Mallard

de Don Hale

"On 3 July 1938, at 4.22 in the afternoon, the superbly streamlined A4 Pacific locomotive Mallard swept through Grantham on the East Coast main line towards Kings Cross. By the time she pulled into Peterborough twenty-six minutes later she had reached a top speed of 126mph - a world record for steam locomotives which still stands. Since then, millions have seen this famous locomotive, resplendent in her blue livery, on display at the National Railway Museum in York." "Now, some sixty-five years on, Don Hale tells the full story of how the record came to be broken, tracing the quest for speed back to the nineteenth century, when the rival railway companies began to vie to be fastest between London and Scotland. He charts the evolution of the steam engine through the early twentieth century into a hugely powerful, truly locomotive machine and traces Mallard's futuristic design to such various influences as the Bugatti car and Germany's nascent Third Reich, which elevated the train into an instrument of national prestige. And above all he celebrates the singular figure of Sir Nigel Gresley, Mallard's designer and one of the most gifted engineers Britain has produced." "Then, drawing on reminiscences from the footplate crew themselves - who subsequently became national celebrities - and others who were on the train that day, Don Hale sets the scene for the big day itself, and shows how what was tentatively billed as a 'brake test' for the giant blue locomotive saw it thunder through the heart of England and into the history books. Illustrated with many archive photographs, Mallard is a nostalgic evocation of one of British engineering's finest hours."--BOOK JACKET.