Hello,

I found a 4 part video series from the show Top Gear. You may find this entertaining.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBZVPsfCxjI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHT9N6_mWzw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC3IUQp98sI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_02THiFa_e0

Watch for the flying bacon & the A1 rider's reaction to a 70 MPH wheel slip. I did not know that the A1's were hand fired.

I could ride all three of these!

Cheers.

Randy

While on a trip to London last month I was able to see Tornado up close at the Barrow Hill Roundhouse in Chesterfield. This is an absolutely beautiful machine and the A1 group has much to pride itself on. I had the opportunity to speak with one of the groups officers, who mentioned that the plan for the locomotive at one point was to set her up with oil firing.

At some point more recently, perhaps due to skyrocketing oil prices, the decision was made to stick with coal. The locomotive's firebox is still small enough to be relatively easy to hand fire, though I'm sure their firemen get quite a workout under load at high speed. Did mechanical stokers ever really catch on in the UK?

Was very glad to see the engine featured on Top Gear. The show's trademark "look," with stunning and well-paced cinematography, is very becoming to a steam locomotive.

Smiths gages, Lucas electricals, teapots on backhead, fantastic cinematography, understated Brit irony. What's not to like?

Excellent!!

Howard P.

Mechanical stokers never caught on in the UK. There were a few experiments, but the general feeling seems to have been that they wasted too much unburnt coal, and I suppose we didn't have the long runs and heavy loads that made them desirable.

One type which was tried was the Hunslet underfeed stoker, the aim of which was to reduce smoke by firing on the producer gas system and enable one man operation. It was only fitted to Hunslet 0-6-0ST at collieries and suffered from the serious defect that the fire ocasionally worked back along the feed and ignited the bunker!

Tim

In the last video, as they were approaching Edenburgh making one last dash, they temporarily lost one injector and the water was dropping fast. They got it back but it sure caused some anxiety in the cab.

Even eggs-on-the-shovel were tried but the lineside animals ultimately got the feast.

Regards,

Randy

The reality is the train would have won. Oh well it was a great segment!

The train would have won for certain given two things: corridor tenders and water pans/scoops.

The reality of a steamer having to obey appropriate speed restrictions and water stops is no different from the auto and motorcycle having to stop for petrol, obey speed limits, etc.

The only real argument to be made would be to put the auto and motorcycle on non-motorway roads the entire route, entering and leaving towns on the same roads that would have been available in 1949 (akin to U.S. 1 instead of I-95, US 66 instead of I-40, etc.). Even then, most of these roads have been typically vastly improved since 1949, of course, though with more traffic lights, malls, suburban developments, etc. in the States. But there have also been permanent-way improvements to much of the East Coast Main Line as well........ hmmmmm...........

If you really want, there's also on YouTube the Top Gear episode where they race across Japan in a modern Nissan 300ZX (with a GPS that doesn't speak English!) and the "Bullet Trains"--the train is faster but has a much longer route; the car has a shorter but more mountainous route.......... I won't spoil the surprise ending...........

:) The wiki article on "The Race to the North" has some excellent points. I was explaining to the roommate that London to Edinburgh could be run non-stop with scheduled run time of 7h 20m, compared to the 8h it was run in the video. So if take James' statement of being there only 10m it gives the Jag a time of 7h 50m. Ah math.

Hello,

Didn't I read recently a second tender being built for the Tornado or was it for the Scotsman? I suppose it could be used on either.

Randy

LNER A3 4472 "Flying Scotsman" did have, in private ownership and into its private-company days, a second "corridor" tender outfitted as a water canteen; this came to North America for the ill-fated 1969-1970 tour and returned with 4472. I forget what the exact story was, but I believe the National Railway Museum, current owners of 4472, may not have that tender outright, but there's supposedly at least one more LNER eight-wheel-tender frame floating about somewhere above and beyond the former water canteen corridor tender.

The "eight-hour" figure is the old traditional time for the "Flying Scotsman" dating back to 1927, operating non-stop for the 392.7 miles between Kings Cross and Edinburgh Waverly. In the 1960s, the "Deltic" diesels, capable of flat-out sustained 100-mph running and not dependent upon a fireman shoveling 54 pounds of coal a mile, cut the run to 5 hours and 30 minutes. I would dare to say that, given a fresh crew at each high-speed watering stop and a train of equally diminutive weight as the original (200-400 tonnes), one could possibly shave as much as an hour or more off this "Race to the North" run, provided one clears the railway for it, has high-speed water pumps and maybe a second water canteen, and lets the loco go as fast as 90-100 mph rather than the 75-mph restriction with which it operated on 29 April........ Give us the fantasy of water troughs, and we can hope for 6 and a half hours........

Required reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gear_Race_to_the_North

I recall reading somewhere once, early on in Tornado's construction, that the A1 group acquired the Scotsman's second tender with a plan to restore it as a coal tender for Tornado. Later, they decided that the new locomotive deserved an all-new tender rather than a hand-me-down, presumably to help them make the case for higher-speed running. I'm not sure what became of the old tender after that.

Randy, thanks for the timely share, since it looks like BBC has pulled the vids off youtube. Was going to watch them again. And to think because of these, I was going to try to figure out if my local cable company had Top Gear on the schedule. Sigh.

Bob

Bob,

I believe that the BBC Top Gear series is part of the "on demand" packages via BBC America--at least that's where my friend watches them.