A Tale of Two Scotsmen Steam Days

BBC Four Collections -

archive programmes chosen by experts.

For this collection, Gary Boyd-Hope

has selected programmes celebrating Britain's steam railway legacy.

More programmes on this theme, and other BBC Four Collections

are available on BBC iPlayer.

ENGINE ROARS

WHISTLE BLOWS

TANNOY: The train now approaching platform 11

is the Flying Scotsman from London King's Cross.

'There are very few things that will get the station master at Waverley

'out of his bowler hat, but the Flying Scotsman is one of them.

'The famous express that leaves London

'when he has barely finished breakfast

'and gets to Edinburgh not long after his lunchtime.'

There are other trains which get here just as fast but when I'm on the one

called Flying Scotsman, I feel I've actually got here quicker,

which is one of the reasons, of course,

that hard-headed railways companies

give their trains romantic names.

But to many people,

the name Flying Scotsman means something quite different.

A famous locomotive which was born in 1923

and has been to many other places beside Edinburgh.

Up and down North America, for a start.

Is the Flying Scotsman a train or is it an engine

or is it a white elephant?

It's one of the most famous names in the world

but where did the name come from?

To find all this out,

we have to go back even before railways were invented.

Up to about 1850, if you'd wanted to get to Scotland in a hurry

you'd have gone by flying coach.

It flew up the Great North Road at an average speed of ten miles an hour,

stopping every ten miles or so just to change horses.

Apart from that, it went non-stop, hence flying,

through the day and the night,

taking nearly 48 hours to do the 400 miles from London to Edinburgh.

It wasn't much fun at the best of times

and was worst if you had an outside seat on top

where you had to keep awake the whole time.

That's where we get the expression "dropping off to sleep".

Then came the railway, and the average speed

of the journey to Edinburgh magically quadrupled.

The through-route was open by 1850.

In 1852, King's Cross station in London was completed

and in 1862, the first named express appeared - the Scotch Express,

which was what they first called the Flying Scotsman.

It left King's Cross station every morning at 10am on the dot

and started to fly north.

The speed may have been a lot better

but the facilities were the same as on the stage coach.

No toilets, no food, no moving from your seat,

so they must have been longing to get to that 20-minute stop

at York for lunch and everything else.

As the passengers piled into the restaurant at 2.35,

the soup was put in front of them, and from then

on the restaurant resounded with the crash of crockery,

and courses being rushed to and fro.

Outside, the passengers could hear the shunting and crashing

of the new engine being put on.

The sound they were really listening for was the station bell.

Once you heard that, you left your apple pie where it was

and rushed back to the train.

It was the Victorian equivalent almost

of making a hasty plane change at Heathrow.

In fact, after York they were leaving Great Northern territory

and flying up the North Eastern line.

The new engine, full of coal and water again,

pulled them over the high-level bridge into Newcastle

where they had another chance to resort to the lavatories at 4.55,

then, with hardly a pause, on, on up to Berwick,

and another change of engines, this time to a North British machine.

They finally arrived at Edinburgh at 8.35,

ten-and-a-half hours after leaving London.

It may seem slow to us, but to them it was a miracle.

A miracle only to the well-heeled, of course, for it wasn't until 1887

that third-class passengers were catered for at all.

After that, things rapidly improved for everyone.

Restaurant cars were introduced,

which meant of course that corridors had to be introduced as well.

The first lavatories appeared on trains

and as early as 1875,

the North British Railway had pioneered sleeper compartments.

All this meant the trains were getting heavier,

and that meant that engines had to get more and more powerful.

Then suddenly, the Scotch Express hit the headlines in 1888.

It got caught up in a series of races to the north

against rival companies

and the record time to Scotland was lowered suddenly

from nine hours to seven-and-a-half hours.

The race became part of British railway history,

shortly to be followed by another now-familiar sight

in British stations, the railway enthusiast.

