The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
World-famous Flying Scotsman will make historic return in 2019
Tickets to Inverness will cost passengers up to £1,000
The Flying Scotsman will make a historic return to Scotland this year but tickets cost up to £1,000 – and part of the journey will be fuel-powered not steam.
The world-famous locomotive will return to Inverness for only the second time in its 96-year history – with tickets costing hundreds more than previous trips.
First class passengers will have to pay up to £999 for the experience which includes Champagne, cakes and three nights in a four-star hotel in Inverness.
Premium passengers, who will receive free tea and coffee and be put up at a Holiday Inn Express, will pay £699 each.
Flying Scotsman will visit the Highland capital from Edinburgh in May.
However, excursions during the trip will cost extra and the return journey will be hauled by a diesel-powered engine rather than steam.
Last year, Flying Scotsman ran trips from Edinburgh over the Forth Bridge and around Fife for £225 for first-class passengers and £79 in premium standard.
A spokeswoman for organisers The Steam Dreams Rail Co, said: “This time, instead of the short trips around the Fife Circle, we are offering a four-day tour to Inverness, with Flying Scotsman and sister locomotive Mayflower doubleheading on the first day from Edinburgh to Inverness, via the Forth Bridge and the Highland main line.”
She said the price of the tickets reflected the extra cost of having two locomotives, with the trip part of a nineday tour from London.
The locomotive previously visited Inverness in 2000 as part its last visit to Scotland.
May’s tour will see the engine jointly haul the train with Mayflower, a B1 class steam locomotive built in 1948.
Mayflower will also run separate trips from Inverness during the tour to Wick and Thurso, and Kyle of Lochalsh, at extra cost.
The visit will be Flying Scotsman’s fourth consecutive annual foray north of the border, with previous excursions having been on the Borders Railway.
The locomotive made a special trip from London King’s Cross to York on Friday as a memorial to Sir William McAlpine, who was credited with rescuing the engine and paying for its restoration when he bought it in 1973.