100mph Tornado.

[Broithe]

Talk of lifting the steam speed limits in GB, to avoid scheduling issues.

 

Tornado ran at 100mph today, as a test.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-leeds-39568701?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=58edc9b7e4b053c7bc789434%26Steam%20loco%20hits%20a%20ton%20on%20main%20line%20for%20first%20time%20since%201960s%26&ns_fee=0#post_58edc9b7e4b053c7bc789434

 

[jhb171achill]

Wooooo!!!!!!

 

Visit to Britain needed!!!

[Broithe]

[Garfield]

The RPSI better get 186 back into steam sharpish...

[Dunluce Castle]

Simply stunning

[leslie10646]

Simply stunning

 

Nelson - you're dead right!

 

Nearly all the "tons" that have been recorded with steam have been down serious hills. Flying Scotsman doing 99 (according Cecil J Allen), Papyrus doing the first really solid "ton" (actually 108 mph), Mallard doing 125 (as claimed at the time - the 126 was a wartime re-writing of history to cock a snook at the Germans) were all done down Stoke Bank.

 

Last night, Tornado seems to have done the ton on near level track, for most of Newcastle to York is pretty flat (yes, there are one or two nasty hills, but nothing to fly down) - and that is serious stuff for a steam loco.

 

In the last days of the Bulleid pacifics, they did the ton several times down the racetrack a mile for where I'm sitting at the moment - again fairly level track - marginally downhill.

 

The TRUE World Record holder - the German 05 Class 4-6-4 did 125 on almost level track in 1936. That said, the A4 was an amazing machine, for as well as its ability to do the ton, they could really pull a big heavy train - the 05 was seldom put to that kind of test.

 

As the only "timer" of steam trains on this site - Boy do I wish I'd been there!

 

I have done the ton - with the East German Pacific 18.201 - down a near vertical hill near Gloggnitz in Austria - thirty years ago - not fifty as this film suggests!

 

Thanks Broithe for putting this up - none of my timing friends has commented to me yet - do they even know?

 

Leslie

PS I'm off to book the first 90mph run!

Edited April 12, 2017 by leslie10646

[jhb171achill]

Leslie - I'll discuss with Norman when I see him!!!!!

 

Maybe you, he and I might meet soon, in a carriage behind her.....

[leslie10646]

Norman (and David Houston) has timed 100mph through Andover (bottom of a good hill) with a Merchant Navy driven by the late Bill Hooker of Nine Elms.

 

He was on the same train as me when I did 96mph with Clan Line early one Saturday morning in March 1967 near Winchfield. That determined where my ashes will go!

 

I wound Weshty up nicely one afternoon when he rang me when I was on my favourite walk. I was standing on a bridge near here and was able to tell him that I'd been under it at 88mph with a steam loco.

[jhb171achill]

Best I did behind steam was a 70 mile stretch on the footplate of a 5ft 6in gauge "WP" class streamlined 4.6.2 west of Lucknow, at a steady 88 miles per hour in India in 1979. The power of those things was supernatural - he had TWENTY ONE heavily loaded bogies behind him, though it was all level......

 

And the famous 84 mph with No. 4 from Attymon to Ballinasloe some time in the early 1990s.

 

As our youthful colleagues here might say, "hellfire"; but not a wretched diesel in sight!

[WRENNEIRE]

I did 35MPH down Knockmaroon Hill on my mothers Raleigh All Steel with no brakes, finished up at the Strawberry Hall without pedalling!

[Broithe]

I did 35MPH down Knockmaroon Hill on my mothers Raleigh All Steel with no brakes, finished up at the Strawberry Hall without pedalling!

 

[Garfield]

I did 35MPH down Knockmaroon Hill on my mothers Raleigh All Steel with no brakes, finished up at the Strawberry Hall without pedalling!

 

That was convenient...

[Noel]

Steam trains at speed