I've been on here at three o'clock in the morning.

Was it here that they always changed engines?

Oh, yes, always. They changed engines here, Grantham, Newcastle.

That's good, although it was one company taking off its engine,

and another company putting it on.

'I met Arthur Dewar in York Station in 1985.

'He had first been here to watch trains as a boy in 1916.'

It must have been quite a sight, York station in those days?

Oh, yes, it was marvellous.

Beautiful, gleaming green engines, brass.

Not dirty and smoke stained?

No, brass columns and brass round the wheel hall, shining.

I'm afraid we have to go to the museum to see them nowadays.

Yes. That's how they were. All like that.

So you must have seen the Flying Scotsman come through many a time.

Well, it wasn't called that then. Not till about 1938.

It was known to the railway people as the Special Scotch Express.

But in the timetable, it wasn't differentiated from any other train.

It was already known as...?

Most people knew it by, yes.

In 1923, Flying Scotsman the engine was born,

one of a new class, the A1 Pacifics,

which could run non-stop from London to Edinburgh,

and also had rather glamorous film-star looks.

Just as well, as they were about to become film stars,

as I discovered from railway film collector John Huntley.

John, this must be about the first film

of the non-stop Flying Scotsman that exists?

Yes, it is. It's a bit of a mystery film,

we don't really know who made it, but it is a most valuable record

of the old London North Eastern Railway,

and of course certainly there's no doubt about the film was made

to celebrate this idea that started on 1st May, 1928,

when they began the non-stop run,

even including things like a cocktail bar on the train.

This train was extraordinary. It had at different times, it had a cinema,

in-flight movies, Flying Scotsman-style, in the '30s.

It had a hairdressing salon on the train at one time.

For women originally,

it was so successful that they introduced it for men.

In the early 1930s, there was a sort of disco

where they had an all-horn radio which piped in dance music

and people danced as you went on your way to Scotland,

so it was quite a train, the Flying Scotsman, in those days.

It was a pretty magical thing, you know, in 1928,

when you think how long ago that actually is.

To run a train all this distance.

There seems to be more than a whiff of advertising about this.

The feeling that it's not just a documentary,

it's saying "Come travel with us."

That probably was the price of all facilities

and a free ticket on the train, I suspect, in those days.

How long did the train take in those days?

How long was it back then?

It was all slowed up because of the stupid business...

..Of the agreement. It didn't have to arrive in Edinburgh

before the Midland train arrived in Glasgow.

'Frank Mays, our other expert,

'was actually a fireman on the Flying Scotsman in its heyday,

'though this was the first time he'd seen any of these films.'

They purposely slowed it down?

They did, and they kept it outside of Edinburgh for a little while

until the time approached and it was allowed in.

A lovely name. Such a grand name.

I think it's because they're both full of unfinished buildings.

Those trams, I always associate those

with the early days of the Edinburgh Festival.

Very much, Princes Street never was quite the same without the trams.

Before the 1920s were out,

the engine itself had become an established film star.

Not in a documentary or a commercial, but in a fully-fledged thriller.

This looks a very different sort of film. I detect a story here.

Yes, this was 1929.

Most of the textbooks say that Alfred Hitchcock's film Blackmail

is the first sound film, but I don't think it's right.

This was the first one. It's directed by Castleton Knight,

and as you'll see, it's mainly shot as a silent film.

It uses mainly silent shots.

That's Pauline Johnson, the heroine of the film,

and this they did for real.

They were allowed to shoot using 4472 Flying Scotsman.

She really did this.

They're certainly not going less than 40-45 miles an hour

in relatively high-heeled 1920s shoes,

battling her way forward to the loco, in pursuit, in fact, of the villain.

Now, the fireman in the film is Ray Milland, it's his first movie.

The storyline is that he's a young fireman

and this is his girlfriend, but in fact, although he doesn't know it,

the engine driver is her father.

A near thing last night. Her old man came on, nearly caught me.

