Green Goddess & Flying Scotsman question

At this point, which has covered the most milage, Green Goddess or Flying Scotsman?

It seems like it should be Flying Scotsman with ease. However some further thought has made me wonder whether it might be closer than first thought, and answering the question with any kind of accuracy needs a lot more data than is easily accessable.

First some facts...(According to wikipedia, feel free to correct me.)

Green Goddess was ordered in 1924, built in 1925, tested on the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway as the RH&DR wasn't opened until July 1927. As far as I can tell she is in regular service to the current day barring repairs, maintainence & overhauls.

Flying Scotsman was completed in 1923 and retired from BR in January 1963.
She was owned by Alan Pegler from 1963 to 1973.
She was then saved from creditors and bought by Sir William McAlpine in 1963 who had ownership until 1996.
Dr Tony Marchington owned her from 1996 through to February 2004 when she finally entered the national collection, who has ownership to this day.
Link to Wikipedia page which gives further information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_Class_A3_4472_Flying_Scotsman

So flying scotsman has spent 40 years in regular traffic, followed by 56 years in preservation covering a wildly variable number of miles per year.
Green Goddess has spent 96 years in regular traffic. According to the RH&DR website covering up to 10k per year.

So it seems that Flying Scotsman has probably done more miles, however not by as much as it might seem. And Green Goddess is catching up at quite a rate, or will be soon.

Is there a way to get accurate milage for either loco? Any comments or insight greatly welcome.

 

96 years at 10k per year is 96k miles, wikipedia also says Flying Scotsman retired from BR service with 2.08 million miles on the clock, to that you can add all the preservation mileage, I would guess at least another hundred thousand or so as a wild stab in the dark on the basis that a few locos recently have passed the 100k miles in preservation mark, and to my knowledge those have largely been on heritage lines.

To get anywhere near Flying Scotsman, I should think you'd need to start off with something that spent a similar amount of time in existence and have had a decent preservation career. Most contenders that immediately spring to mind on that description simply haven't been around as long as Flying Scotsman. The only other mainline steam locos that have been around as long and remained in relatively front line service as long are the original competitors, the first Castles. The highest mileage Castle on withdrawal was Powderham Castle that didn't quite make the 2 million mark. I can't find any mileages for Pendennis Castle but that was also an early build and accrued some mileage in preservation, so that would be my favourite guess for second highest mileage of locos surviving into preservation.

 

I would be inclined to add another 0 in that figure.
Still an impressive figure.

 

I can't believe I missed the service milage in the Wiki article, apologies.
2.08 million miles is 52k per year which is 132 trips london to edinburgh per year (392 miles). That sounds low to me, assuming 1 trip per day that means she spent 233 days per year out of service, were steam loco's *that* needy of repairs and maintainence?

As has just been posted 96 years at 10k is 960k not 96k, and likewise is very impressive for a 15 inch gauge loco.

Although I have no idea how many years GG will have missed because of overhauls.

 

It's not quite a record, but the Bluebell's H class No. 263 deserves an honourable mention. It had run 1,849,668 miles up to withdrawal in 1964, to which can be added another 67,474 in preservation (up to the end of last year - it's done a bit more since) - a little over 1.9million in total. Not bad for a humble Edwardian tank engine!

Tom

 

Thinking of FS, you are calculating on the basis that she ran King's Cross - Edinburgh. My limited understanding is that most duties were a lot shorter than that - many trains being re-engined at Grantham right through until dieselisation, for example - and therefore the available mileage per day given lower steam era utilisation rates was also less.

 

So given green goddess is a third scale we could do the maths and work the milage out to be greater

 

You could base it on wheel revs?

 

And if a dog was driving, you could multiply the number of years in traffic by seven?

Isn’t it all a bit futile? If you base it on wheel revolutions, 263 (1.9million miles, 66” wheels) has probably done more than 4472 (2 million plus, but with 80” wheels). But the forces are different; speeds different; amount of replaced original material different. I’m happy enough to marvel that any of them are still running after a hundred years!

Tom

 

del

 

Just a bit of fun isn’t it?

 

long departed Jumbo Charles Dickens achieved 20 million miles .

the NW liked to get their moneys worth

 

Indeed - but I like my fun leavened with a bit of science . (Or is the other way round ?)

Tom

 

Of course it did - just like that Churchward 4-6-0 did 130 mph running light engine!

Peter

 

Really? Or do you mean 2 million miles?

Fag packet calculation: say the original lasted 50 years (generous assumption). That’s 400,000 miles per year, about 1100 miles per day with no allowance for repairs. It would have to run non stop at 45 mph for 24 hours per day, 365 days per year for 50 years to achieve that mileage. I know Richard Moon liked to get his money’s worth, but I find that a stretch!

Tom

 

Would that not make Blue Peter the winner?

 

Query ..... did the LNWR allocate regular crews to particular locos?

 

Ones with lots of stamina by the sound of it ...

Tom

 

Perhaps @sir gilbert claughton has found the missing nought I dropped from my post!

 

Not if they were running 24 hours/day.