s performance. For that matter we only replaced two bolts on 4960 in the eight years I was there. Food for thought.

Robby Peartree

Tornado is NOTHING like a Niagara, apart from the flanged wheels and smoke coming out from one end. Would a Miata pull like an F350? A Willys Jeep run and handle like a Ferrari?

If we're going to draw comparisons, let's limit ourselves to those that make sense. This is getting silly, Sergeant Major........

dave

Dave

Your comparisons are unjustified and misleading. All of those vehicles have certain abilities and you would expect a minimal level of reliability no matter the task (provided it was operated within the limits of the vehicle) that everyone would expect. Further more they all have similar components that you would expect to last for more than a trip around the block.
The Tornado’s boiler being built much latter than a Niagara’s boilers should have many advantages that the Niagara’s did not. People worry that no one will be there to take steam knowledge to the next generation. If some explanations of past Tornado performance are to be believed, the Tornado may be proving that we have already lost knowledge when it comes to design reading, modifying, construction, and operation.

Robby Peartree.

My interpretation of the issues of these modern built boilers, the currently produced steels are not as "ductile" as the materials that were available in the 1940s and therefore a whole new learning curve must be achieved as to the newer materials applicability to the old school/new school design locomotive boilers. It can not all be done with math and physics, unless you have a complete understanding of the problems. Unfortunately, that understanding requires copious amounts of lab or field testing, and that costs money. I consider the Tornado to be a long term field test and I hope they will share their successes and failures with everyone, so we can all learn from their trials.

MHO
Mike Tillger

There is only intention behind the origin of the post;

Deface fillet welded stay bolts.

To which the originator has no hands on experience with this boiler or with fillet welded stay bolts. Sad in both cases for an industry professional.

The method of attachment has no relevance to the breaking bolts. At least this comes from one with both hands on knowledge of the boiler....and the most qualified experience with the method of attachment.

Short of saying too much, the call to remove the locomotive from service to repair the bolts is fully justified. No more to be said. Period.