Today marks the 100th anniversary of the start of service of arguably "the world's most famous steam locomotive, London & North Eastern Railway 4472 Flying Scotsman.

The convoluted history of this loco--40 years in revenue service and sixty in preservation, including long-term trips to North America and Australia, and some non-stop run records--can fill several books--and has, repeatedly over the decades.

Note that this is longer than the entire history of common-carrier steam railways up to the point the locomotive was put into service...

It did make the BBC News webpage, albeit hidden away in the Scottish newspages....
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-64758467
The 1st annversary of something else has taken rather more preference on the BBC news site today .

(Plus, spot the lack of Journalistic knowledge with one of the photos of "Flying Scotsman" !!)

Hush hush, don't tell anybody about that.

Roger

I'm not seeing a problem.

If you are referring to the cab/footplate picture, British steam locos are set up for left-hand driving/running, and that indeed is where the driver sits.

A good puzzle, the one thing that occurs to me is that the standard gauge from Sydney to Perth may not have been available in the time period depicted in the B&W photo.

One photo, apparently now removed, showed Gresley in front of LNER 10000 wearing a Flying Scotsman headboard. For those not familiar, 10000 was an experimental locomotive that was known as the Hush-hush locomotive due to it being kept under wraps as much as possible. I would guess the error was pointed out to them.

Roger

I had the privilege of running her a short distance on the Southern RR as a guest of W. Graham Claytor when she was in the USA doing a national tour in the late 1960's.

Mr. Clayton and I crawled through the purpose built " manway" inside the tender to access the locomotive cab and return to the coaches when our turn on the footplate ended.

She must be the most internationally traveled steam locomotive of all time??

Great memories. Ross Rowland

The removed image was one from the Getty Collection which someone had obviously chosen because it had the "Flying Scotsman" headboard on it and Sir Nigel Gresley was standing next to it on the station platform.
It should be the right hand photo on the top line if you look on this page.
https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/photos/lner-w1-no

The loco in question was a 4-6-4 and was fitted with a marine style high-pressure water tube boiler.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_Class_W1

Looking at the BBC page again, the layout of the content has changed considerably since I posted that link yesterday.....

I was a young teenager when it came to our town on the MK&T railroad back in 1969 (I think it was). We still had a passenger station at that time, although no passenger trains.

Laid the obligatory penny on the rail in front of the depot for it to smash (still have it), went up in one of the cars and got one of their little newsletters describing the tour they were on... still have that, too. Watched him come into town from the south, expecting to see a lot of smoke, but saw none.
Couldn't hang around long enough to watch him leave, so didn't get to view that.

Mr Rowland, Would you mind comparing driving the Flying Scotsman with driving one of our made in USA locomotives ?? Thank You Kindly.

A good puzzle, the one thing that occurs to me is that the standard gauge from Sydney to Perth may not have been available in the time period depicted in the B&W photo.[/quote]


That black and white picture was taken at Sydney's Central Station (25 platforms - 15 terminal, 8 through above ground and the remainder through underground) in mid 1989. The standard gauge to Perth opened for traffic in 1970...

here's a picture where we ran it with Alco DL500B 4472, to celebrate its 63rd birthday.

Hello Sammy, It has been a while since that 1969 experience. What I do recall is that for the few miles I ran her I had to judge my speed from line side landmarks as IIRC the speedometer was broken. Fortunately the senior locomotive engineer who tutored me insisted that I learn to judge speed without a speedometer so I was comfortable keeping us near the 60 mph limit.

The other things I do recall is how nicely she rode and how responsive she was to throttle changes.

Also, how tiny that " manway" tunnel through the tender was.

Great memories. Ross Rowland

When Flying Scotsman was in Toronto the Canadian portion of its North America tour I went down to where it being exhibited (CNE) to look her over. Entering cab I saw the Engineer was busy with vistors so I spoke with the Fireman who told me he was from Edinburgh (Scotland) Worked LNER Non-stop to London based out of Musselboro Shed (enginehouse). I then informed him I worked on CPR (crew dispatching) and we had an engineer name Andrew Strachan (which I pronounced as Straw-nn) and was prompty corrected Strack-an) the proper Scotish pronuciation He then advised me her knew Andy! In fact he used to fired) for Andy's father!. Imagine that of all the thousands of UK railroaders this one man was picked to come to Canada!

The next day at work I called Andy at home (between runs not expecting to be called) and told him an old girlfreind from Scotland was here! He softly said Shhh! asked who was it? I then told him the truth. Next day he was on a push engine laying over at John Street roundhouse between assists (where I used to work) and he walked to the CNE (not far) using a switch key to open the siding gate. Slipping along the off side he looked up to the cab and called out asking there was room the footplate? That Fireman looked down at him and responded, "Yeah, comeon up Andy!" Andy was shocked (I had NOT told him who was on the engine). Climbed up on the engine and asked "Do I know you? Response "Well, you ought to we worked out of the same shed with my father!)

Andy returned to his engine but that night the visiting railroader spent the whole evening at Andy's home talking about things.

Andy's long gone but I have more stories about a good railroader. Some day.

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This may not work. It’s a tribute picture of Ernest Holden, one of the engine drivers/engineers who passed on recently.

Well, drat. If you do Twitter, Burrowing Bolt is the animal-assisted therapy site his family founded, which explains why Murray the burrowing owl is sitting on his head in most of the pictures.