FACE TO FACE WITH THE P2
JUST over 30 years ago and only six weeks into my role as assistant editor at Railway Magazine, one of my first assignments was to attend a meeting at the Railway Institute, York, on November 17, 1990, the formal launch of a project to build a new Peppercorn 'Al' Pacific.
Launched with the tag line of ‘building a loco for the price of a pint a week, the Al Steam Locomotive Trust (AlSLT) achieved what no other group has yet managed - to build a standard gauge steam loco from scratch.
The achievement of the Al Trust in constructing No. 60163 Tornado has acted as encouragement to many other groups to embark on projects to build examples of locos which didn't survive. Many are well advanced and expected to steam within a few years, several featuring in our occasional Lazarus Locomotives series.
While completing the 'Al' took longer than envisaged, being launched on August 1, 2008, Tornado has been around longer than some BR '9Fs', however, the trust was adamant the 'Al' was never going to be a one-off. There were plans for something else, something bigger.
With the success of behind them, in 2010 the trust, led by 'P2' project director Mark Allatt and engineering director David Elliott, announced plans to undertake a feasibility study into building a Gresley 'P2' 2-8-2 Mikado locomotive. It was one of those bombshell moments
