The owner of Flying Scotsman at the time, Alan Pegler, suffered personal financial ruin from that 1969-71 expedition. He also managed to charm his way into permission to operate over many railroads with oddball foreign equipment, in a manner truly unbelievable to modern railroaders.

The only way I could foresee this happening with Tornado would be for the moral equivalent of the Sacramento Railfairs, or some shindigs for a major national railroad anniversary, such as the 200th anniversary of the B&O--in 2029..............

Possibly - but not likely - as a "clean coal" power demonstrator, as part of an effort to move from imported oil to domestic coal. I'd go to coal producers rather than railroads first for support, then with a funded project in your pocket go to the railroads.

dave

It's clearly a very long shot that a program similar to the A1 Tornado could be done here for many of the reasons covered.

However, there might just be the aligning of the planets ( class 1's desire for public support to help them avert renationalization, resurgence of Amtrak, a President who respects/admires our heritage/history etc., etc.) sufficient to allow the seed to blossom into a mighty oak?????

As Dante Porta was fond of often saying...." never ever give up!!"

Let's keep our powder dry!!

Ross Rowland

Look at the resent posts and link about the Red Devil.Now what is it we should be building? old designs or somthing which shows we can move with the times? The A1 is like alot of the locos mentined in this line of posts just a traditional one. The 5AT is a step forward but only a development from the 3450. Some of the next stage was being developed in GCR and MW. 614 was worth doing to learn what to build next but only a new build will have the drawbacks of a retrofit removed. Think about it! What has to be built has to be for the future not the past conditions.

Has some one in the USA have the courage to look forward and try for the future face of steam? Time will tell.

Along this same line, could a group be formed to retrofit one of the QJs here in the States to what David Wardale had suggested for the QJ2?

That would be an interesting project. The design is all done if you could just find a set of plans. I wonder if all those brand-new SKF roller bearings he had purchased there specifically for the QJ2 prototype are still sitting around gathering dust in Datong?

No one has yet answered the fundamental question of where this new steam engine, whatever it ends up being will run. Tornado had the mainlines of Britain to run on since the day she was conceived. Until this question is answered definitively, the reasons for running ANY mainline steam in our country is in jeporady.

Why build one... because someone wants to.... where will it run... remember 1522 being put away for lack of a place to run. There are others too.

If we did the QJ2 project I don't see why it couldn't run on Iowa Interstate or RJ Corman railroad.

I am not aware of the plans still existing and if they do then they are still in China. Anyway cant something be done which is for the current situation. List the requirements.
1) it must have the same sort of power as a US diesel unit
2) it must be able to survive and operate in the current railroad facilities.

Go on aid to the list

3) High-volume water storage/pumping capacity
4) compatible with newer signal systems, such as Positive Train Control
5) Ability NOT to set off hot-box detectors and other automatic alert systems
6) train crews trained to operate said power

The latter is more serious than we may think--on a British Rail Deltics online discussion group, the question recently came up as to how train crews were qualified for main-line runs with the preserved Deltics. The answers started with the minimum requirement that the drivers be already qualified on Class 37s, the oldest main line locos left on British railways--which, by American standards, is probably equivalent to still being able to run a GP9, GP30, E9, or Alco Century.

Are you guys talking about something that would be put into production or just a one-off? You wouldn't need to meet most of those requirements for a one-off.

7) I think you are going to need something to replace dynamic braking on modern diesels, at least here in the states. Railroads today are not going to stop to turn retainers up or down and they certainly are not going to change all those brake shoes on the freight cars.

John Bohon

Up to now, I think we've pretty much been talking about a replica steamer for excursion service in which case there's no big need for dynamic-equivalent braking.

If you want to build something that can be interchanged for diesels, the technology already exists, even for a conventional rod-drive steamer: the Riggenbach counter-pressure brake. Basically, you turn the engine's cylinders into a big compressor and use that to slow down the train. ACE intended to use this system on the ACE 3000.

This discussion about a US equivalent for the "Tornado" is 95% fantasy and there is nothing wrong with having that discussion is there?

I wrote to the owner of a suitable railroad on which to run such a loco with the hypothetical question "If such a loco was built, would you allow it to run". The silence was deafening.

The last few posts on this discussion though are starting to discuss something different, probably out side the scope of RYPN

Reality is that the technology exists for a steam - electric locomotive in the US

I've recently seen engineering drawings showing several proposals for both US Class 1 and foreign railroads for both long haul and lesser duties.

Picture a pair of modern road diesels coupled together with one cab per loco at opposite ends. However, the front loco is the engine, the rear is the fuel and water carrier.

HP calculations are in line with current generation diesels, fuel consumption and emissions substantially less.

That is all I can say really because I had to sign a NDA to be briefed and to view the drawings...

TH