Flying Scotsman (railway service)

The Flying Scotsman is an express passenger train service that operates between Edinburgh and London, the capitals of Scotland and England, respectively, via the East Coast Main Line. The service began in 1862 as the Special Scotch Express until it was officially adopted in 1924. It is currently operated by London North Eastern Railway.

The East Coast Main Line over which the Flying Scotsman service runs was built in the 19th century by many small railway companies, but mergers and acquisitions led to only three companies controlling the route; the North British Railway (NBR), the North Eastern Railway (NER) and the Great Northern Railway (GNR). In 1860 the three companies established the East Coast Joint Stock for through services using common vehicles, and it is from this agreement that the Flying Scotsman came about.

The first Special Scotch Express ran in 1862, with simultaneous departures at 10:00 from the GNR's London King's Cross and the NBR's Edinburgh Waverley. The original journey took 10+1⁄2 hours, including a half-hour stop at York for lunch. Increasing competition and improvements in railway technology saw this time reduced to 8+1⁄2 hours by the time of the Race to the North in 1888.

From 1896, the train was modernised, introducing such features as corridors between carriages, heating, and dining cars. As passengers could now take lunch on the train, the York stop was reduced to 15 minutes, but the end-to-end journey time remained 8+1⁄2 hours. Like the earlier carriages built for the service, this rolling stock was jointly owned by the three operating companies, and formed part of the pool known as the East Coast Joint Stock.

In 1923, the railways of Britain were grouped into the 'Big Four'. As a consequence of this, all three members of the East Coast Joint Stock became part of the newly formed London and North Eastern Railway (LNER).

In 1924, the LNER officially renamed the 10:00 Special Scotch Express linking Edinburgh and London in both directions to Flying Scotsman, its unofficial name since the 1870s. To further publicise the train, a recently built A1 Class locomotive – at first numbered 1472 and, subsequently, 4472 – was named after the service and put on display at the 1924 British Empire Exhibition.

Due to a long-standing agreement between the competing West Coast and East Coast Main Line routes since the famous railway races of 1888 and 1895, speeds of the Scotch expresses were limited, the time for the 392 miles (631 km) between the capitals being a pedestrian eight hours 15 minutes. However, subsequent to valve gear modifications, the A1 locomotive's coal consumption was drastically reduced, and it was thus found possible to run the service non-stop with a heavy train on one tender full of coal. Ten locomotives of Classes A1 and A3, which were to be used on the service, were provided with corridor tenders; these avoided engine crew fatigue by enabling a replacement driver and fireman to take over halfway without stopping the train.

During the General Strike on 11 May 1926, the Flying Scotsman was derailed by strikers near Newcastle.