FLYING VISIT

Flying Scotsman passes Eggborough power station en route to York where it helped pay tribute to Sir William McAlpine, the construction baron and railway enthusiast, who died last year at 82. Sir William helped save Flying Scotsman in 1973.

IT was the memorial that he would have wanted: bolted to the side of a locomotive and flying down the East Coast main line at 110mph.

Sir William McAlpine, the construction baron and railway enthusiast, who died last year at 82, was immortalised yesterday on the newly unveiled nameplate of one of the workhorse electric units that runs from Edinburgh, York and Leeds to London.

At its side for the ceremony at the National Railway Museum was his pride and joy, Flying Scotsman, the enduring symbol of Britain’s steam age, which he had purchased in 1973 and helped restore to service.

It opened its

2019 season as a heritage attraction by steaming into York Station just after lunchtime, for yesterday’s event.

It had begun the day by leading a memorial trip from King’s Cross to York, which organisers had termed Scotsman Salute,

The more modern Class 90 loco, bearing the new plaque, made the return journey to London.

One of a fleet of electric intercity trains made for the old British Railways in the 1980s, it now bears the livery of the publiclyowned LNER railway, whose initials were previously used by the private company that commissioned Flying Scotsman at its Doncaster works in 1923.

Sir William is considered the engine’s saviour, having rescued it from an American tour so financially disastrous that it was feared Scotsman would have to be broken up. He sold it in the 1990s.

The locomotive, designed by Sir Nigel Gresley, was the first steam train to achieve an authenticated speed of 100mph and the first to run non-stop between Edinburgh and London.

Sir William’s widow, Lady Judy McAlpine, was at the turntable in the Great Hall to watch the unveiling yesterday.

The York museum said the juxtaposition of the original engine with the 1980s train now bearing Sir William’s name had been “a unique event”.

PICTURE: JAMES HARDISTY

PICTURE: GARY LONGBOTTOM. TRIBUTES ON TRACK: Lady McAlpine, widow of Sir William McAlpine, inset below, at the National Railway Museum in York in front of The Flying Scotsman bearing the name plaque of Sir William and a Class 90 electric locomotive unveiled as Sir William McAlpine.