The A1 Peppercorn Class

In 1948, with the formation of British Railways and the end of the war, the East Coast required more durable express passenger locomotives to cope with trains of up to 15 carriages and 550 tons per train. For this reason, an order was placed by British Rail for 49 locomotives based on an improved design of the earlier LNER Class A1, drawn up by Arthur Peppercorn, the last chief mechanical engineer of the former LNER. Prior to the class being conceived, all the original A1s of the Great Northern Railway (GNR) had been rebuilt as the iconic LNER Class A3, with 4472 "Flying Scotsman" being the sole surviving member of the class. One had been rebuilt as a Class A1/1 by Edward Thompson, but this design was never carried forward.

The class was built between 1948 and 1949, and was put onto express duties on the ECML from London to Aberdeen via Edinburgh, Newcastle and York. They survived in this place until the early sixties, when the onset of diesel traction provided by the also iconic British Rail Class 55 Deltic, saw all of the class withdrawn by 1966. Despite attempts to preserve the last of the class withdrawn, number 60145 "Saint Mungo", all of the 49 class members were scrapped, and a hole opened up in the preservationists class lineup.

To remedy this, some 23 years later a project was started to build a new steam locomotive for the British mainline. Due to the obvious lack of examples, the Peppercorn Class A1 was chosen as a subject for the build, and after 17 years of fundraising and toil, the locomotive was completed in 2008, and instantly made it's entry into the history books. The last original Peppercorn A1 built was number 60162, so it was thought fitting that the new locomotive should be numbered as a continuation of the class, as 60163. She was named "Tornado", and was officially christened by HRH The Prince Of Wales later on. She was built to replicate the original look and sound of the Peppercorn A1, but with various improvements that would have been applied had steam continued beyond 1968, including a larger capacity water tank, headlights and tail lights at either end akin to locos and units of today, and various other changes for cost, safety, manufacturing and operational benefits. All over Tornado cost £3m to build, and last year very nearly ran out of mainline mileage allowance due to her popularity, both moving on the mainline from railway to railway and hauling tours.

Here she is seen at Preston, having arrived from Manchester with the Royal Train rolling stock, standing light engine just off platform 7.