Flying Scotsman has a special place in the hearts of the residents of Retford. With the town being situated on the East Coast Main Line (ECML), the locomotive ran through the town’s station on an almost daily basis for almost 40 years on its journey between the London and North Eastern Railway’s (LNER) terminal stations at Kings Cross (KX) and Edinburgh Waverley stations.
Designed by Sir Nigel Gresley and built in Doncaster, Flying Scotsman entered service with the newly formed LNER on 23rd February 1923 with the number 4472. It became the flagship loco for the LNER and represented the company twice at the British Empire Exhibition and in 1928 hauled the inaugural non-stop Flying Scotsman service.
It retired from British Railways (BR) in 1963 having covered over two million miles. During its lifetime, it has set two world records for steam traction being the first loco to reach 100mph in November 1934 and setting the longest non-stop run of 422 miles in 1989 in Australia.
A further bond with the town is that Alan Pegler OBE, the man who saved the loco from the scrapman, was based in Retford. He was a successful businessman who ran the family business, Northern Rubber in Thrumpton Lane, and Bassetlaw Museum is now located in the former Pegler family home in Grove Street.
Alan was a railway enthusiast who was instrumental in saving and restoring the famous North Wales narrow gauge Ffestiniog Railway in the early 1950s. In 1961, when the BR board announced it would scrap Flying Scotsman, a bid by railway enthusiasts to raise the £3,000 asking price failed.
Alan bought the loco outright and over the next few years spent a large amount of money having it restored to almost new condition at Doncaster Works where it was built originally in 1923. He then persuaded the BR board to let him run enthusiast specials, which was all the more remarkable because, at that time, steam locomotives were banned from running on the main line railway tracks of British Railways.
The loco has had a colourful career over the past century and in 1969 it crossed the Atlantic to support a government sponsored scheme to support British exports. Having travelled over 15,000 miles across North America, in 1971, the Ted Heath government withdrew financial support and the scheme collapsed.
Alan Pegler was declared bankrupt and ‘Scotsman’ ended up in storage at a US Army Depot in California. A year later, the locomotive was purchased by another railway enthusiast, Sir William McAlpine, who returned it to the UK.
Under Sir William’s ownership ‘Scotsman’ was shipped to Australia to take part in the country’s bicentenary celebrations as the central attraction in the Aus Steam 86 festival. Over the next year, Scotsman travelled over 28,000 miles over Australian rails and in doing so broke numerous records including the longest non-stop run by a steam loco of 422 miles.
‘Scotsman’ passed through the hands of a number of owners before being put up for auction in February 2004. Fearing it could be sold abroad, the National Railway Museum (NRM) announced it would bid for the loco on behalf of the nation. It won the bid and ‘Scotsman’ entered public ownership and a part of the NRM’s national collection. It arrived in York in June 2004 to be exhibited at the Railfest celebration of 200 years of railway travel.
For the next 18 months, ‘Scotsman’ was used to haul special trains across the UK but it failed on a number of occasions, including the delivery run to Railfest, the museum’s engineering staff having failed to notice critical faults.
Over the following winter, it remained in the NRM workshop for a heavy intermediate repair, the intention being to improve reliability and allow operation until its general overhaul and restoration. By the end of 2005, the intermediate repairs had failed to improve the situation and the museum decided to proceed with the general overhaul.
The engine entered the NRM’s workshop once again in January 2006 with the original intention to return it to Sir Nigel Gresley’s original specification and renew its boiler certificate. Steam engine boilers rarely last a decade and ‘Scotsman’s boiler restoration became ever more problematic.
The boiler problems were compounded by misaligned frames, a cracked cylinder plus an increase in the price of metal. In May 2011 the refurbished locomotive was unveiled on the Museum’s turntable and it was hoped to have it running excursions by the summer. However, during testing, numerous additional problems were discovered and many of the engine’s vital components were deemed beyond repair.
The following year the NRM published a report examining the reasons for the delay and the additional cost. The museum had greatly underestimated the work required due to the 90-year-old engine’s poor condition. Furthermore, management lacked the experience, knowhow or resources to undertake such a complex task. In fairness, their mission was to run a museum, not to undertake a ground up overhaul of a complex and totally worn-out steam locomotive.
Following the report, a review was commissioned regarding the remaining necessary work with the suggestion the outstanding work to put out to external tender. Riley & Son was announced as the winning contractor and on the same day, the loco was moved to their workshop in Bury, Lancashire.
The final cost of the 10-year restoration was over £4 million but in January 2016, ‘Scotsman’ moved under its own steam for the first time since 2005 on the East Lancashire Railway. The loco returned to Kings Cross in February for a run to York. The public response was so overwhelming, with thousands of people lining the route, that the train was forced to stop at St Neots due to members of the public trespassing on the line.
Despite all the trials and tribulations, Flying Scotsman is now running on the main line once again and is certified to run on the main line until 2029, after which it will run solely on heritage lines. The locomotive has cemented its place in the affection and hearts of the British public and will no doubt visit the town once again before its current boiler certificate expires.
In September, there was an unveiling of a plaque to Alan Pegler OBE at Retford station plus a mural to ‘Scotsman’ on Platform 1 that was attended by his daughter who had flown over from Portugal to attend the ceremony.