Getting off to a flying start …
● Crowds greet locomotive on trips over Forth Bridge
The Flying Scotsman steams across the Forth Bridge on a special trip from Edinburgh yesterday, with a pledge from the organisers to make the popular excursions an annual event.
The Flying Scotsman has returned for a second year of Scottish excursions with a pledge from organisers to make them annual events, The Scotsman has learned.
The famous 94-year-old express locomotive steamed across the Forth Bridge on two trips from Edinburgh.
Nearly 800 passengers were due to be carried on the runs round the Fife Circle, and later up the forth via al lo a and Stirling yesterday.
Organisers Steam Dreams said the excursions had been as popular as last May’s, when the engine made its first visit north of the Border for 16 years following a £4 million refurbishment.
Chairman Marcus Robertson said things had run far more smoothly than last year’s trips, which were nearly cancelled when it was discovered with days to go that track owner Network Rail had not approved the routes.
Mr Robertson told The Scotsman: “Everything has run pretty much 100 per cent fine.
“It does make me confident of doing this as an annual event, if the locomotive is available.
“Edinburgh is a wonderful city to come to and there was a big waiting list for seats on the train. I could have filled it twice over.”
A total of 395 passengers were booked for the lunchtime trip round Fife via Kinghorn and Kirkcaldy, with the same number on the evening run via Dunfermline to Stirling and back to Edinburgh.
Those in the dining cars enjoyed three- or four-course meals including dishes of asparagus, baked salmon with watercress, and pear and almond tart.
Network Rail said more than 750 spectators had turned out to see the train at five stations on the morning trip alone.
There were more than 300 at Glenrothes, 150 at Kirkcaldy and around 100 each at Dalmeny, North Queens fer the ry and Dalgety Bay. A spokesman said there had been no reports of fans straying on to the line to get a closer look or drones flying above rail lines. A Network Rail helicopter was deployed to spot any illegal activity, after trespassers caused disruption in England last year.
Mr Robertson said future trips were likely to be over the Forth Bridge again rather than on the Borders Railway, which had proved less popular last year.
He said: “Going over the bridge is the piece de resistance of the whole thing – it’s hard to think of anywhere better.
“Borders has been steamed to death now” – in a reference to Scotrail excursions following the line’s opening in 2015.
Yesterday’s trips formed part of a Cathedrals Express tour run by Steam Dreams from London, with the Flying Scotsman hauling the train north from York. The locomotive was designed by Edinburgh-born Sir Nigel Gresley in 1923 for London and North Eastern Railway, and hauled the Flying Scotsman train between Edinburgh and London, along with other expresses, for 40 years.
It became the first steam engine to reach 100mph, in 1934, and made the longest non-stop steam trip, of 422 miles in Australia in 1989.
The locomotive was saved for the nation by being bought by the National Railway Museum in York in 2004.
“Edinburgh is a wonderful city to come to and there was a big waiting list for seats on the train. I could have filled it twice over.”
MARCUS ROBERTSON