Posts

Showing posts with the label great gathering

MALLARD - How the Blue Streak Broke the World Speed Record

Image
JUST over eighty years ago on the East Coast main line, the streamlined A4 Pacific locomotive Mallard reached a top speed of 126mph a world record for steam locomotives that still stands. Since then, millions have seen this famous locomotive, resplendent in her blue livery, on display at the National Railway Museum in York. Here, Don Hale tells the full story of how the record was broken: from the nineteenth-century London Scotland speed race and, surprisingly, traces Mallard's futuristic design back to the Bugatti car and the influence of Germany's nascent Third Reich, which propelled the train into an instrument of national prestige.  *The book is now available on Amazon:   https://amzn.to/3CpF12p *An abbreviated second book - MALLARD - The railway marvel that beat the world is also available via Amazon:  https://amzn.to/42Ep4zY Don Haled also celebrates Mallard's designer, Sir Nigel Gresley, one of Britain's most gifted engineers. Mallard is a wonderful tribute to on