"Tornado" completed her first passenger trip on Network Rail East Coast main line on 31 January 2009, a return trip from York to Newcastle, via Darlington and Durham. As with the trains at the GCR, the first two official passenger trips on the main line were to be for covenanters only. These trips were provisionally announced as two specials from York to Newcastle and back, making one trip on 31 January 2009, with the same trip repeated the next day. This would see "Tornado" repeating the route of the last tour hauled by the last surviving original Peppercorn A1, 60145 "St Mungo", 42 years earlier. These trains were announced as "The Peppercorn Pioneer"s on 18 January 2009. The first train would be carrying 500 passengers in a rake of 13 carriages. On 23 January, on advice from the British Transport Police and Network Rail, due to concerns over crowd safety at Newcastle station due to the 1 February Tyne-Wear football derby match between Newcastle United F.C. and Sunderland A.F.C., the second "Peppercorn Pioneer" was re-arranged into a return trip from Doncaster to Durham, with "Tornado" hauling the train for the outbound leg and part of the return leg.