Flying Scotsman

I too am sad Scotsman appears to be retaining her current guise (personally not a big fan of the loco in BR condition with smoke deflectors). As I said before I was only 2 years old or so when Scotsman had the single chimney removed, so I've never had the chance to see the loco in her 'classic look' as it were and despite not getting carried away with Trackside's article the issue before last, I was really hoping it was true.

Obviously these things do cost money and with time short for the overhaul and the loco being a better performer in current condition I can understand why they won't be doing it, but hopefully one day it'll happen.

 

Now that everything has been confirmed Scotsman’s next ticket will run out in 2029 when according to a Steam Railway Magazine article in 2019 it will do 3 years on preserved railways meaning it will run until 2032. After that who knows if it will keep running and in what condition.

 

'The A3' never carried the number 4472 prior to it being bought from BR and 'Peglerised' in 1963, having a single chimney and banjo dome with the 4472 number. It only carried that number as an A1/A10 with the smaller boiler of 180lb psi and any comparison in looks is there to be seen in photos of the time. A10s looked very different to A3s, even before the latter were fitted with double chimneys.

Flying Scotsman was converted to an A3 only in November 1946, by which time it had been carrying the number 103 for 6 months (502 for 5 monthe before that). As an A3 it only ever carried two numbers, 103 (plus E103 as a temporary number) and 60103, so it could be argued that if it were to be repainted in its LNER guise of insipid green it should carry the number 103, not 4472, but even then the double chimney and blinkers would be 'wrong' for the period and I'd say that any step to run it without blinkers, while carrying the double chimney, which was the reason the blinkers were attached in the first place would be difficult.

All my A3s, (apart from Flying Scotsman, which by that time had been bought and Peglerised) were carrying BR Green and blinkers when I saw them, doing their proper job as working locos. Add a bit of 60009 grime to 60103 and it would look perfect.

 

Quite so but many people's first introduction to the loco will have been as 4472 in the preservation era. First saw her in 1964 while spotting at Arlesey. Passenger steam south of Peterborough had finished but we still had grimy B1s and 9Fs on goods. One day though an immaculate 4472 came through and that was that, I was hooked. Would be nice to relive that experience.

 

But so what. In terms of the history of steam railways in the UK the Pegler era is *far* more important than what the locomotive was doing in the 1950s.

 

Perhaps in an alternative universe where Jeremy Hosking did acquire the A3 instead of the NRM we might have had the opportunity to see some of the guises as shown in this print:

Sent from my XQ-BT52 using Tapatalk

 

Sorry but the first four are still incorrect and only the 1962 version looks right. All five versions show a left hand drive loco but 1472/4472/502/103/60103 was a right hand drive loco until, I believe, the mid '50s.

Well we are nit-picking arn't we?

Peter

 

This is beautiful:


Source: https://blog.railwaymuseum.org.uk/many-guises-of-flying-scotsman/

Ever since, it seems Flying Scotsman - like many of us - gained weight and lost its original beauty of line the further into middle age it got ...

Tom

 

So what bl--dy colour should we paint the damned thing? I vote "rail blue" with yellow smokebox, plus white arrows on the tender and it's TOPS identity '98872'.

I'd probably best just get my coat ......

 

In the Alan Peglar era it did visually represent a typical A3 in 1930s condition, so I would call it a good compromise

 

Thanks. I've never seen that article.

 

There's only one colour, Give Mr Porterbrook a ring.

 

Well here is one of the first A1s to be rebuilt as an A3 in 1927. This is 4480 Enterprise at Harrogate in 1927 - or is it York in 1977?
This is during the filming of Agatha and you have to admit that the producers made more effort at authenticity than usually happens on film sets. It was filmed on a lovely crisp and bright autum day in November. But it was far too bright for the film makers so the whole shoot was repeated next day when it was dull and overcast. It seems that they could control the lighting much better in these conditions. Three locos featured - 4480 seen here, 4474 Victor Wild and an unidentified J72 acting as station piolt.

Peter

 

Quite like the blue though....

 

What livery is correct for her being fitted with air brakes?

 

They should have done a bit more research, Victor Wild had a GN type coal rail tender!!

 

Air brakes have no visual impact

 

Depends on the specific application. The pumps as first fitted to the Rheidol Tanks certainly did.

 

What has that got to do with it? We are talking about the A3 and all the air brake equipment is hidden away. A great shame that they didn’t retain the ofiginsl vacuum gear too.

 

Does if you are looking at the locomotive from the front or the rear, and on the basis of the nit picking on this thread is little different.

Cards on table I really don't give a gnats derrière what colour they paint it, but the long and short is once again that it all depends what history is, her ownership in either LNER or BR guises is considerably less than it has been in private or NRM ownership so what is right and what is wrong.....