Flying Scotsman

http://users.fini.net/~bersano/english-anglais/BR-tests/BR_P&E_No8_LNER_V2.pdf

see page 7 of report (page 11 of pdf)

You can criticise GW locos on design features - such as inside valve gear - but everything worked. A locomotive that would not start in certain conditions would not have been tolerated. I think one thing that had in mind for many years was could a loco start a train on Hemerdon bank - and locomotives were designed and tested to that end. I think even the Gas Turbines were tested on Hemerdon.

 

When working a service hauled by 2857 GWR 2-8-0 we had to set back at Bridgnorth so not so perfect after all

 

Yep. As much as I respect the man, Brunel-specified 2-2-2s worked a treat during the first 2 years. Or maybe not.

 

To which can be added Dean's 4-2-4T, 0-4-4Ts, Churchward's "Krugers" and so on. These "my sides always best" style boastings are nearly always silly.

PH

 

gimme the banshee shriek of a LNWR whistle as fitted to the unrebuilt Patriots . I used to hear them a couple of miles away as I laid in bed in the '50s as they ran thro' Harrow and Wealdstone on fast parcels trains . MAAAAD !

 

I wonder if you can help me with a question about the early days of Flying Scotsman.

A Dutch friend of mine has a photograph taken in 1928 (which he would rather not show, for fear of copyright breaches) which shows 4472 about to set off, with the Flying Scotsman headboard. On the platform you can see Nigel Gresley, his daughter, and his assistant O.V.S. Bulleid. They can be seen looking at the motion as the engine sets off.
The photograph is dated 21st August 1928, but my friend is not convinced that this is correct. The first press run was on May 1st but the photograph can't be that one as Nigel Gresley and family were actually on board, and on that day it did not carry the headboard (not being a commercial service run). Hence the thought that perhaps it was the first service train, but when was that? And what were the three doing there?

I wonder if anyone perhaps knows the photograph in question? The photograph was found in the collection of a Dutch photographer left to a museum and purporting to be taken by him, but it is not impossible that it is a reproduction and that an original exists in the UK.

 

There are two possibilities :

1) The loco was being filmed for its part in The Flying Scotsman film which was released in 1929
2) The loco was being filmed around Offord with a parallel flight by an aircraft

On both occasions I presume Sir Nigel Gresley, then working at Kings Cross, would have been on the platform to see the departure. I am tempted to suggest that option 1) would be the most likely but am open to alternative suggestions.

 

Gresley was in the habit of going down to see the prestige trains arrive and depart from the Cross and chat to the crew when he had time. A very hands on manager there are several photographs in existence of him on the Platform nad he knew all the top link drivers by name. There is a well known picture of him posing on the footplate with the Lord Mayor and driver Albert Pibworth before departure with the inaugural run. On a point of order, in 1928 he was still plain Mr, unlike some sportsman it took a long time to earn a knighthood in those days

 

It also took a long time to get your name on the side of a loco, until a certain chief engineer came along

 

I'd like to remind the forum that the naming policy of the A2/3s wasn't set by Edward Thompson, and no.500's name was chosen by the board as a gesture to his retirement and the good work he had done for the company both in terms of his long term record, and his war time work as CME.

Arthur Peppercorn's very first locomotive built to his designs was named after him: do we criticize him for that?

 

The reason is probably with the number of Pacifics in service they were running out of bird and racehorse names.

 

Clearly not. A further 49 A1s and 15 A2s then named variously after birds, racehorses, Walter Scott Novel references and more...

 

The one I like the best is Doncaster, named after a horse, not the town.

 

And how do you know that wasn't who I was aiming at? You merely assumed I was aiming at Thompson.

 

Wind up merchant!

 

I've read in books about the races between aircraft and the Flying Scotsman as well as seeing pictures but did 4472 herself actually take part these races? I've seen pictures of the aircraft and an A1/A3 at the head of the Flying Scotsman but can't recall if any of them featured 4472.

 

The photos of this event I've seen seem to show it is 2744, but there may have been several such occasions:





There evidently were other such flights - the one above is an HP42; this one is I think an Armstrong-Whitworth Argosy:



And a Puss Moth - but again, not 4472



Clearly the Top Gear Train vs. Car vs. Motorbike had long antecedents!

Tom

 

Is that a clockwork newbuild?


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2744? That'll be namstocS gniylF then Blue nylon parka with slightly grubby orange lining, ta...

Why does that have an appeal - a 12":1' clockwork A3?