LNER Peppercorn Class A1 60163 Tornado

Today's the day ........................ for a photo-opportunity

I just had to go and see it, didn't I?

It was the perfect opportunity to go just down the road and catch sight of this unique steam locomotive.  It's helping out its less exotic relations by doing a little stint on the Settle to Carlisle line between Skipton and Appleby for a few days.  And needless to say it's pulling in the crowds wherever it goes.

60163 Tornado was built in Darlington and completed in 2008.  The reason why it is quite so special is that it is the first steam locomotive to be built in the UK since British Railways built Evening Star in 1960. What's more - it is the only example of an Peppercorn Class A1 locomotive in existence, because every one of the original batch was eventually scrapped without preservation.

Tornado was built by a charitable trust founded in 1990 for that very purpose.  It was conceived as an evolution of the LNER Peppercorn Class A1, incorporating improvements that would have been likely had steam continued.  So although a completely new-build, Tornado is considered the 50th Peppercorn A1, numbered next in the class after 60162, Saint Johnstoun, built in 1949.

Well worth waiting sixty years for, I can tell you ........................