The LNER Class A4 is a class of streamlined 4-6-2 steam locomotive designed by Nigel Gresley for the London and North Eastern Railway in 1935. Their streamlined design gave them high-speed capability as well as making them instantly recognisable, and one of the class, 4468 Mallard, holds the record as the world's fastest steam locomotive. Thirty-five of the class were built to haul express passenger trains on the East Coast Main Line route from London Kings Cross via York to Newcastle, and later via Newcastle to Edinburgh, Scotland. They remained in service on the East Coast Main Line until the early 1960s when they were replaced by Deltic diesel locomotives; they themselves proving to be worthy successors to the A4s. Several A4s saw out their remaining days until 1966 in Scotland, particularly on the Aberdeen – Glasgow express trains, for which they were used to improve the timing from 3.5 to 3 hours.
Sir Herbert Nigel Gresley was a British railway engineer. He was one of Britain's most famous steam locomotive engineers, who rose to become Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME) of the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). He was the designer of some of the most famous steam locomotives in Britain, including the LNER Class A1 and LNER Class A4 4-6-2 Pacific engines. An A1 Pacific, Flying Scotsman, was the first steam locomotive officially recorded over 100 mph in passenger service, and an A4, number 4468 Mallard, still holds the record for being the fastest steam locomotive in the world (126 mph).
The British Rail Class 98 is a Total Operations Processing System (TOPS) classification that has been used to cover all steam locomotives used on the mainline in Britain, but also has a particular usage for the three Vale of Rheidol Railway-design 2-6-2T locomotives that remained in the ownership of British Rail (BR) after the end of mainline steam traction in August 1968. The locomotives on the Vale of Rheidol Railway were the only steam locomotives ever officially to carry the British Rail corporate blue and the double arrow logo.
60009 Union of South Africa is a LNER Class A4 steam locomotive built at Doncaster Works on 16 April 1937. It is one of six surviving A4s. Its mainline certification expired in April 2020. As the locomotive is subject to a boiler inspection, it was moved to the East Lancashire Railway as the original plan was to keep it running there until the end of boiler certificate and then send it somewhere else for static display, but a cracked boiler tube forced it into retirement prematurely. It was briefly renamed Osprey during part of the 1980s and 1990s due to political opposition against apartheid in South Africa at the time.
LNER Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman is a 4-6-2 "Pacific" steam locomotive built in 1923 for the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) at Doncaster Works to a design of Nigel Gresley. It was employed on long-distance express passenger trains on the East Coast Main Line by LNER and its successors, British Railways' Eastern and North Eastern Regions, notably on The Flying Scotsman service between London King's Cross and Edinburgh Waverley after which it was named.
The Flying Scotsman is an express passenger train service that operates between Edinburgh and London, the capitals respectively of Scotland and England, via the East Coast Main Line. The service began in 1862 as the Special Scotch Express until it was officially adopted in 1924. It is currently operated by the London North Eastern Railway.
Smoke deflectors, sometimes called "blinkers" in the UK because of their strong resemblance to the blinkers used on horses, and "elephant ears" in US railway slang, are vertical plates attached to each side of the smokebox at the front of a steam locomotive. They are designed to lift smoke away from the locomotive at speed so that the driver has better visibility. On the South Australian Railways they are called "valances".
4464Bittern is a London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) Class A4 steam locomotive. Built for the LNER and completed on 18 December 1937 at Doncaster Works as works number 1866, it received number 4464. After that it was renumbered 19 on 16 August 1946 under the LNER 1946 renumbering scheme, and finally 60019 by British Railways on 10 October 1948, after nationalisation. Of the 35 strong class, it is one of six to survive into preservation but it is one of only two currently scheduled to be certified for mainline use.
Class A1 in the London and North Eastern Railway's classification system may refer to any of the following British steam locomotives :
The London and North Eastern Railway LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3 locomotives represented two distinct stages in the history of the British 4-6-2 "Pacific" steam locomotives designed by Nigel Gresley. They were designed for main line passenger services and later express passenger services, initially on the Great Northern Railway (GNR), a constituent company of the London and North Eastern Railway after the amalgamation of 1923, for which they became a standard design. The change in class designation to A3 reflected the fitting to the same chassis of a higher pressure boiler with a greater superheating surface and a small reduction in cylinder diameter, leading to an increase in locomotive weight. Eventually all of the A1 locomotives were rebuilt, most to A3 specifications, but no. 4470 was completely rebuilt as Class A1/1.
Elizabethan Express is a 1954 British Transport Film that follows The Elizabethan, a non-stop British Railways service from London King's Cross to Edinburgh Waverley along the East Coast Main Line. Although originally intended as an advertising short, it now acts as a nostalgic record of the halcyon years of steam on British Railways and the ex LNER Class A4.
The London and North Eastern Railway Class P1 Mineral 2-8-2 Mikado was a class of two steam locomotives designed by Nigel Gresley. They were two of the most powerful freight locomotives ever designed for a British railway. It was initially intended they be a more powerful 2-10-0 version of the earlier Class O2 2-8-0s. The design was submitted in August 1923, for use between Peterborough and London, and also between Immingham and Wath marshalling yard. The power was quoted as being 25% more than the O2.
The LNER W1 No. 10000 was an experimental steam locomotive fitted with a high pressure water-tube boiler. Nigel Gresley was impressed by the results of using high-pressure steam in marine applications and so in 1924 he approached Harold Yarrow of shipyard and boilermakers Yarrow & Company of Glasgow to design a suitable boiler for a railway locomotive, based on Yarrow's design.
Alan Francis Pegler OBE, FRSA was a British businessman, entrepreneur, and railway preservationist.
The Race to the North is an episode of Top Gear that featured a three-way race held in 2009 between a Jaguar XK120 car, a Vincent Black Shadow motorcycle, and railway locomotive 60163 Tornado – a brand new mainline steam engine completed in Britain in 2008. The race saw the car, bike and locomotive, race from London, England, to Edinburgh, Scotland, a journey of around 400 miles (640 km). Eighteen months in the planning, the race was filmed in secret on 25 April 2009, and shown on 21 June 2009 as the first episode of the thirteenth series of Top Gear
The Lady from the Sea is a 1929 sound part-talkie British romance film directed by Castleton Knight and starring Ray Milland, Mona Goya, and Moore Marriott. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score and sound effects along with English intertitles.
Anthony Frank Marchington was an English biotechnology entrepreneur and businessman, famous as the co-founder of Oxford Molecular, and the former owner of the famous Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman locomotive.
Flying Scotsman may refer to:
LNER Class A3 2750 Papyrus was a 4-6-2 "Pacific" steam locomotive built for the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) at Doncaster Works to a design of Nigel Gresley, entering service in March 1929. Primarily used to haul express passenger trains on the East Coast Main Line by LNER and its successor, British Railways, it is notable for achieving what was at the time a world record-breaking speed for a steam locomotive of 108 mph on 5 March, 1935. A fictionalized account based on the locomotive's service history and speed record, 2750: Legend of a Locomotive by H.C. Webster, was published in 1953 and reprinted in 2016.
