| I've included these photos so the real railfans can drool. I've been priviledged to have been around "Mallard" on a daily basis during my work at the British National Railway Museum in York, but I have to admit I've never worked ON it, per se. For the uninitiated, "Mallard" holds the world speed record for a steam locomotive, at 125 or 126 m.p.h., depending on who you talk to, achieved in 1938. The closest rivals are DRG #05 002 (124.5 m.p.h. in 1937) and PRR #7002 (allegedly 127 m.p.h., but unconfirmed, in 1906). "Mallard" was an A4 Class 4-6-2 steam passenger locomotive designed by the London & North Eastern Railway's Chief Mechanical Engineer Sir Herbert Nigel Gresley, who also designed many other famous classes of steam locomotive for the LNER, which included the earlier A1, A10, and A3 Class 4-6-2s ("Flying Scotsman was built as an A1, and rebuilt twice, first to an A10, and then to an A3, becoming all three classes at one point or another), and the V2 Class 2-6-2 (of which #4771 "Green Arrow" was one). Like all of LNER's high-end passenger power, "Mallard" was built at Doncaster. |