60163 'Tornado' | 'The White Rose' - London Kings Cross to York - Saturday 12th July 2025

#steam #rail200 #heatwave

Saturday 12th July would see the Railway Touring Company run another of their regular 'White Rose' tours along the route from London Kings Cross to York and return. The tour would be routed along the Hertford Loop initially, before direct down the ECML to York via Stevenage, Peterborough, Grantham and Doncaster. The return would be direct up the ECML as far as Doncaster, before running via Lincoln to Peterborough, where steam would swap to diesel for the final sprint back to London Kings Cross. A1 no.60163 'Tornado' would this year be in charge of the steam legs.

With the current heatwave (or is it just summer?) the fire risk status for the network was heading progressively to black allround as the weekend approached - black is no steam (green steam is fine, amber requires a diesel, red diesel to do all the work, black no steam). By Friday North West, Central, West Coast South and Western regions were all black, but the east coast remaind amber. 'Tornado' was operating the Northern Belle in Scotland during the week and her light engine path back to Southall on Friday was changed to run down the ECML, vice the WCML, to avoid the black area and ensure steam would be at the head of 'The White Rose'.

Work commitments meant I could only stay local and only one location was possible, given the probable lack of steam performance I didn't really mind. It was already 22 degrees when I left work at 8.10am and drove 10 minutes back to Stevenage and Bridge Road, overlooking the ECML just north of Stevenage, a spot where usually the loco will be working hard on tours with a passenger pick up at Stevenage like today. Two cameras are set up and we see 'Tornado' give a blast on the whistle as she departs north and works under the bridge, being worked cautiously for obvious reasons with the diesel at the rear assisting to get up to line speed.

Photo...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/alts198...