The first new mainline steam locomotive to be built in Britain for nearly 50 years was christened Thursday by Prince Charles and his wife Camilla.
Steam and coal smoke swirled around the royals at the railway station in York, 190 miles (300 kilometers) north of London, where Charles formally named the engine Tornado in honor of the crews of Britain's Tornado fighter jets in the first Gulf War.
Britain — home of the world's first working railway steam locomotive — has long been a train-loving nation, and that was evident among the swarm of admirers at Thursday's ceremony.
The volunteers had raised more than 3 million pounds ($4.3 million) and spent 19 years building Tornado.
They regard it as the 50th engine of the Peppercorn A1 class, a modernized version of the 49 predecessors which were all scrapped by 1966, two years before Britain's national rail system stopped steam operations.
"I have nothing but the greatest admiration for the team of people who over the last 19 years have been doing their utmost to produce this remarkable achievement," said Charles.
He called it "a tribute to all of those incredible British engineering skills which made this country so famous."
Noting that the first A1 was built in 1948, the year he was born, Charles quipped that Tornado was "a very good vintage, I promise you."
The A1 Locomotive Trust borrowed 400,000 pounds to finish Tornado, and hopes to pay off the debt and eventually turn a profit by running trains. The engine started earning its keep Feb. 7 when it hauled fare-paying passengers from Darlington, where it was built, on a 232-mile (373-kilometer) sprint to Kings Cross station in London.
The A1s are Pacific-type locomotives: two pairs of lead wheels, three pairs of 80-inch (203-centimeter) driving wheels and a single pair of wheels supporting the firebox.
Tornado's three cylinders aim to push the locomotive to speeds of 90 miles (145 kilometers) per hour or more in operation.
The A1s were designed by Arthur Peppercorn, the last chief mechanical engineer of the London and North Eastern Railway. His widow, Dorothy Mather, was in the crowd Thursday.
Tornado is not a reproduction of the earlier A1s.
It has air brakes in addition to the vacuum brake system which was the old standard; the boiler is welded instead of riveted; it has an electronic safety system; and the tender carries more water and less coal than the original.
And, to comply with modern regulations for operating beneath electric lines, the builders had to reduce the maximum height by 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) to exactly 13 feet (3.96 meters).
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On the Net: http://www.a1steam.com/
Source: AP News
