Atomic Systems

Hi

Just to let people know that Top Gears new series starts this Sunday (21st June) and it is showing the Tornado race - thinkI may watch that

Better watch it best thing on TV tonight

Now Clarkson in the Tornado lost to James May in a car

NOW BR always said it's Quicker by rail
I would of thought by the time you have drove out of London with all the traffic the train would of got a head start and the A1 is only a motorway for a bit then a A road so train would be faster probably if they had been in a IC225 train would of got there first if you do Leicester to London that is quicker by train

If you missed if it is available on the BBC Iplayer uk only

Beat em to this. Here is the link to watch it on BBC iPlayer:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... w_series)/

ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC !

I feel the train was cheated, they basically compared WW2 road vehicles with what is almost a modern freight locomotive, due to its speed limit of 75mph, A1s had a top speed of 100mph. They claimed the loco was completed 3 years ago?? It was finished last year! They claimed the loco had to stop 4 times on the way up, nonsense, the line had water troughs back in 1949 and the train only had to stop once en-route which would have been York.

I thought it was pretty rubbish, the only two decent bits were seeing the loco at speed from the helicopter and Clarkson's face covered in soot.

They claimed the loco had to stop 4 times on the way up, nonsense, the line had water troughs back in 1949 and the train only had to stop once en-route which would have been York.

No they didn't. They said that during the race it has to stop 4 times to top up on water and coal. The same as the bike and the car had to stop for petrol many times.

I feel the train was cheated, they basically compared WW2 road vehicles with what is almost a modern freight locomotive, due to its speed limit of 75mph, A1s had a top speed of 100mph

When the bike and the car can only go 70mph, the train had the advantage.

ralph0chadkirk wrote:

They claimed the loco had to stop 4 times on the way up, nonsense, the line had water troughs back in 1949 and the train only had to stop once en-route which would have been York.

No they didn't. They said that during the race it has to stop 4 times to top up on water and coal. The same as the bike and the car had to stop for petrol many times.

I feel the train was cheated, they basically compared WW2 road vehicles with what is almost a modern freight locomotive, due to its speed limit of 75mph, A1s had a top speed of 100mph

When the bike and the car can only go 70mph, the train had the advantage.

You've took what he's saying in the wrong way. What he's saying is that if it was actually 1949 then the train would easily win.

It's an entertainment program about cars. The car nearly always beats whatever it's racing against...

If it were 1949, then there would have been countless differences - no half-hour coal stops to hold the train up, no 75mph limit (though I doubt linespeed was that much more than that), and the train would have been considerably shorter, too. Also, the roads in 1949 were a lot worse - no motorways or anything like that.

Despite the eventual result, it was a popular TV program showing some positive scenes of rail as a mode of transport - impressive beasts those kettles, and you could tell clarkson was impressed by the fact that it was possible to spin the wheels on something that heavy at 70mph... But it isn't really that important, it's entertainment... And I thought it was entertaining.

Tornado would still have won if that commuter train hadn't gotten in the way!

staticxfreak wrote:You've took what he's saying in the wrong way. What he's saying is that if it was actually 1949 then the train would easily win.

Correct, if anyone was paying attention at the beginning of the episode, Clarkson read out the letter they had received and I quote:
"What would your show be like if it had been done 60 years ago"

I.e. Using the exact methods that were available in 1949. Modern Health & Safely measures rigged the race so that the car won...

I don't think this should be taken too seriously! Was just a nice time.

How in all that is holy did H&S have anything to do with the result?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

phat2003uk wrote:I don't think this should be taken too seriously! Was just a nice time.

What Richard said.

Fantastic show and very entertaining. As has been mentioned elsewhere the train arrived ontime irrespective of the stopper. It was good to hear both May and Clarkson take their hats off to that loco, a wondeful machine.

spartacus wrote:How in all that is holy did H&S have anything to do with the result?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

It's a scapegoat, anything that you "can't do anymore" is down to the H&S brigade. Normally it comes from people who want to do something dangerous, like ride a motorbike without a helmet and in their underpants at 150mph down the M1 at rush-hour.

First time I've heard of H&S inspectorate being blamed for something done in the late 60s!

spartacus wrote:How in all that is holy did H&S have anything to do with the result?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

As posted in my original message "A1s had a top speed of 100mph". Modern safety measures limit Tornado to 75mph, thus significantly reducing its chance of winning. Combined with the fact there are now no water troughs en-route like there would have been in 1949, meaning the loco had to stop 3 times more than it should have done. The race was to see which mode of transport would have won had the race taken place back in 1949, but they failed to even use the methods that were around at the time, if the race had been done fairly the train would have won.