Mallard

[Derek Mowbray]

Today is the 75th anniversery of Mallard setting the world speed record of 126mph for steam traction. All six surviving A4 pacifics are on display at York Railway Museum . On BBC one news this morning they showed an old film clip of the driver J. Duddington with Mallard but this clip must have been filmed in the war as Mallard was in a filthy state ,the wheel valances had been removed in wartime to ease maintainence also on the tender were the letters NE instead of the normal LNER. The wheel valances were not put back for the rest of the time that the locomotives were in service, some were reinstated in preservation

[Tone]

Shame they couldn't fettle Mallard up, get her out of the museum and do a repeat of that famous sprint down Stoke bank. Who lnows, perhaps there would have been a new record.

But I'm sure Elf 'n' Safety would have had something to say about it!

Cheers.

Tony

[GoldenStreet]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-yo ... e-23158389

Classic locomotives, but I have to say I was always more a Coronation man, living somewhat nearer the West Coast main line!

Bill

[George Geddes]

We came back up on the East Coast main line from London last Monday, and Bittern was sitting outside the NRM in York, positively gleaming in LNER blue.

Like Bill, I'm an LMS man at heart (too many days spent at my Gran's top floor flat watching Duchesses on the London run to be anything else) but I will try and make it down to York before the visiting A4s go home...

George

[RayL]

For the story of Mallard and the record-breaking run, read Mallard by Don Hale (ISBN 978 1 84513 345 0). Don Hale was the journalist who became nationally famous for his tireless - and ultimately successful - campaign, while editor of the Matlock Mercury newspaper, to clear the name of Stephen Dowling, imprisoned for twenty years for the murder of a Derbyshire woman. It won him the OBE and was acknowledged to have righted a major miscarriage of justice.

The same energy runs through the book, describing the competition between the railway companies (both in the UK and in Germany) and the build-up to the run, before describing the record-breaking time trial, with Gresley (too ill to attend) waiting anxiously for news at his home at Watton-on-Stone. Joe Duddington and fireman Tommy Bray are given their rightful place in the history.

Ray
(who saw Mallard many times in the 1950s from the vantage-point just south of the Wood Green tunnels, still accelerating from the pull up the incline from Kings Cross).

[Shadow Steve]

http://www.barrowhill.org/news.html

28-29th Sept 2013 open day with many model rail layouts too.

[John M]

And there was I thinking Mallards were valves

[Shadow Steve]

I thought they were the ducks with the green heads but I have been told the whole class were named after winning racehorses of the time