page_title: LNER Peppercorn Class A1 60163 Tornado
section_title: Inaugural main line trains
hierarchical_section_title: LNER Peppercorn Class A1 60163 Tornado / Passenger operation / Inaugural main line trains
caption_attribution_description: Brand new steam locomotive 60163 Tornado on her first main line passenger journey to London, The Talisman, 7 February 2009. Original Flickr description: Newly built A1 Class engine, Tornado, passes Tallington Junction in February snow en route to King's Cross
context_page_description: 60163 Tornado is a main-line coal-fired steam locomotive built in Darlington, County Durham, England. Completed in 2008, Tornado was the first such locomotive built in the United Kingdom since Evening Star, the last steam locomotive built by British Railways, in 1960. It is the only example of an LNER Peppercorn Class A1 locomotive in existence, the entirety of the original production batch having been scrapped without proper preservation. The locomotive's namesake is the Panavia Tornado, a combat aircraft flown by the Royal Air Force from 1979 to 2019. In April 2017 Tornado became the first steam locomotive officially to reach 100 mph on British tracks for more than 50 years.
  Construction of Tornado began in 1994 and was at Darlington Works for most of the project, whilst numerous components such as the boiler were manufactured elsewhere. The project was financed through fundraising initiatives such as public donations and sponsorship deals and further funding came from hiring out Tornado itself for special rail services. Construction was completed in 2008 and full certification of the locomotive was achieved in January 2009.
context_section_description: Tornado completed her first passenger trip on Network Rail East Coast main line on 31 January 2009, a return trip from York to Newcastle, via Darlington and Durham. As with the trains at the GCR, the first two official passenger trips on the main line were to be for covenanters only. These trips were provisionally announced as two specials from York to Newcastle and back, making one trip on 31 January 2009, with the same trip repeated the next day. This would see Tornado repeating the route of the last tour hauled by the last surviving original Peppercorn A1, 60145 St Mungo, 42 years earlier. These trains were announced as The Peppercorn Pioneers on 18 January 2009. The first train would be carrying 500 passengers in a rake of 13 carriages. On 23 January, on advice from the British Transport Police and Network Rail, due to concerns over crowd safety at Newcastle station due to the 1 February Tyne-Wear football derby match between Newcastle United F.C. and Sunderland A.F.C., the second Peppercorn Pioneer was re-arranged into a return trip from Doncaster to Durham, with Tornado hauling the train for the outbound leg and part of the return leg.
  Tornado's first publicly available train, and also her first trip to London, was hauling an A1 Trust Talisman railtour on 7 February 2009 from Darlington to King's Cross. Tornado's first trains out of London were two Valentine's Day Cathedrals Express excursions from London Victoria on 14 February 2009, a lunch tour and a dinner tour. The lunch tour was later modified to leave from London Waterloo station, making Waterloo as Tornado's first London departure point. Tornado's first Pullman class train was expected to be a Yorkshire Pullman on 26 February 2009, hauling the British Venice-Simplon Orient Express (VSOE) coaching stock from King's Cross to York. This was later postponed to 18 April 2009. The new date also saw Tornado scheduled to run a return journey back to King's Cross on the same day. This was still expected to be Tornado's first passenger departure from King's Cross. Tornado's first trip to Scotland was The Auld Reekie Express on 28 February 2009, with steam traction one way from York to Edinburgh. With Following Saturday 7 March making her first journey from Scotland. As of January 2009, the Trust planned to run their own excursions with Tornado over the Settle-Carlisle Line on 3 October 2009 and 4 October 2009.
  On 21 December 2009, Tornado rescued about 100 people who were stranded by bad weather at London Victoria station. On that day, a number of electric trains, which picked up their power from the third rail, were unable to run because of snow and ice on the line. Tornado was to haul a Cathedrals Express lunchtime special service from Victoria; a number of booked passengers had been unable to get there due to the conditions, and so there were spare seats; the train's operators decided to offer these seats to commuters whose trains had been cancelled. Tornado also had an evening Cathedrals Express dining train, and the same offer was again made.
  In February 2017, Tornado was used by Northern Rail on scheduled public timetabled services between Appleby and Skipton prior to the reopening of the Settle–Carlisle line, which had been closed for a year because of a landslip.
caption: Tornado passes Tallington Junction in February 2009, en route to King's Cross
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