Flying start

There is nothing of beauty here. The stripped-down boiler looks ugly and utilitarian. As it swings from its harness with the towers of York Minster looking on from the skyline, it looks like nothing more than a rusty bathtub.

NRM boss Andrew Scott leaves me in no doubt, however, that this is a key moment in the ongoing restoration of the iconic locomotive.

For two years now, engineers have been working to restore the great steam engine.

Experts at the NRM have been responsible for the chassis, but restoring the boiler for an engine this size is a specialised job. Which is why it was sent to a workshop in Devon – one of the few places in the UK with the know-how for the job.

Now it is being winched into place above the refurbished chassis for a ‘test fitting’ to make sure the two parts of the locomotive fit together.

Workmen in high-visibility jackets stand on the chassis and, inch-by-inch, manoeuvre the boiler into place.

There are several false starts, and a few desperate cries of “Woah!” before it finally settles into place.

Getting to this stage has been a huge investment in time, and in sheer, old-fashioned craftsmanship.

“But we’re on the home straight now,” , Mr Scott says, beaming. “We’re at the assembly stage.”

Well, not quite yet. This has only been a test fitting. The boiler, still just an empty shell, is now off to Bury, in Manchester, where it will be properly riveted and welded, and its guts fitted into place.

All being well, however – and providing the NRM’s new £250,000 SOS (Steam Our Scotsman) appeal is successful – by this time next year the iconic locomotive should be as good as new and ready to carry its first passengers from summer 2010.

It will be a while before it is dashing off to King’s Cross and back, however, Mr Scott says.

“It will probably kick off by shuffling around the yard here. And then it will go to one of the heritage railways for some slow speed tests at 25mph. Then we will gently work up from there.

“We want to do some York to Scarborough trips fairly early, because they are not too challenging, and then we’ll start going on the Settle to Carlisle line.”

The great locomotive made its name on the London to Edinburgh run in the 1920s, non-stop from capital to capital. Will it ever do that again? Unlikely, Mr Scott concedes. It can’t carry enough water to do the journey non-stop. The old mile-long water troughs that used to line the railways in the days of steam, allowing engines to scoop up water as they were moving, have long gone.

More to the point, the railways today are busy with trains hurtling along at upwards of 120mph. A steam train trundling along at 70mph – even one as famous as the Scotsman – would get in the way.

That said, the Flying Scotsman is a national icon, and it will be making appearances on lines across the country. “There are lots of great journeys to be made.”

All that is for the future, however. For now, the restoration work is still under way.

Visitors to the NRM have become used to seeing the chassis of the great engine being worked on in the museum’s workshop.

But it is the boiler that has presented the most challenging engineering problems. A steam locomotive is essentially a bomb on wheels, Mr Scott says. The boiler of an engine such as the Scotsman has to be able to withstand internal pressures of up to 250lbs per square inch, while travelling at up to 100mph.

While it may look simple from the outside, inside the boiler is hugely complex.

The firebox at one end has a double-layered skin which is filled with superheated water – and has to be able to remain watertight under enormous pressure.

The boiler itself, meanwhile, is filled with tubes which carry superheated air to heat the water that surrounds them – a system invented by George Stephenson to increase the effectiveness of steam engines by increasing the surface area of hot metal in contact with water, Mr Scott says.

It is not an easy task to make all these elements fit together so that they will be watertight and can withstand the enormous pressures.

In 1923, when the Flying Scotsman was built in Doncaster, workshops were geared up to churn out boilers such as this.

But now many of the old skills have been lost, as has much of the equipment that would have been used.

“There is no owner’s manual, and no Halfords to pop to for the parts. We have to make them ourselves,” Mr Scott says.

Little wonder that the restoration has cost more than the museum originally envisaged. The rising price of copper didn’t help. By the time the Scotsman is back on the rails, more than £1 million will have been spent on restoration.

That is a lot of money. But you don’t need to be a rail buff to think it is worth it to be able to see the most famous steam loco of them all back on the rails.

It’s the most iconic steam engine of them all, but why is the Flying Scotsman so famous?

There are several reasons, says NRM boss Andrew Scott.

Named for the mainline route linking London and Edinburgh, the Flying Scotsman was one of the new A1 class locomotives (later to be known as A3 class) which were designed in 1923 by Sir Nigel Gresley.

Locomotive number 4472 was built at Doncaster in 1923, and hand-picked by LNER directors to go on show at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924.

This was a post-First World War celebration of the best of British, and in its two years at Wembley the Flying Scotsman was seen by millions of people.

It was then put into service on the London to Edinburgh route. In those days before commonplace air travel, LNER bosses were keen to offer a non-stop service on the route. The Flying Scotsman became the first locomotive to complete a non-stop London to Edinburgh run. In fact, says Mr Scott, for decades afterwards it remained the longest non-stop rail journey in the world.

The Flying Scotsman featured in the first British talking movie – entitled, appropriately enough, Flying Scotsman. It was a curious heist-movie about a gang of robbers escaping by train, the first half of which was silent and the second half of which had sound, Mr Scott says.

The locomotive’s immortality was then assured when, in 1934, it became the first steam engine to be officially recorded doing 100mph.

The Flying Scotsman continued in service until 1963. After passing through the hands of several private owners, it was bought by the NRM in 2004. It had two years remaining on its licence to operate on the rails, and made a number of journeys, including on the York to Scarborough line.

But when its licence expired, NRM bosses decided on a complete overhaul to ensure it would remain fit for use for years to come.