Both my father and grandfather, both of whom had connections to steam locomotives in their life are undoubtedly cheering this story(wherever they are) from the BBC. So am I. Inconveniently, it runs on coal.
Steam train’s snow rescue ‘glory’
Passengers were rescued by a steam locomotive after modern rail services were brought to a halt by the snowy conditions in south-east England.
Trains between Ashford and Dover were suspended on Monday when cold weather disabled the electric rail.
Some commuters at London Victoria faced lengthy delays until Tornado – Britain’s first mainline steam engine in 50 years – offered them a lift.
They were taken home “in style”, said the Darlington-built engine’s owners.
Train services in Kent were hit hard by the freezing conditions at the start of the week.
The weather-related disruption included three days of cancellations for Eurostar services through the Channel Tunnel.
Tornado, a £3m Peppercorn class A1 Pacific based at the National Railway Museum in York, was in the South East for one day, offering “Christmas meal” trips from London to Dover.
…
About 100 people were offered free seats, according to Mark Allatt, chairman of The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust – the charity which built Tornado.
…
Mr Allatt, who was on the service at the time, said he only saw a handful of other trains between London and Dover throughout Monday.
…
A spokesman for Southeastern Trains congratulated Mr Allatt on his “moment of glory”.
He said: “I’m sure those passengers were saved from a lengthy wait, all credit to him.”
Read the complete BBC article here
Roger, dont forget that the railway workers are unionised so the bad workers cannot be sacked!, I grew up with a railway at the bottom of our garden, this was in the 1960s in west London, there were steam goods trains and electric (3rd rail, cant use steam with gantries) some steam was clean and some yellowy grey that stunk of sulphur and some black, given that union shirkers killed off a lot of the goods on the rail it is reasonable that enough did not care about pride in the job, even the best job in England (steam train driver!)
Can anyone report on how well the “new green energy” windmills are handling this cold weather?
@DaveF – pretty sure Tornado burns coal. I saw the Top Gear train vs car vs motorcycle race featuring Tornado and I’m pretty certain Clarkson got roped in to feeding it shovelfuls of coal.
Those steam engines were really elemental. It took earth, air, fire and water to make them, and to run them. Perfectly natural when you think of it.
And someone mentioned it before, but even nukes are basically steam-engines.
Coal is used to power this magnificent engine.
Oil is used in diesels. And wouldn’t be allowed near any self-respecting steam loco in UK 🙂
Frankly, I wouldn’t trust a nuclear plant charging around at 100 mph – or even at fifty, especially when a modern steam unit burning a wide variety of fuels with little modification is capable of producing much better results than internal combustion engines, bottled-up electrical power or hybrids. The main problem these days is that the technical culture of steam has been pretty well completely lost (as can be seen from the many uninformed comments on this blog).
The new A1 locomotive does not represent modern steam technique; it is a heroic and magnificent labour of love by enthusiasts to revive a variant of a post-war locomotive class that always fell short of standards of efficiency set in the 1930s in Britain by Nigel Gresley and more especially in France by André Chapelon.
Those interested in learning more about non-nostalgic steam technology can visit the sites already recommended by other posts such as http://www.5at.co.uk/; http://www.martynbane.co.uk/; and such sites as http://www.cyclonepower.com/index.html; http://www.pritchardpower.com/, and many others.
http://www.5at.co.uk/Roger%20Waller's%20IMechE%20Paper.pdf (a very important paper) should interest many here.
Of course all these produce CO2, as will any heat engine, and so will make the plants grow; however their emissions of real pollutants, such as CO, SO4 and soot particles are now the lowest known. Well worth looking into – and fighting for, but you can take it from me that the prejudice and ignorance from all sides to be overcome is even greater than AGW.
I believe oil has been used since the 30s in English Loco’s, cant remember but the original oil burners were painted scarlet, whatever line that was? oil makes a lot of sense in a steam engine, gas might be better.
“SO4?!”
Oops, sorry. I was referring to NOx, which as with the other pollutants the modern steam engine will reduce to negligible amounts due to its intrinsic complete combustion (no need for filters). See diagram in Roger Waller article.
Angry Exile 07: 17: 08:
The engine that Clarkson was shovelling coal into was not “Tornado”.
Oops – yes it was I’m mixing it up with another planned build. Sorry. How many Christmas sherries did I have?
For those of you who think that steam engines release black smoke, not white, are mostly wrong. White smoke (steam) is what you get when the steam engine is running and there is more steam running through the engine than smoke. Just another mark on the efficiency of steam. When idling, however, black smoke is released, as there is only enough steam flowing to get the smoke out of the smoke-box.
Jake
. . . and here she is, the Tornado “ripping through Durham.”