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Friday, and I’m back at the same spot in Redhill, waiting for the replica Peppercorn A1 Pacific ‘Tornado’ to pass through.  It’s an interesting comparison to the Scotsman, and is a larger locomotive with a boiler that barely leaves room for chimney and dome.

60163 Tornado is a mainline 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.  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 preservation.  The locomotive’s namesake is the Panavia Tornado, a combat aircraft flown by the Royal Air Force.

And very impressive it is too…..

Behind was a long train of Pullmans and modified Mk1 coaches.  It was a long train, that was too long for Redhill station platform.  There must have been 14 coaches behind Tornado.

And most interesting – no back-up diesel at the end of the train.  Obviously Tornado, as a new build is considered more reliable that the venerable Flying Scotsman.

20 years ago, a Saturday morning treat for my son, Michael, was a visit to Redhill station to do a little trainspotting. There was plenty to see, with engineer’s trains in the sidings, ‘Dutch’ class 33’s, Mainline livery 47’s on the occasional passenger train, 37’s on an oil or coal train, and my favourite ‘Jaffa Cake’ livery MLV’s.

Today, I was back in the car park behind the Toby Inn to see the Flying Scotsman pass through Redhill.  It was running about 20 minutes late, but there’s always plenty going on at Redhill, as the junction for both the Reading and Tonbridge lines, providing you like modern EMU’s and DMU’s.

I like the new GWR livery – although anything is better than the purple and pink ‘Barbie’ atrocity – Brunel would be doing a barrel roll in his (broad-gauge) grave.

Then a whistle and a little steam over the trees, and Flying Scotsman came around the tight curve from the Reading line.  The work in the background is where they are taking up the old storage sidings ready to build Redhill ‘Platform 0’.

I’m not the greatest fan of LNER Pacific’s, but this is one beautiful engine, and absolutely spotless in its newly restored state.  I think the German style smoke deflectors go well with the rest of the loco’s lines.

The train didn’t pause at Redhill, but went straight through, heading for Victoria and the end of the circular tour.  There’s another one this evening and you could have paid up to £200 for the privilege today.  However, considering this included a champagne sit-down breakfast and a 3-course lunch with beverages, perhaps it’s not such bad value.

The rail tour rake contained an interesting set of carriages, including this Mk1 Pullman.

And the back-up locomotive, Class 47 ‘County of Essex’, was almost worth the price of admission in itself.

And thanks to the Thameslink driver who held his train in the platform for a couple of minutes to avoid a Flying Scotsman ‘Virgin’ moment!

I might be back on Friday to see the A1 replica ‘Tornado’ pass through on the same tour.