60163 Tornado hits 101.6 mph 12th April 2017 Extended Report

good evening to you this is special real history is made in Yorkshire with one of dong Castor's finest designs setting the pace in a secret test early this morning tornado became the first steam engine to hit a hundred miles an hour for half a century so does that matter you bet your bottom dollar it does let's take you back the Flying Scotsman hit a hundred in 1936 the mower then set the world record of 126 miles an hour two years later but steam was banned in 1968 and diesel began to dominate well since the ban was relaxed heritage tours have become more and more popular and that's why last night's run was important to test if steam could be safe at speed and run more on our main rail lines or Tom Engel was given exclusive access on board and joins us now from tornados home in docusate on good evening Harry this is the depo of electro-motive at Roberts Road in Doncaster temporary homes tornado while she simmers down after what Franklin was a fantastic night out on the tiles she certainly looks a lot better condition than I do after pulling an all-nighter now we've covered this story many times in the past the engine was completed in 2008 built to show that steam still has a presence on Britain's mainline railway and built to push the envelope and in a series of tests last night that is precisely what she did the calm and the storm as sunset in Doncaster last night tornado and her crew prepared for an extraordinary adventure it has been 50 years steam was last pushed to the turn on the main line under a cover of secrecy and darkness tornado blazed a new trail on board or off it was a treat it's kind of a thing in my family and we're all 15 train of it I kind of grown out of it since I was little any chance to come see yeah I hopped in the car and come after good it would take a month to plan the experimental run what we want is to now assess the locomotive dynamically that certainly we've proven it's got the horsepower to run it 9,000 hours we've seen well we now want to be ours to go beyond that and just give ourselves that extra margin of safety and performance and that extra margin meant something very special so NATO is usually limited to seven to five miles an hour like other steam engines on the mainline they want to be able to regularly run at 90 and as part of the test they had official permission to reach the magic three figures however you need to do this is quite quite astonishing really I think if there was any problem at the plate they would have backed up as soon as they're done the tongue and they're just cruising in the high 90s it must be a smooth Asil smooth maybe but with the needle all the way over anything but quiet it took two men sharing the shovels revised tons of coal to satisfied tornadoes voracious appetite as they returned to York the driver and fireman would shield so you know sort of swinging about a bit and we've got everything from 99.9 and who knows what to 100 1.6 and that's the problem we're doing these things with so many different speed record in piece of equipment in 68 they said the steam age was done last night proved legends are still being written Wow Tom you the only broadcast reporter invited onboard we're all very envious that you were the chosen one it looks absolutely epic what was it like it was extraordinary on board because it was a dramatic stories unfolded during the evening as well because the run southbound where they were going to push between 90 and 100 was between Newcastle and York and there were only three windows where there was enough sort of space and the track in the room around all the other traffic to reach the magic ton and it took two the third attempt to do it so there was a lot of tension as everyone's watching those digital screens and their GPS devices and then of course a huge sheer when they reached 100 we heard that it reached 101 point 6 our significance is the Peter well this is very important for the steam age because at the moment locomotives like tornado and others that run on the mainline they earn their bread and butter by doing rail tours taking passengers from the capital or even from parts of Yorkshire around the national network for a day out but the national network is getting faster all the times getting busier all the time those timetable slots for those excursion trains well they're getting fewer and further between so if steam can speed up it's not necessarily about saving seconds per mile it's about reaching t-junction sooner it makes the whole rail tour business more economically viable and in an economy that's increasingly dominated by tourism that's really important oh that's the biggest boost isn't it for tourism the tourism industry and rail in particular that's right as a tornado we'll be back in the proper service very soon it will be running excursion trains some of those excursion trains come our way now you can imagine the downturn in places like York and further up the East Coast Main Line is actually the people who ran tornado said I'm sorry we can't get any slots to run because we just don't fit anymore well last night was a long ways of proving the tornado definitely doesn't have a place and possibly that means other steam locomotives might be able to go faster up to 90 miles an hour as well

Channel: David Robinson

Views: 81,483

Keywords: 60163, 60163 Tornado, Tornado, 101.6 mph

Id: 20ayS3AT7nA

Length: 6min 7sec (367 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 12 2017