SCIENTIFIC ARCHIVES: STEAM RECORD
Gresley’s ‘Mallard’ was given every technological advantage in the race to beat the German steam locomotive speed record back in 1938.
In the 1930s, an English engineer decided to build the world’s fastest steam locomotive. A new speed record would improve the nation’s self-confidence in the struggle against poverty and the aggressive Germans.
Nobody could know anything in advance. The attempt was planned in secrecy, so that when the ‘ Mallard’ steam locomotive left London for Barkston in central England on the morning of 3 July 1938, most people were told that its brakes needed another round of testing. The engine driver, Joseph Duddington, and fireman, Tommy Bray, had been ordered to keep the real aim of the trip secret.
There was one glitch. Not knowing the importance of the day, one of the country’s most respected inspectors cancelled his attendance, saying he didn't work on Sundays. A replacement was quickly found, and he was to be informed shortly before departure, along with all parties involved, that this morning Mallard was aiming to win back the steam engine speed record from
Germany. While previous British attempts had failed, today Mallard aimed to bolster the nation’s self-confidence by showing that Britain was not about to be overshadowed by Nazi Germany.
Troubled times
The years leading up to World War II were bleak for the United Kingdom. In 1935 it was smitten by major riots, the economy was in recession following the Wall Street stock market crash in 1929, and many workers were short of food, with soup kitchens feeding the hungry in big British cities. Politics were polarising; fascist protesters struggled against rival political and ethnic groups, while in Wales the Communist-led labour movement recruited 300,000 people for one demonstration. Meanwhile, the German economy thrived. Two years previously,
Adolf Hitler had taken power, and in 1936, Nazi Germany achieved one of those noteworthy records that made the country seem even more mighty and threatening: on 11 May 1936, a German Borsig steam engine gained a top speed of 200.4km/h west of Berlin, a world speed record for steam engines.
One of the passengers was Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, who knew well that the record was a major propaganda victory for Nazi Germany and its proponents.
For almost 150 years, Britain had been the leading developer of steam engines. It was a British mine engineer, Richard Trevithick, who invented the steam engine in 1804, and in the second half of the 1800s two different private transport companies had competed on rival routes from London to Scotland, the West Coast and East Coast Main Lines, to develop the fastest and most powerful engines for the transportation of passengers and goods between London and Edinburgh.
But with its failing economy, marked unemployment and social unrest, Britain in the 1930s was no longer the leading world power that the nation had once been.
To save England’s honour
The man who was to save the nation’s honour by designing the world’s fastest steam engine was Nigel Gresley. Born in Edinburgh in 1876, Gresley was supposed to follow in his father’s safe footsteps and become a rector. He wanted to become a mechanical engineer, however, and at the age of 17 became an apprentice at a railway factory.
After finishing his training, he was employed by a design office which developed railway engines, and his obvious engineering talent earned him the job of chief engineer at just 35. One of the many technological
advances introduced by Nigel Gresley was the removal of the raised and windowed central section of many train passenger cars of the 1800s, introducing instead elliptical roofs which reduced wind resistance.
In order to gain more engine power, he designed a locomotive with three cylinders instead of the standard two of the time (one for each set of wheels). Engines with two cylinders caused a rocking motion in the train as the weight of the pistons was pushed back and forth and from side to side. Gresley’s small stroke of genius consisted in placing an extra cylinder between the wheels, which contributed to balancing the three pistons’ motions, and producing more power. Not only did he thereby supply the engine with more horsepower, he also reduced the wear on the tracks caused by the rocking motion.
Since the early 1920s, Nigel Gresley had been trying to develop and improve a specific type of locomotive, known as Pacifics. The Pacific locomotives were characterised by their two small sets of control wheels at the front, three large sets of driving wheels at the centre, and a small set of wheels at the back, which supported the driver’s cab.
Gresley developed first an A1 Pacific, and subsequently an improved A3 Pacific, both of which were powerful engines. But both models still physically resembled the steam locomotives of the 1800s with their oblong cylindrical boilers and fairly flat fronts. A radically new design was needed if the engine was to obtain a higher speed and optimise fuel consumption.
Inspired by race car
The inspiration for the development of the A4 Pacific model, the Mallard, came from the world of race cars. In 1923, Italian car designer and developer Ettore Bugatti introduced a completely new, streamlined type of race car, and Nigel Gresley took note, using a similarly streamlined design for his A4 locomotive. He was one of the first to test miniature locomotive models in wind tunnels, and by designing the Mallard with a streamlined wedge shape, he reduced the aerodynamic resistance along the sides of traditional steam engines when at high speed.
Propaganda as fuel
The A4 model was completed in 1935, about one year before the Deutsche Reichsbahn beat the speed record with its Borsig train. The German propaganda victory caused headlines in Britain, and calls were made from several sides for the nation to win back the record. That sparked a new speed race among different British train companies competing to travel ever faster. But still the fastest train reached only a speed of some 183km/h, a long way from the German record of 200.4km/h.
Beating the speed record became an obsession for Nigel Gresley, and he ensured that one of the A4 Pacific-class locomotives entering service in 1938, ‘Mallard’, was equipped with all the newest technologies. Steam pressure in the boiler and cylinders was increased, and even the steam pipes were streamlined so that steam could be forced through the pipes with less resistance.
Make it happen before Sunday!
One day in late June 1938, Nigel Gresley asked his leading technical advisor to step into his office, to go through the most recent results. Towards the end of the meeting, Gresley leaned back in his chair and asked whether Mallard could go any faster than it had done previously. The advisor suggested some possible technical improvements.
“Would you please make it happen before Sunday?” Nigel Gresley replied.
When the Mallard was ready to be tested on 3 July 1938, it had been in operation for exactly four months, fully broken in and running freely, but before any chance of significant wear to affect performance. Mallard was in top shape.
The trip began in Barkston in central England, north of Grantham, on the East Coast main line. Apart from the speed recording car, the train included several passenger carriages. At 4.15pm, the train left Barkston, heading for Peterborough. Driver Joseph Duddington had to slow down for track work at Grantham, but after that he could pick up speed. The train quickly accelerated to 137km/h, its coal consumed
by the flames as quickly as the fireman could feed it into the furnace. In the speedrecording car, the speed reached 187km/h, beating the British record, but below the German record, and Mallard was approaching Essendine, where the driver would have to brake to avoid the train being derailed.
As the train sped through the town of Little Bytham, it reached a speed of 198km/h, and increasing. “Come on girl,” the driver, Joseph Duddington, later remembered himself thinking. “We can easily do better.”
And then, only for a brief moment, the Mallard reached a speed of 202.77km/h (126 miles per hour), setting a record that beat the Germans and indeed has never since been broken by any steam engine in the world.
The news attracted great attention, but experts were soon wondering whether Mallard could have travelled even faster. The track work at Grantham gave the locomotive only some 24km to reach its top speed before it was forced to slow down at Essendine. If Mallard had been allowed to pass Grantham Station at a speed above 100km/h, the engine’s final speed might have been even more impressive.
Graceful retirement
Mallard operated in the British railway system until 1963, completing some 2.4 million kilometres. Today the locomotive holds pride of place in the UK’s National Railway Museum in York.