Flying Scotsman

Oh honestly. Are you really being serious? Just chuck Flying Scotsman into Google images and look what comes up. A few recent ones in black, otherwise almost universally apple green at the top of the list. The Apple green/LNER/4472 image is surely the iconic one, and that era was so crucial in steam preservation that it far more worthy of celebration than the few years when a filthy dull green object was rattling up and down the east coast with a couple of dozen others much the same.

The early preservation era is far more important than late BR in terms of what we have now, and what those pioneers did should be celebrated and respected. There are a tiny handful of locos that to my mind should be kept in their early preservation form, and not sacrificed to some rivet counting paint shade comparing pedantic compromised pseudo authenticity. 4472 is one, and I submit that 1466 is another and should proudly display Great Western on her tanks and the number 1466, just as the folks with the vision to save her and inspire the preservation movement decided they wanted to do.

 

Agreed. It would seem that Johnb wishes to ignore the 30+ years FS has spent in preservation as 4472. The preservation years are every bit as important as her LNER/BR years. To ignore them is to tell just half her story.

 

I agree about 4472 but unfortunately she's now got a double chimney, can't agree about 1466 though, how many modellers have reproduced that loco thinking it was correct?

 

I suspect that this is still the form that most people consider "the real" Flying Scotsman to have:



Apple Green, LNER and 4472 seem to me to be the defining features, even rendering the Swindonisation of wheel arrangement largely irrelevant to most people! Which side she is driven from is not clear...

Tom

 

Agreed - and I would add Stepney in totally anachronistic Stroudley livery and Bluebell in "fictitious" corporate blue as two other locos in that tiny handful that are probably more significant as representative of early preservation than in pre-preservation identities.

Tom

 

Not if you're modelling a 1930s branch line it isn't

 

Oh dear, after hundreds of serious posts about the technicalities of restoration and testing we have descended into another livery debate! If I had the funding to sponsor a restoration I would be sorely tempted to specify stainless steel boiler cladding or, if too dear, just galvanised so no paint was necessary.

 

Not really to do with liveries it's whether we leave the old 4472 era behind and show a different period in the developement of the A3 class as it's now got a double chimney.

 

Agree entirely, however 'debate' gives this boring argument too much credence, it is more a 'my best colour is better than yours' face off!.

 

What utter self-indulgent tosh. My first mainline steam trips as a young teenager in the late 60s were with FS in apple green. My wife, who has to put up with my hobby, saw pics of the recent FS trips and said 'That's not FS, it's boring black and where's the nameplates' and she's a perfect example of someone 'not in the know'. The only FS she recognises is apple green, with or without the blinkers, and as for the double chimney she would never notice that in a month of Sundays. Apple green is her trademark as far as the public are concerned, ideally for me with whatever mods make her a reliable main line performer. What about the airbrake hoses on the buffer beam - they're not correct for pro-typical nor preservation condition, neither is the panting of the pump?

 

I think it's fair to say, that where Flying Scotsman is concerned, future overhauls could go a number of ways. In her last privately owned form, she had the double chimney and smoke deflectors for far longer than she had ever worn them in her working life (total of just two years I think for the deflectors and the double chimney, though the double chimney was worn on its own previously for a few years).

There is absolutely no doubt that her most recognisable form is as 4472, in LNER livery. In order to do this in the most authentic (if not the most accurate) manner, a single chimney is required. It's a moot point currently for me: we don't have one. I have to be consistent and as such feel that the most appropriate livery for the form must be worn, which is BR dark green.

However - big however - the aim for the NRM must be before the next overhaul, to restore the single chimney setup and thus the apple green livery. But I'd like them to go further.

They have a perfectly good A4 non-corridor tender sitting behind Mallard. Mallard pulled both this type and in fact the one sitting behind Flying Scotsman at present. By swapping the tenders over, we have for the first time since 1948 the opportunity for Flying Scotsman to be exactly representative of her working life (accepting the change from right to left hand drive and other necessary alterations, of course).

So for me, 4472 in LNER livery - and to be more accurately restored for her working life than she has ever been in private ownership - is entirely possible with a simple tender swap, and a not so simple reversion to a single chimney.

But for now - can we please enjoy the spectacle? She is going to look amazing. I'm of a generation who remembers her as 60103 - and I didn't live in the 50s or 60s. I wasn't born until 1987! So for me, she has always been 60103 despite that we can all agree on - she is best known to the world as 4472.

When all is said and done, there are no problems: only solutions. Let's not start a problem when we have the solution so beautifully restored in front of us.

 

As much to add to the paint froth debate...
I must admit I was very surprised that the NRM went for running as 60103 and BR Green and not 4472 in Apple Green - historically correct with the current modifications that it is - but it's been decreed as the peoples locomotive/engine, and for the vast majority that locomotive/engine would be 4472 in apple green - how many of us had a model of Flying Scotsman growing up? I'd bet that 9/10 of them would of been 4472 in Apple Green.
I'm slightly concerned that Joe Public won't identify with her running as 60103 as much as they would of done with 4472 - though with the way that the tours have sold this does not appear to be the case; but do they really know/understand this fact - only time will tell - I'd of thought to have done the reverse would of been logical - let the public re-identify (as she has been away for so long) as 4472 in Apple Green and then change to 60103 in BR Green in a few years time.

Personally - I really don't mind what colour she is in - I'm just glad to see her back in Steam and out on the main line.

 

I will echo this on all the points made and of course applaud the fantastic work done on the restoration , but to give a little bit of an insight into the response from one member of Joe Public I was talking to a work colleague the other day . He has no interest in railways but his comment was "What have they done to Flying Scotsman?" I replied that several million pounds had been spent restoring the loco. "But shouldn't it be green, and what are those things on the front? "

Jon

 

I'm tempted to buy an old Hornby model with single chimney then fit smoke detectors and paint it BR blue numbered 64472 just so I can post the photos of it.

 

Well, it IS going to be green. The Gerry blinks were fitted to assist clearing the exhaust from the Drivers vision, after the fitting of the double chimney, so they are still required...

 

She had the German smoke deflectors on when I saw her in the 60s and that will remain for me the image I would like to see. I know I am younger than most on here but at least I saw her in normal service. There can't be many left that saw her when she first appeared.

 

If the public only recognise her in LNER, apple green, single chimney, no deflectors configuration, the public need educating. Run her as she was in the early 60s for the next 20 years, That should see me out!

 

I'd go for blue steel. I always thought that this was the best looking thing that you could do with steel cladding and always looked great on our steam winders when kept lightly oiled. Need polished boiler bands to compliment it, though!