Tornado

Aside from the deeply depressing work stuff (made slightly easier by my team members welcoming my suggestion (originally Mel's suggestion) that I move my workspace from isolation in the next door office, which me and my ex manager used to share, into the bosom of the main office: it will take a bit of organising, shuffling boxes and files around), a steam engine went past the house at the weekend. I was in the garden and heard it coming, so I leapt up onto the raised bed, grasped the iron railings, and peered down the 60' to the track below (it was once a tunnel, but was opened out 100 years ago). A big green steam engine rushed by, no. 60163. Hmm looks like an LNER pacific, I wonder if... Yes it was.. the 2008 rebuild of a Peppercorn class A1 pacific, all the originals of which were cut up, with none preserved. This new one, named Tornado is spending a few weekends down here this July/August, having recently been released from its' Darlington birthplace. There is a special bit of me in it as the company that built it bought a replica steam engine whistle from me (which I inherited from a friend) on eBay, in the hope that that they could replicate it for Tornado. I may make a special point of being a trainspotter for a Sunday or two, and see if I can get some pictures.