Just managed to dodge him with the skin of my teeth.

Silent acting.

So you're the one!

Then a fight on the footplate. What's so incredible about this film

is that's the sort of thing you'd normally shoot at the studio.

Here she goes. She's got to cross over from the loco to the tender.

Not much to hold onto.

She finds the rhythm of the two is totally different.

Even that's for real.

The sort of thing you'd always do in a studio today.

She's in pursuit of the villain played by Alec Hurley.

What's his interest, the villain?

He's out to get the engine driver who ratted on him and lost him his job.

Ray Milland... You see even that's shot for real.

It's extraordinary the way they set him up.

THEY LAUGH

The story is a little on the melodramatic side.

She sees her old dad knocked for six by the villain.

Here's a rather interesting bit

because the villain makes sure that the loco is running,

and he goes back using the passageway in the tender. There it is,

which was how you got from the footplate of the locomotive

back into the train itself, through this little narrow passageway

running through the tender,

with the water tank and the coal and everything.

There's Alec Hurley doing some grimaces.

This is the bit that Sir Nigel Gresley hated.

Puts his hand out, pulls a little plug

and the loco separates out from the stock

and they both go on racing away.

Sir Nigel said very indignantly afterwards,

"When I saw this wretched film, they suggested

"that London North Eastern Railway had not yet discovered

"the vacuum brake!"

'Well, the film had a happy ending for everyone, except the villain.

'Ray Milland went on to become a Hollywood star on the strength of it

'and Sir Nigel Gresley never let any filming take place on the NER again.

'In fact, it wasn't until after his death, and well after the war,

'that our third film was made.'

The Elizabethan Express was really the last great flowering of steam.

These marvellous Gresley A4 locomotives,

and really I think what they decided

was as they knew that steam's days were numbered, they thought

they'd have this run non-stop from King's Cross to Edinburgh

as it had been done in the old days. They didn't actually strangely do it

with the 10am Flying Scotsman. They did it as a summer service only,

at 9.30, and this ran in front of the Flying Scotsman but the idea

was to keep alive this tradition of non-stop running on steam.

It's very much of the '50s, the whole thing. It has a funny old commentary.

COMMENTARY: 'The passengers sitting at buffet tables -

'the Howards, the Berts, the Cynthias, the Mables -

'enjoying the comfort and ease in their seats.

'Careless of crumbs in turn-ups or pleats,

'admire the gleam on the chromium plate,

'The polish on tables, the unfaded state of curtains and fabrics,

'but rarely give thought to the long years of training.'

'Now beyond York, the Scots crew prepare to relieve the strain

'on the English pair.'

They had a reserve compartment, and the Edinburgh men,

they worked from Edinburgh to York the day previous,

stayed overnight in London in a hostel

and then they signed on duty in the morning at King's Cross,

rode passenger in the train in a reserve compartment,

had a meal on the train before they actually relieved,

and then went through the corridor tender which we can see now

onto the footplate and relieved while the train was going at 50-60 mph.

There you see Tony MacLeod, the Haymarket driver,

relieving Bob Marroble.

Bob Marroble's taking his case and walking back and through,

and there's Mungo Scott.

Mungo's looking at the fire

to see the state of the fire before he starts firing up.

'Sir Nigel Gresley designed his A4 with the speed of a greyhound,

'the strength of a boar, but when he put fire in her stomach,

'he taught her to burn with a furious thirst for water,

'so when she approaches a water trough,

'watch fireman Mungo doing his stuff.'

There's the water troughs. He's dropping the scoop in.

There you can see the water overflowing.

I should imagine they'll get somewhere in the region

of about 4,000 gallons if they're lucky.

MILES: These guys are the kings of the track, aren't they?

Oh, yes. They're top link men. Probably Tony MacLeod, he's worked

on the railway 40 years before he started doing this type of work.

They're all quite old, the drivers?

