by Mark Found

Why is this the most famous locomotive in the world? I mean, we all know it is (barring Thomas the Tank Engine of course) but why?

To be honest I have to admit I didn't really know a lot about the loco before doing this shoot, apart from the obvious stuff about going to America and the rescue by Dr.Tony Marchington, but researching for the piece soon put me right.

The Flying Scotsman PLC are well organized, a trip to their excellent website makes it obvious, and dealing with the various people concerned such as Peter Butler (chief executive) and Roland Kennington (chief engineer) was a breeze. Helpful is putting it mildly, and a trip to the shed was quickly organized.

The original date for the shoot was September 21st, when it was planned that we would begin filming at Stewarts Lane early in the morning (very early, in fact) and then travel with the train on it's planned tour that day to Crewe grabbing shots along the way. This all tied in with our filming day in Crewe on the 22nd, and it meant we would get to travel up on board the Orient Express (courtesy of those lovely people at VSOE).

Might have known it wouldn't happen - The Flying Scotsman called in sick with a hot axle on the tender, and much as I would have love to have done it there was no way I could justify a trip on the Orient Express when we were left with nothing to film. Still, a new date was arranged, and we agreed to meet the locomotive at Stewarts Lane the day before her trip to Southampton.

I had in my mind apiece that didn't necessarily show it running at full tilt, I saw this as more an opportunity to make a study of her as she was at rest. Imagine the scene - we've spent half an hour driving around the backstreets of Battersea trying to find the entrance to the depot. It's a warm day, and finally we make it to the shed. No one around, so I pop my head inside. Bloody hell, it's only class 71 no.5001-my all time favourite locomotive!

Obviously this did prove a bit of a distraction, the poor old thing looking a bit worse for wear twenty odd years since her last make over - but I made the cameraman get a shot, and the result's below. By the way, in case you were wondering, I was brought up in Whitstable, and these locos were pretty much the only ones I saw. Does that explain such an odd choice of favourite loco?

So, I'm in this long two road shed, D5001 to my left, and a couple of old carriages to my right. There was a definite smell of smoke, absolute stillness in the air, and there, way down on the right-hand side, stabled under one of the smoke hoods Flying Scotsman herself. Magnificent is probably the word I need to use here. It's not very often the camera crew go quiet - we're normally treated to "It didn't look like this last time we were here" and "what time's lunch?" but, today, nothing. Just reverential awe.

Roger, the lucky bloke who gets to spend his life with Flying Scotsman introduced himself, and then just let us get on with it. There's an aspect to filming that I feel very lucky about, and that's when we go on these shoots one usually gets a guided tour in a depth of detail that very few are lucky to get. Roger and Roland were on hand at the drop of a hat to answer our questions - even the ones that I really should have known the answers to - such as "why does such a big locomotive have such small driving windows in the cab?" Roland soon put me right "Big though the Flying Scotsman is, it's running on rails, so there's no need to steer her. The driver will know his route inside out, and all he has to do, and it's the most important bit, is look out for signals, and the windows are perfectly adequate for that". So now I know.

I hope you like the end result - but I did do something that didn't get shown on the tele, and that was to walk through the tender, something I've always wanted to do ever since see pictures of Flying Scotsman with two tenders behind her. I'm a lucky bugger aren't I?

Many thanks to all those concerned with our day's shoot, Tim Robbins from VSOE, Roger, Roland and Peter from Flying Scotsman PLC, it's something I won't forget in a long time.

Trainspotting.links (will open in a new window)

www.flyingscotsman.com
excellent website, one of the best I've seen.
www.orient-express.com
as good as their reputation

Books

for more on the LNER in general, try "LNER 150" by Patrick Whitehouse and David St. John Thomas published by David & Charles. Excellent read, as are all their books in this series. Don't forget to try the Railway Book Club - this is the sort of thing they have offers on