Gresley A1 Flying Scotsman 4472

Named after the London to Edinburgh rail service which started in 1862, the Flying Scotsman has to be one of Britain’s favourite steam engines. The locomotive was built in Doncaster (works number 1564) becoming the first locomotive of the newly formed London and North Eastern Railway. It left the works on 24 February 1923 with LNER number 1472. Designed by Sir Nigel Gresley, the A1 class was one of the most powerful locomotives used by the LNER at that time. By 1924, when it was selected to appear at the British Empire Exhibition in London, the number was changed to 4472 and it was named ‘Flying Scotsman’.

The British Empire Exhibition made Flying Scotsman famous, and it went on to feature in many more publicity events for the LNER. In 1928, it was given a new type of tender with a corridor, which meant that crew exchange could take place without stopping the train, allowing it to haul the first ever non-stop London to Edinburgh service on 1 May, reducing the journey time to eight hours. In 1934, Scotsman was clocked at 100mph on a special test run – officially the first locomotive in the UK to have reached that speed.

Illustrated here as it would have looked in 1933 in the ‘Apple Green’ livery lined with black and white above the footplate and red below. ‘Apple Green’ was applied to LNER’s passenger locomotives before WWII. The locomotive has a right-hand drive at this point in time, the long reversing rod is on the right too. The cab roof has been lowered and the original single chimney and boiler dome is still in place.

During the Second World War, Flying Scotsman was repainted in wartime black and carried the number 103 and 503. After the war, it reverted to ‘Apple Green’, and was rebuilt as an A3 Pacific, acquiring the ‘banjo’ boiler dome in March 1948. After nationalisation, in 1948, the Flying Scotsman was given its British Railways running number of 60103. It underwent several further modifications and repaints. Appearing in blue in 1950 and 1951 with the BR ‘lion-and-wheel’ emblem, it was repainted again in February 1952 with the standard BR Brunswick Green with orange and black lining. In 1954 it was converted to a left-hand drive conforming to the 1934 batch of A3s. The double chimney was installed in January 1959 and the ‘German’ smoke deflectors appeared later that same year to help driver visibility, impaired by the next exhaust.

By the time of its withdrawal in January 1963, the Flying Scotsman was unofficially credited with travelling over 2 million miles!Posters printed on 200gsm satin stock. Available in 3 sizes.

Every attempt is made to ensure the featured locomotive is accurate given the available references. Colours on the prints may look slightly different to their screen representations.