On those jobs, yes. Tony MacLeod would be 60, 61.

He'd been on those jobs for five or six years when that film was taken.

Mungo Scott was in his middle-20s.

'As they come down from Groundshouse, the peak of the climb,

'they're over the worst.

'And she's running on time.'

There was great rivalry between the different crews

and you'd swear by your driver.

The consumption worked out at about a ton per 60 miles.

You actually physically lifted, on a little shovel....

Oh, yes. Yeah.

'Mr Arnott at Waverley Station has a very high sense of occasion.

'If a train's a non-stopper, his topper is proper,

'his homburg's for trains of low station.'

When that film was made,

you could feel they thought nothing would change.

Steam engines would go on forever, Britain would always have an empire

and Blackpool and Newcastle United would always be in the cup final.

But overnight almost, British Rail's modernisation programme

announced the end of steam. Four years later, the first Deltic diesels

were being ordered for the Edinburgh run.

Soon after that, steam engines were being replaced not by steam engines

but by other kinds of engines, for the first time in history.

The steam loco really was becoming a threatened species.

Now, British Rail were going to look after the future

but who was going to look after the past?

In the nick of time, a new breed of man arrived - the private collector.

'40 years old, only done three million miles.

'What a sniff at £3,000.

'That's what a businessman paid for this grand veteran of the iron road.

'All dressed up for the part, the proud man from Nottinghamshire,

'Alan Pegler, was with the engine he saved from the break-up yard.

'The Flying Scotsman has years of work in her still, but progress,

'in the shape of diesel locomotives, has pushed her aside.

'That's a sad thought for everybody who's ever thrilled

'at the sight of an express steam engine.'

WHISTLE BLOWS

Alan Pegler was realising a dream

that most men only play with in their attic -

running a real life-size train set.

In 1968, 40 years on, he recreated the first non-stop run to Edinburgh.

There is in fact no real advantage

in going from London to Edinburgh non-stop, and British Rail

don't bother to do it even today, and when you have to take two tenders

to carry all that coal and water, there are disadvantages,

but when you are on your very own engine,

you don't think about things like that, you just do it.

Today, Edinburgh, tomorrow the world, and the next year,

Alan Pegler took the engine to America.

The Flying Scotsman was trying to make money

out of hauling a business exhibition train across America.

The man who ended up in charge of the operation was George Hinchcliffe.

After the first trip, which from the exhibitors' point of view

was very successful, from Boston to Houston, Texas,

the train was put into store and eventually, the following year, 1970,

we took it out of store in Slaton, Texas,

and worked it right up to Green Bay.

That was fairly successful and I was in charge of the operation then,

and we were actually making money hand over fist.

The great thing in 1970 was that we visited very small places,

where we were a very big event in a comparatively small town.

20,000 inhabitants, and probably a third of them would turn out.

It was marvellous.

But the expense of running an engine so far from home

turned into difficulties, and difficulties turned

into enormous debts, until another rescuer was needed desperately.

He turned up in the nick of time

in the shape of one of the McAlpine family.

Well, Bill rang me one night and said,

"I've heard terrible things about the Flying Scotsman.

"Could you go over to America and find out what's happened?"

The day I actually saw the lawyer who was responsible for

Flying Scotsman while it was in America

was the day that the girl typist

in San Francisco was about to type the writ to impound the locomotive,

but with a time factor of about four hours between Washington time

and San Francisco time, I had chance to phone Bill McAlpine and say,

"Look, if you can pay so many thousand dollars,

"the engine's yours."

HORN BLARES

And so, on what might nearly have been a funeral barge,

Flying Scotsman set off home again.

WIND WHISTLES

They say that all the cells in the human body are replaced every

seven years, and something of the same sort happens to a steam engine.

There isn't much here that dates back to 1923.

But the spirit lives on, and as much as anything, that's what they're

restoring today at Steamtown, here at Carnforth in Lancashire.

