Love me tender: The rebirth of the Flying Scotsman

Published on Thursday 26 May 2011 20:32

The locomotive that has hauled one of the most famous trains in the world since the 1920s will be unveiled for the first time tonight after a £1.5m rebuild

• The Flying Scotsman during its heyday

IT IS the great survivor from the era of luxury rail travel – and about to carry passengers again on the eve of its 90th birthday. Flying Scotsman, the steam locomotive synonymous with the most famous train in the world, will tonight be unveiled after a 1.5 million rebuild to enable it to run again for decades to come.

The National Railway Museum in York, which saved engine No 4472 from being sold abroad in 2004, has completely dismantled it before replacing or refurbishing every one of its thousands of components. The painstaking work will enable the locomotive to return to main-line service which it has – uniquely – performed almost continuously since being built in 1923.

Within the next year, its tour programme will bring Flying Scotsman back to Scotland for the first time since 2000, travelling at least as far as Edinburgh.

Designed by Edinburgh-born Sir Nigel Gresley, the Pacific-class A1 locomotive was plucked from obscurity by the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) to front a new premium London-Scotland rail service in an attempt to trump its west coast rivals. The engine was given the same name as the Flying Scotsman train to haul a new non-stop service between the English and Scottish capitals, which took rail travel to new heights of luxury when it launched in 1928.

Completing the 393 miles with drivers and firemen changing halfway via a corridor in the coal tender behind the engine, the service was billed as the world's longest non-stop rail run. Water for the boiler was scooped from lineside troughs as the train passed.

Departing from both London King's Cross and Edinburgh Waverley at 10am daily, it featured novelties such as a hairdressing salon, while the first-class restaurant car was lined with mahogany panels. Radio equipment was even fitted to the train so passengers could hear the result of the Derby horse race. There was also a "ladies' retiring room" where perfumes and toiletries were on sale, and an electric hotplate in the guard's van to enable the guard to "cook a chop or steak".

As The Scotsman reported at the time, men's shaving was offered with an open razor "as the barber's chair was arranged so that there would be no jolting". The hairdresser said: "I have been called the 'Sweeney Todd of the Rails' and the 'Mile a Minute Barber'."

Following the example of ocean liners, passengers were able to select their seats from "printed train charts" which they would be guided to by staff wearing "reserved seats" signs on their hats. The locomotive's fame was sealed in 1934 when it became the first to reach a recorded 100mph, achieved on the route.

Bob Gwynne, author of The Flying Scotsman - The Train, The Locomotive, The Legend, said: "An awful lot of sentiment is wrapped up in the locomotive. It is a very potent symbol of that period." However, Flying Scotsman was replaced on the London-Edinburgh route in 1936 by the faster and sleeker A4 class locomotives, also designed by Gresley, such as Mallard, which hit a record 125mph two years later.

Flying Scotsman was switched to other routes in England before being taken out of service by British Rail in 1963 and bought by Alan Pegler, who restored the locomotive to its LNER condition. It then passed through a succession of owners, including pop impresario Pete Waterman, who continued to run it for passenger tours, including abroad. During this time it set the record for the longest non-stop steam run, of 422 miles, on a tour of Australia in 1989.

Ownership then passed to Flying Scotsman plc, a debt-ridden firm whose plans to make the locomotive the centrepiece of a heritage centre beside Waverley station in Edinburgh stalled. When the company put Flying Scotsman up for sale, it was saved for Britain by being bought by the museum – the world's largest – for 2.1m, backed by a 1.8m grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and support from Virgin chairman Sir Richard Branson. The locomotive was taken out of active service in 2006 for its five-year rebuild, with museum staff stressing the project has been far more extensive than just restoration.

Flying Scotsman will be initially displayed in its wartime black livery – which made it less conspicuous to enemy bombers – before being repainted in its original Apple Green in July.

After the final touches are made to the rebuild, steam tests will take place on the East Lancashire Railway in Bury in June and July followed by trial runs on main lines, with the first public trips due to start in September. In the interim the locomotive will go back on display at the museum, enabling visitors to enter the cab.

Museum director Steve Davies said: "When Flying Scotsman is completed this summer, she will, of course, be painted Apple Green. However, we couldn't resist the opportunity to offer her fans a bit of variety by seeing her complete her steam tests and commissioning runs in wartime LNER black.

"The last time 'Scotsman' was seen in this livery was during the Second World War, and this will be the first time that No. 4472 or any other North Eastern Pacific has been seen in this livery during its preserved existence."

The rebuild has been supported by 275,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund and a donation from Tata Steel – formerly Corus. Helen Ashby, the museum's head of knowledge and collections, who is in charge of the project, said many parts of the locomotive were replaced because its main role would be as a working engine rather than museum exhibit.

She said: "The policy decision was that we were going to operate Flying Scotsman on the main line, so safety requirements override curatorial needs.

"What we aim to retain is its ethos, not its nuts and bolts. We have to know it's safe so the locomotive does not break down and passengers are never left stranded when they have paid a lot for their ticket."

However, completion of the work has been delayed by two years by the worse-than-expected state of some of the engine's parts, problems finding specialist firms able to make replacements and rocketing copper prices, which forced the museum to launch a new 250,000 public appeal two years ago.

Ms Ashby said: "Until we completely stripped down the locomotive we did not know how much work needed to be done. We made the decision to do it properly. This may well have proven to be a long and challenging process, but the end result will be that the locomotive will operate on the main line for the next two to three decades."

The work included manufacturing new components based on the manufacturer's drawings, which are held by the museum, such as a copper firebox, with the raw material having to be sourced from South America. The locomotive – and the railway heritage it symbolises – still evokes strong passions among its fans.

Former transport correspondent of The Scotsman, Allan McLean, who is now at Virgin Trains, recalled his first sighting aged 12, while on holiday in Darlington. "My uncle Bob, a railwayman, suggested I might like to take a look at trains at Darlington Bank Top station. When we got to the station, a Newcastle to King's Cross express had just arrived. I ran along the platform to catch a glimpse of the engine before it puffed out. I remember the sheer excitement as I approached the gleaming locomotive and saw that nameplate with the sun glinting off the burnished metal letters: 'Flying Scotsman'. I had to push past a crowd of admirers to see it set off on the racing stretch towards its next stop at York."

Mr McLean also witnessed the locomotive's arrival at the National Railway Museum in 2004. He said: "It was quite something to see it there, surrounded by crowds as it was welcomed by Sir Richard Branson and Alan Pegler, the man who originally saved it from scrap back in the 1960s. But nothing will ever quite match that memory from more than half a century ago when it was glimpsed at Darlington."

Wendy Dashwood-Quick, the great-granddaughter of Flying Scotsman driver William Worboys, said it was viewed as an extremely prestigious role. She said: "He was known as the best of the best – it was a great opportunity to drive that train. People were always buying him drinks. Before the Flying Scotsman broke the record it was just another steam train."

• www.flyingscotsman.org.uk