16 November 2023 – Flying Scotsman: 100 years in 100 pictures by Andrew MacLean, Deputy Director and Chief Archivist, The Railway Museum

The most famous steam locomotive in the World, and it’s her one hundredth birthday!  Whilst RCTS members need no introduction to LNER loco number 4472, she is the one steam engine  everyone has heard of by name, even those people with little knowledge of railways.

Andrew MacLean’s highly entertaining run through the life and times of Flying Scotsman was exhilarating, even if one thought one already knew most of what there is to know.  When she was built in 1923 at Doncaster works, Anglo-Scottish express passenger trains on the East Coast mainline were already sixty years old, through-trains having started to run between Kings Cross and Edinburgh in 1864 after the completion of the direct route via Grantham, Retford, Doncaster and York.  Already the legendary exciting but dangerous races to the north of the 1880s/1890s, when the East Coast railway companies raced those of their rivals on the West Coast to Scotland were past, had seared their memory into the public mind and become almost national folklore.

What most non railway enthusiast’s do not realise is that Flying Scotsman is the historic name of an express train rather than a particular locomotive, the name of the train first having become commonly used in late Victorian days.  Confusion as to whether Flying Scotsman is a locomotive or an express service appears to have been deliberately fostered by LNER.  Andrew emphasised that following the construction of locomotive 4472 in 1923 and being formally named Flying Scotsman in 1924, 4472 quickly became the national celebrity she remains today.  She was exhibited at the Wembley Exhibition of 1924, followed by further international publicity at the Paris Olympics of the following year.  The publicity department of the newly constituted LNER (London North Eastern Railway) went into overdrive with record fast runs when speeds of over 100mph were recorded; and the well known LNER locomotive designer Sir Nigel Gresley was regularly photographed at Kings Cross congratulating his  drivers and firemen on their achievements.  The unique non-stop nature of the journey, first from London to Newcastle, then London to Edinburgh (393 miles) was stressed to the travelling public – “The longest nonstop run in the world” claimed LNER.  To achieve this Gresley had expensively converted several loco tenders to include a claustrophobic-sounding narrow passage through the tender to enable loco crews to switch places from footplate to carriage and vice versa without the train stopping en route!

It was not just the speed, modernisation and proliferation of fast train travel on LNER express trains, but the emphasis on the increasingly luxuriousness nature of the travel, with fine wining and dining in luxurious first class accommodation with diners seated in sumptuously upholstered armchairs.  There was even a Flying Scotsman cocktail drink and special whisky.  Ladies were especially well catered for with hairdressing salons and retiring rooms with resident maid servant.  There were modern smart but comfy buffet cars with seats and tables placed in discreet intimate side compartments and if you liked cinema you could follow a film in specially designed cinema coaches.  Sports mad and wanting to follow the grand National? nothing easier than to slip in to a luxury chair with your headphones on and follow the race!  And in common with their competitive rivals in the “BIG four” (GWR, LMS and Southern) LNER roared ahead in their publicity department with richly coloured posters of East Coast resorts and beauty spots, coloured postcards, jigsaws, model kits, paperweights, and guide booklets as well as excellent follow-your-journey-through-the window maps!  It is appropriate to mention LNER’s venture into the film world with both documentary films eg shots of a racing train being chased by a biplane along the river Ouse, and films where top screen actresses were made to perform highly dangerous looking escape stunts from speeding trains.  They would never have got away with these under today’s Health and Safety requirements.

There are those who think the peak in comfort and speed on Britain’s railways was reached in the 1930s and looking at Andrew’s slides you might agree but we all know how it quickly came to an end in 1939 at the start of World War II.  With the railways exhausted and battered after the conflict, nationalisation quickly followed in 1948 when the fast train timings of the 1930s were mere memories, steam  locomotives disappeared and the 1960s ‘motorway age’ heralded diesel Deltic locomotives on the East Coast main line.  4472 survived by being bought by businessman Alan Pegler in 1963 with a final triumph when she hauled the Flying Scotsman non-stop special train from London to Edinburgh which was fully filmed for TV in 1968 at the time of the end of UK steam.  Then Pegler took her on a trip to the USA designed to advertise British trade but the venture failed, Pegler was bankrupted, and 4472 was again under threat.  She was rescued and re-patriated by Sir Bill McAlpine.  A later trip to Australia in 1989 restored the loco’s fame but after further spells of private ownership her state of repair was found to be appalling.

In 2004 she was recognised as the national treasure she most certainly is and the National Railway Museum bought her for the benefit of the nation, in spite of the extent of the work required, before embarking on a huge programme of restoration.  She is therefore still with us and Andrew sees no reason why she should not go on for a further century!  But the big question now is “will there still be any coal for her to burn then?”  She is a living legend, if ever there was one!