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New Train to Depart Loughborough Central Station
Posted on 18/09/2008
An exciting moment in the history of Britains railways has finally arrived. Its happening at the Great Central Railway. The countrys first brand new steam engine to be built for the main line, since 1960 is now ready to pull passengers.
The locomotive, named "Tornado" has been at Leicestershires award winning heritage line for the last month. It has performed faultlessly through a series of trials and tests and has now been declared fit by the governments railway inspectorate to pull passenger trains.
"Were honoured to be involved in running the first passenger trains with Tornado," said GCR president Bill Ford. "This is our year of Express engines and Tornado is top of the bill! The engine has been attracting international media attention and our phones have been ringing off the hook with people wanting to know when they can ride behind it. The good news is the date has finally arrived!"
The engine has been built by the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust, an independent group of railway enthusiasts based in Darlington. The A1 Class of Pacific locomotives was designed by Arthur H Peppercorn for the London and North Eastern Railway and built in 1948/49. They were the last of the East Coast Main Lines series of thoroughbred express passenger steam locomotives.
Examples of many other Darlington and Doncaster built locomotives have been saved for preservation, but not the Peppercorn A1s which were scrapped. It has cost £3 million to build and taken 18 years to complete.
The engine will pull its first trains on Sunday 21st of September. These are exclusively for the supporters of the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust who have financed the construction of "Tornado".
The first public trains are due to run on Monday 22nd of September. They will depart from Loughborough Central station for the roundtrip to Leicester and back at 10.15am, 12.15pm, 2.15pm and 4.35pm. This will be the very first time fare paying passengers will have experienced the thrill of riding behind this new and very powerful loco.
On Tuesday 23rd of September, Tornado is expected to pull trains at the same times.
"Its naturally a really big milestone for us and for the engine." said Mark Allatt, chairman of the A1 steam locomotive trust, "In fact, its the day weve been working towards for so long. The engine has performed so well in tests, its great that we can finally start pulling real passengers. Well spend the next three weekends doing just that at the Great Central and then were off for the national main line network. It is a real chance for people to be part of history."
The engine was tested at the Great Central Railway because the heritage line has permission to run non passenger services at up to 60mph.
Bill Ford concluded, "Were also offering a very limited number of places to drive the locomotive - truly the stuff childhood dreams are made of.
The international attention that Tornado has attracted has really been waving the flag for the Great Central Railway and tourism in Leicestershire."