"Tornado" is indeed marvellous. No matter how beautifully an old loco is restored, it will still have honourable scars betraying its age. But the new A1 made me rub my eyes - it really is pristine, like a sort of mammoth Hornby model scaled up if that doesn't sound daft! I had the privilege of having a look in the cab and it's a combination of traditional controls and various black boxes for safety systems. And would you believe a No Smoking sticker.

Eric, there were three gas turbine locos constructed in the UK - the first one, 18000, ordered by the GWR from Brown Boveri, is still extant minus gas turbine and the odd wheelset. Saw it at Barrow Hill last year. 18100 was a later British (Metropolitan Vickers) built example - this was converted to 25KV electric and used for crew training. Scrapped unfortunately. GT3 was the wackiest, also the most handsome - it closely resembled a steam locomotive e.g. a Black 5, having coupled wheels, a tender and a single cab at the rear of the loco! It was I think made by English Electric and was also unfortunately scrapped. There was also the APT test train which had Leyland gas turbine power.

I believe all the British gas turbine designs, as with the American ones and others, foundered on fuel consumption issues (and the exhausts were pretty hot too - I heard GT3 couldn't be parked up with the exhaust under a bridge).