Ticket to ride
MARION McMULLEN LOOKS AT THE CENTENARY OF THE LEGENDARY FLYING SCOTSMAN
STYLISH, steam-driven and speedy. The Flying Scotsman took rail travel to the next level when it took to the tracks 100 years ago.
Passengers were offered every luxury on board from a hair salon carriage and a cocktail bar to a luxury restaurant offering the finest food. It epitomised the golden age of rail travel.
It was known as simply 4472 when it first left Doncaster Works in February 1923. Designed by Sir Herbert Nigel Gresley, it was the first locomotive of the newly formed LNER (London and North Eastern Railway).
The express passenger train cost £7,944 to build and began hauling scheduled services between London and Scotland via the East Coast Main Line.
It was resplendent in the original British Railways apple green livery and was the first steam locomotive to reach 100mph. It was dubbed the Flying Scotsman in 1924 when it was selected to appear at the British Empire Exhibition in London.
Renowned as a feat of design and engineering, the Flying Scotsman holds the world record for a nonstop run by a steam locomotive, set in 1989 with a 442-mile trip.
It would leave King’s Cross at 10am every day with passengers bound for Edinburgh for the eight hour trip.
British Railways withdrew the locomotive from service in 1963 after the arrival of diesel forced it off the tracks. The Flying Scotsman had covered 2,076,000 miles by then.
New owner Alan Pegler paid £3,000 for it, with the political support of then prime minister Harold Wilson, to save it from being broken up for scrap.
The businessman and train enthusiast took the famous locomotive on tour across the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but ended up losing his personal fortune to the project in 1972. He said: “I was determined that she should still be around for future generations to see.
“You can’t get the best from engines by putting them in museums as if they were stuffed. Part of their thrill is the sound they make and the smell of the smoke and steam.”
His daughter Penny remembered: “I was nine years old when my father came up to my room on a snowy night in January 1963 to say goodnight, and told me, with a twinkle in his eye, that he had just bought a beautiful steam locomoto save her from being cut up in a scrapyard.
“Over the next few years my father and I went on many wonderful trips all over the UK with Scotty, as we called Flying Scotsman.
“For me, she was lovely and a special part of my family life. On many occasions, I followed my father through Flying Scotsman’s corridor tender and sat in the fireman’s seat for a short while. There is nothing quite like it.
“My father had a passion for Flying Scotsman, ever since he saw her as a four-year-old boy in London, and wanted to keep her running and not to be just a static exhibit.” Builder Sir William McAlpine bought the worldfamous steam locomotive for £25,000 in 1973. It was being stored at an army base in California and there were fears it would never return to the UK.
He negotiated a rescue deal and brought it back across the Atlantic and then paid for it to be restored and resume main line operations.
It was shipped from San Francisco to Liverpool docks on the MV California Star and was then taken to British Rail Derby for overhaul. It returned to passengertive hauling service in July 1973 on the Torbay Steam Railway.
By 1993, it was part-owned by music mogul and train enthusiast Pete Waterman, and was once more being overhauled.
The locomotive was sold to entrepreneur Tony Marchington in 1996, but the money ran out once more several years later.
The Flying Scotsman was later purchased by the National Railway Museum in 2004, after a public appeal backed by Sir Richard Branson.
It was restored with £4.2 million from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, and the Heritage Lottery Fund as well as from public donations.
One of the original carriages was brought back from San Francisco in 2007, where it was being used as a static bar, as part of the major revamp. The major restoration was one of the most complex and lengthy revamps of a steam locomotive ever undertaken.
The 70ft long legendary steam locomotive, which weighs 97 tonnes, is now owned by the National Railway Museum in York and is looking good for its 100th birthday. The celebrity engine underwent a thorough mechanical overhaul last year in preparation of the centenary.
War Horse author Michael Morpurgo helped officially launch the celebrations with a reading from his new children’s book, Flying Scotsman and the Best Birthday Ever, at King’s Cross.
Judith McNicol, Director of the National Railway Museum, said: “Flying Scotsman is one of the world’s most recognisable steam locomotives and still draws excited crowds wherever it goes. It is one of the jewels in the crown of our world-class collection.”
And if you could not afford a ticket on the real thing, model makers Hornby introduced its Flying Scotsman model in 1969.
Almost 50 versions have been produced since then and it remains one of the company’s most popular model locomotives.
My father had a passion for Flying Scotsman, ever since he saw her as a fouryear-old boy Penny Pegler