Although Tornado made her first moves just over two years ago, the locomotive has already clocked up 25,000 miles in service.  The landmark mileage was recorded on the southbound leg of August 14th's "Cathedrals Express" run by Steam Dreams.  Graham Nicholas, The A1 Trust's performance guru, calculates that 60163 achieved the mileage just north of Doncaster on the return trip that day.  The original A1s were famed for their reliability and ability to clock up large mileages between visits to the 'shops.  According to Peter Townend a number of classes of locomotives were costed by British Railways in the early 1950's and the total maintenance cost in pence per mile for the A1s was considerably lower than that of any other class 8 locomotive. Higher mileages were generally achieved between classified repairs. One of the roller bearing engines at Kings Cross no.60157 attained 197,000 miles, the highest of any Kings Cross engine. 

Tornado hammers through Retford, on the return run on the 14th August - Alan Weaver