Saviour of Flying Scotsman ‘written out of history’
Sir William Mcalpine returned the engine to UK but is barely mentioned in centenary, his widow says
THE widow of the baronet widely regarded as the man who saved the Flying Scotsman has claimed that her husband is being “erased” from the history of the train.
Lady Judith Mcalpine, the widow of Sir William Mcalpine, said that despite bringing the Flying Scotsman back to England in the 1970s, her husband now hardly gets a mention in literature about the train.
She believes he is also not given appropriate prominence in the museum which owns the engine.
She said: “I’ve seen quite a bit of blurb around the Scotsman’s centenary, and I haven’t seen anything to do with my husband saving her, which of course he did.”
Lady Judith, who also confirmed that she had not been invited to any of the official centenary events, said she felt it was unfair that his role was being ignored despite him “pouring his heart and soul, and a lot of money” into the engine.
Yesterday marked 100 years since the Flying Scotsman’s came into service. The steam train is responsible for breaking a number of records, including providing the first non-stop service to run between London and Edinburgh in 1928. It was also the UK’S first locomotive to reach 100mph in 1934.
Sir William, a businessman, is often regarded as “the man who saved the Flying Scotsman” after he bought the locomotive for £25,000, days before it was to be purchased by an American company. He then brought the train back to England from the US, before paying thousands to restore it to a condition where it would take thousands of passengers across Britain’s mainline for another two decades.
He eventually had to sell it in 1996, with the National Railway Museum in York buying it in 2004. Sir William was the brother of Lord Mcalpine, the businessman and adviser to Margaret Thatcher. He passed away in 2018.
Lady Jane has now criticised the museum for its lack of acknowledgement of Sir William’s key role in its history.
She said: “I went to the National Railway Museum and had a look at the way they were displaying info about the Scotsman, and it included absolute nonsense about my husband’s part in it all.”
After her visit she said that she had written to the museum to ask why there was so little in the literature about her husband’s role in saving it for the nation.
She said: “The museum wrote back to me and said that we are not interested in the people who owned her, we are interested in her as The People’s Engine. I said she wouldn’t be The People’s Engine, if she hadn’t been brought back from America.”
As part of the Scotsman’s centenary celebrations yesterday, there was a special event at Edinburgh Waverley station, with dancing and poetry.
Simon Armitage, the poet laureate, was also commissioned to write a poem about the engine for its 100th birthday, while the Royal Mint has brought out a commemorative coin to mark the occasion.
The train will spend the rest of the year travelling across the country to be exhibited in various stations and opened for commemorative trips.
‘The museum wrote back to me and said we are not interested in people who owned her’
The National Railway Museum will also hold a number of events celebrating the engine, including “100 Years, 100 Voices”, which explores the stories of those whose lives have been touched by the line.
The 70ft locomotive retired from regular service in 1963 after covering two million miles but has continued to transport leisure travellers.
Despite changing hands a number of times and undergoing refurbishments costing millions of pounds, it cost just £7,944 to build in 1923.
A spokesman for the National Railway Museum said that its exhibition featured a film that remembers previous owners, including Sir William Mcalpine.
“In 2019, following Sir William Mcalpine’s death, the museum organised a mainline rail tour in his honour and renamed a locomotive in his memory,” the spokesman said.