The work is done by a mixture of dedicated volunteers

and permanently employed specialists.

Welding new tubes for the super heater is definitely

specialist work, but it takes more than expertise

to get 100 tons of metal steaming again.

It takes a lot of devotion, a lot of money,

and backaching hard work.

Well, we try to do bits and pieces of what we can.

We're not all skilled.

I used to be a fireman on this type of engine at Doncaster,

and that's where my interest stems from.

I think once you've been on that job,

there's something bred into you that never leaves you.

It's inside you. It's probably always there.

I'm at work here five days a week for pay

and the other two I'm usually here doing the volunteers' work as well.

That's how I originally started.

It's all right going by the textbook but it isn't...

You know, when you get your hands dirty, you know why it works

and how it performs.

We do it for the love of it and not only that -

we're preserving part of the Railway Heritage of the country.

'I mean, you can go to a five-year-old child

'and they've heard of the Flying Scotsman.'

This crown looks in poor condition, Pat.

Looks as though the white metal has moved slightly.

Dirt and grit gets into the white metal.

It gets so much dirt into it it won't absorb oil,

and it eventually it'll start to wear.

It's just like your car big end, exactly.

White metal, well, it's 65% tin and the rest is lead and antimony.

It's quite expensive.

It takes me a day to re-metal one, a full day,

and then probably another day to machine it and fit it on.

I first started in 1942, straight from school at 14.

At one time, if you lived in Carnforth

and you were in a railway family, you automatically went onto the railway.

And so Flying Scotsman is ready for the road again.

Well, almost ready.

Before it can go out on British Rail track,

there have to be last-minute checks

and an intimate inspection by British Rail's surgeons and specialists.

A match-fitness test on all those hamstrings and cartilages.

After that, a proper road test, a 30-mile run up to the Yorkshire Dales

and back, and that's how I came to have the magic chance to go down

the same tender corridor along which Alec Hurley, the villain, went,

in 1929, and through which so many drivers and firemen have passed

on the non-stop run.

'At the end of the tunnel, I found British Rail Inspector

'Reg Lawrence.'

All right if I come?

Yes, come on. Do what do you want, yes.

It would be quite safe?

WHISTLE BLOWS LOUDLY Oh, yeah, yeah.

60mph is very safe.

Above that, you've got to think of the age of them.

They are, after all... This one is actually as old as me.

- It was built the year I was born. - Really?

Yeah. 1923, yeah.

Somebody was telling me... Is this really your last day?

Definitely, yeah. I retire on Friday,

but I've got two little parties, tomorrow and the day after.

So your last job is actually testing the Flying Scotsman?

My last job, yes.

- That's a good way to go out. - It is, indeed.

Well, come in with a puff of smoke, go out with one, eh?

- You wouldn't fail her today? - What?

You wouldn't like to fail her today?

Oh, no, no way, no.

No, she's in good order now. They've made a good job of it.

So, what's it like riding on the footplate of the Flying Scotsman?

Well, it shakes around a lot like a bucking horse, it's dirty,

you can hardly hear yourself speak, things blow in your eyes,

your legs get hot from the firebox and your top half freezes

in the 60mph draught.

In other words, it's fantastic.

I'm not surprised that people want to give up their weekends

and their holidays and their fortunes to keep an engine like this going.

It would never get a train from London to Edinburgh in today's

four-and-a-half hours, but when you see it charging

through the English countryside, you just forget that any other

kind of engine has ever existed.

You also forget that for the last 20 years, the Flying Scotsman

has been living on borrowed time, and it may be that one day the only

relic we'll have of engines like that is films like this,

but then again, the fast diesels which now do the Flying Scotsman run

are also living on borrowed time, as electrification

marches up the east coast, and diesels have their own

devoted fans, and one day, perhaps, history will repeat itself

and steam nostalgia films will be replaced by diesel nostalgia films.

But until then, what a way to go.