Old tech saves the day

[bellinghman]

As seen here: Passengers rescued by Tornado.

It's rather wonderful in its way that when the electric-driven trains were being disabled by ice and snow, a good old-fashioned A1 Pacific steam loco could carry the stranded passengers to London.

He said: "It was a nice way to finish for Christmas, though I think some of the rescued passengers didn't realise they'd even been travelling on a steam train until they got off."

Hmm. I wonder what they thought the plume flowing back along the train from the front was, then.

(Steam trains are wondrous things, but I wouldn't really want them back in bulk. Electrics can run in almost any weather, as the Swiss can demonstrate, and they don't have to run on hydrocarbons.)

Comments

[hesadevil.livejournal.com]

Isn't there a regular steam train doing the London/York route, or is it a special touristy thing that happens every now and then? We can hear it's whistle (and sometimes the track-noise is the wind's in the right direction) from our house.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

It's almost certainly Tornado running that route: it would make a lot of sense.

(She ran it for the Top Gear Race to the North, when she did the KingsX to Edinburgh Waverley trip, back in April.)

And no, I don't believe it's scheduled per se: she's a one-of-a-kind beast. As far as I know, she's the only steam loco working the main line, as opposed to those on enthusiast branch lines.

[timill]

http://www.uksteam.info/tours/trs09.htm is the 2009 main line steam programme - 2 or 3 tours per weekend.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

I saw _Sir Nigel Gresley_ at King's Cross recently, and IIRC it'd come from York. Since Gresley lives on the NYMR, it'd be an obvious choice for services from York.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

In which case, I happily stand corrected.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Well, I daresay Tornado does a lot of it too - the A1 Trust are keen to get as much use out of it as possible, and unlike SNG it doesn't have a home railway to use it. But SNG is the NYMR's normal locomotive for letting out (being mainline certified, quick, and unspeakably magnificent) so you see quite a bit of it.

This discussion has enabled me to catch vandalism of SNG's Wikipedia page, so it's all good.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Looking at the schedule that Tim linked to, it's not immediately obvious which use Tornado. Well, except where 'Peppercorn' appears in the title, of course. Following the links, the engine used for an appreciable number, but not all, of the trips up the line that passes hesadevil's property actually is Tornado.