The A1
Inspired by the Herculean efforts of
their predecessors, a group was formed in
England who wished to build a new steam
locomotive from scratch. While many
British steamers were preserved, one
particularly successful group of 4-6-2's
were all scrapped, the "A1" class designed
by Arthur Peppercorn in 1948. This design
was chosen as the basis for the new
locomotive and the group became known as the
A1 Trust. Construction took place in
the city of Darlington, and the locomotive
was named Tornado, and numbered
61063. The original planned
completion date was 27 September 2000. The
project took a bit longer than expected,
with the locomotive being completed in
2008. The locomotive entered
excursion service in early 2009, and was
officially named by Prince
Charles.
Apparently never one to miss an
opportunity, Ing. L. D. Porta developed
and submitted an incredibly detailed ~150
page proposal for improvements to the A-1
which would dramatically increase its
efficiency and performance while
maintaining the "stock" appearance desired
by preservationists. His suggestions
included modifications to the inside
cylinder arrangement, provision of a gas
producer combustion system, enlarged
combustion chamber, increased boiler
pressure, equalizers for the axles (a
common feature in many countries but rare
in Great Britain), and an advanced "Lemprex"
exhaust system. Numerous other detail
improvements were included as well,
showing that Porta had devoted
considerable time to the study of the
design of this locomotive. While the A-1
Trust had already incorporated some of his
suggestions (all-welded boiler, increased
superheat, roller bearings, enlarged steam
passages, and improved valves) they were
hesitant to make some of the more radical
changes to the design.
The locomotive was completed in 2008 and
entered regular excursion service in early
2009. Unfortunately, after some time
in service the locomotive developed
significant problems with the boiler,
including an excessive number of broken
staybolts and cracking of the foundation
ring. After a lengthy investigation
the boiler was returned to its builder (DB
Meiningen of Germany) in 2010 for major
repairs. There was a great deal of
speculation among steam enthusiasts about
the cause of the problems, and whether
they were chiefly a result of workmanship
or design. The Tornado's boiler was
of all-welded construction whereas the
original A1 boilers were of hot riveted
construction (standard at the time-
1948). While Meiningen is very
experienced with the fabrication of welded
locomotive boilers it may be that some
details were not designed properly in the
adaptation of an existing riveted boiler
design to a new all-welded one. At
any rate, the boiler repairs were
completed in the summer of 2011 and the
locomotive was returned to service and has
apparently been free of problems since
then.
See The
A1 Steam Locomotive Trust page for
much more information on this locomotive
and current news about it.
Other Recent New Steam
Projects
I recently (December 2011) received
information from Dr. Christian Hruschka on
2 recently completed locomotives in
Germany as well as a project to build a
main line steam locomotive which is well
underway.
The first is the Saxonian I K: http://www.ssb-sachsen.de/projekte_IK.htm
The Saxonian I K was a narrow-gauge 0-6-0
tank engine, which was first built in
1881. For more than half a century it was
the typical face of steam on the Saxonian
narrow-gauge railways. Unfortunately the
last locomotive was scrapped in 1964 in
the German Democratic Republic.
From 2006-2009 in Saxonia a unique project
was implemented: a replica of Saxony's
first narrow gauge locomotive. After
three and a half years of dedicated work
the "new" I K No. 54 was officially
inaugurated in Radebeul. Since then the
locomotive is under use on the the Saxon
narrow gauge railways. Railway enthusiasts
and tourists enjoy the rides of the
"new-old" locomotive with great
enthusiasm.
Project No. 2 is also located in the
countries of the former GDR. The two towns
of Bad Doberan and Kühlungsborn, both
to be found on the German Part of the
Baltic Sea Coast, are connected with a
900mm narrow gauge railway, named "Molli".
Most of the traffic was done by three
2-8-2-tank locos, built in 1932 by the
German Reichsbahn and because of that
looking like a narrow-gauge-version of the
BR 86 class.
After the breakdown of commmunism in East
Germany both towns passed a touristic
boom, and it was clear that on one side
three steam locos could not cope with all
the tourist trains, while on the other
side tourists are not interested in
diesels. So it was decided to take the
plans from 1932 and built a forth one. The
whole story of this new "Molli"-Loco can
be seen here, unfortunately in German:
http://www.molli-bahn.de/Dampflokomotive_99_2324-4.295.0.html
This 900mm gauge locomotive was built by
DB Meiningen of German, and features
extensive welded construction including
the boiler, frames, and cylinders.
Project No. 3 is similar in intent to the
A1 "Tornado" Trust in England. It’s the
attempt to bring a mainline Pacific back
to life, a German Reichsbahn 18.1 class,
called - because of it’s wonderful
architectural design – the "beautiful C"
(during their time at the Wurttemberg
railways the 18.1 was named "C-Class") or
simply the "Wurttembergian Beauty":
http://www.die-schoene-wuerttembergerin.de/index2.html
Don't worry if you notice the date when
the homepage was last updated: The new "C"
is in a better condition than the
homepage, because the team around the new
"C" are the experts from the South-german
railway museum Heilbronn:
http://www.eisenbahnmuseum-heilbronn.de/
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