Sunday 9 October 2011

Canterbury Tornado 60163 Steam Locomotive, Dover Priory Rail Station, Kent, UK

The LNER A1 Class 4-6-2 no 60163 Tornado Steam Locomotive venting steam while stationary at Platform 1 of the Victorian Dover Priory Railway Station, England:

LNER (London and North Eastern Railway) A1 Class 4-6-2 no 60163 Tornado Steam Locomotive at Dover Priory Railway Station. Peppercorn Class, British Railways. Priory Hotel (pub), Priory Station Approach Road.
(Click this Canterbury Tornado 60163 Steam Locomotive text link to see the largest size)


LNER stands for "London and North Eastern Railway".

The steam is partially obscuring The Priory Hotel on the far side of Priory Station Approach Road. The houses to the right of the pub front onto Priory Gate Road, the western border to Dover College. The flat-roofed white building towards top-left is the Dover Priory Booking Hall.

The photo was taken from the road-bridge on Folkestone Road at 5.47 pm on Saturday, June the 18th, 2011, during an evening cycle ride around town (Robsons Yard - Eastern Docks - Prince of Wales Pier - Robsons Yard).

The Canterbury Tornado is shown part-way through a Willesden - Canterbury - Willesden (Brent, London) round-trip railtour calling at the train stations listed below:

Outward journey with Headcode 1Z70

Willesden SW, Kensington Olympia (London), Longhedge Jc, Nunhead, Shortlands Jnc, Orpington, Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, Paddock Wood, Headcorn (water), Ashford International (Channel Tunnel), Canterbury West

Return journey with Headcode 1Z71

Canterbury West, Minster, Deal, Dover Priory arrive 17:53 (the train was early), depart 17:55, Folkestone Central, Ashford International (Channel Tunnel), Headcorn, Paddock Wood, Tonbridge, Sevenoaks, Orpington , Shortlands Jnc, Nunhead, Longhedge Jc, Kensington Olympia

Return journey with Headcode 1Z72

Kensington Olympia, Willesden SW

The Canterbury Tornado train began the day by being diesel hauled from Poole to Willesden SW (headcode 1Z70) with the following pick-up points: Poole, Branksome, Bournemouth, Christchurch, Brokenhurst, Southampton, Fareham, Cosham, Havant, Woking (timings at link below).

A headcode is a train reporting number used by railway staff in Great Britain to identify a particular train service. For example, the Canterbury Tornado began as 1 (Express) Z (Special) 70 (ID number).

The LNER A1 Class 4-6-2 no 60163 Tornado Steam Locomotive

The 60163 Tornado is a main-line steam locomotive built in Darlington, 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. Designed to meet modern safety and certification standards, Tornado runs on the UK rail network and on mainline-connected heritage railways. The locomotive is named after the Panavia Tornado military jet.

The locomotive was built by the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust, a charitable trust founded in 1990 to build Tornado and possibly further locomotives. Tornado was conceived as an evolution of the LNER Peppercorn Class A1 class, incorporating improvements likely had steam continued, and changes for cost, safety, manufacturing and operational benefits, while replicating the original design's sound and appearance. Tornado, completely new-built, is considered the 50th Peppercorn A1, numbered next in the class after 60162, Saint Johnstoun, built in 1949.

The 49 original Peppercorn A1s were built in Doncaster and Darlington for the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). Tornado was built in the trust's Darlington works. The original 49 locomotives were scrapped by 1966 after an average service of 15 years. None survived into preservation, and Tornado fills a gap in the classes of restored steam locomotives that used to operate on the East Coast Main Line.

Tornado moved under her own power for the first time on 29 July 2008 at Darlington, and then spent two months at the preserved Great Central Railway double-track tourist railway in Loughborough, where she was tested up to 60 mph (97 km/h) and operated her first passenger train. Tornado then moved to the National Railway Museum (NRM) in York for three test runs on the main line up to 75 mph (121 km/h). After repainting into LNER Apple Green, Tornado was approved for main-line passenger operation. On 31 January 2009 she hauled her first passenger trip on the main line, The Peppercorn Pioneer, from York to Newcastle and back.

Some LNER A1 Class 4-6-2 no 60163 Tornado Steam Locomotive specifications (full list at link below):

Power type: Steam
Designer: Arthur Peppercorn (last LNER Chief Mechanical Engineer, CME)
Builder: A1 Steam Locomotive Trust
Build date: 1994–2008
Configuration: 4-6-2
Locomotive weight: 105.2 long tons (106.9 t)
Tender weight: 60.9 long tons (61.9 t)
Locomotive and tender combined weight: 166.1 long tons (168.8 t)
Fuel type: Coal
Fuel capacity: 7.5 long tons (7.6 t)
Water capacity: 6,000 imperial gallons (27,000 litres)

History of Dover Priory Train Station

The Victorian Dover Priory opened on 22 July 1861 as the temporary terminus of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR). It became a through station on 1 November 1861 with the completion of a tunnel though the Western Heights to gain access to the Western Docks area, where LCDR created Dover Harbour station.

Initially the station was known as Dover Town but was renamed in July 1863.

More information (including sources used) can be found on this photo's original webpage at:

Canterbury Tornado 60163 Steam Locomotive, Dover Priory Rail Station

Also see:

The Oliver Cromwell 70013 Steam Locomotive, Dover Priory Rail Station
The Funeral Locomotive of King George VI, Dover Priory Rail Station
Dover Priory Rail Station, Folkestone Road, from the Western Heights
Night Panorama of Dover Priory Rail Station from the Western Heights

For a partial view of the old Dover Marine Railway Station building (Western Docks) see:

Lord Warden House at Daybreak, Admiralty Pier, Western Docks, Dover

An Urban Dover history photo.

All photos relating to trains and rail transport are indexed under the Dover Priory Rail Station, Railway and Railway Station category labels.

Clickable thumbnails of most railway-related photos from the main Panoramio Images of Dover website are available on this blog on the Urban Page (also linked to below the blog title).

The main site Panoramio photos are each accompanied by a Google Earth satellite map. However, the images are smaller than those on the Images of Dover Blog and the captions are less well formatted.

John Latter / Jorolat

Dover Blog: The Psychology of a Small Town

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