Return of the Peppercorns...

Again a delay on Garratts part 2, but this time for a marvellous reason.

This month's (in Australia that is, in the UK it was the february edition) Steam Railway had the most wonderful news you could have hoped for: after 18 long years of waiting and 3 million pounds of finance, the 51st Peppercorn A1 pacific, the first main line steam engine built in Britan for over 40 years, has officialy raised steam.

This means that it will be only a short time before, at last, the locomotive is ready to begin its revenue-hauling first trains. By all accounts these will be on the Great Central Railway.

Although the mere act of raising the fire in the Tornado is significant in itself, it also has more wide-reaching effects: the critics who said it could not be done have been silenced, and encouragement has been given to the other 'new-build' projects: the 'County' and 'Patriot' remakes among them.

Ironically, this is only the second Peppercorn pacific to be still in existence, the other being the famous A2, Blue Peter.

here is the official website with some more recent news:
http://www.a1steam.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=1&Itemid=123