Mallard 4468 - National Railway Museum, York, UK - Locomotives on Waymarking.com

The National Railway Museum website (http://www.nrm.org.uk/PlanaVisit/Events/mallard75new) tells us about "Mallard":

On 3 July 1938, the A4 class locomotive Mallard raced down Stoke Bank at 126mph to set a new steam locomotive world speed record. That record still stands.

A short history of Mallard 4468

If Rocket's claim to fame was its exceptional performance in the Rainhill Trails - leading to the success of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway - then Mallard marked steam traction's zenith in attaining its world speed record of 126 mph on 3 July 1938.

Built in March 1938, Mallard is part of the A4 class of locomotive designed by Sir Nigel Gresley when he was Chief Engineer at the LNER. Its innovative streamlined wedge-shaped design bore no resemblance to the preceeding A3 class (of which Flying Scotsman was an example) and was very much a product of 1930's Britain. At this time speed was seen as the ultimate symbol of modernity and the A4 class was the ultimate symbol of art deco styling and cut the journey time from London King's Cross to Newcastle to just four hours.

Until the morning of the 3 July 1938 the recently built Mallard appeared to be just another member of the LNER's express locomotive. However, Gresley and his team had been working hard to implement changes with a view to not only beat the (then) current British steam record of 114 mph held by the LMS but also the world-record held by Germany's DRG's Class 5 locomotive that had archived 124.5mph in 1936. Gresley chose experienced Joe Duddington as Mallard's driver, along fireman Thomas Bray. The rest of the crew and technical team were only told the true purpose of the run after the train's northbound run from Wood Green, in North London.

Racing down Stoke Bank, the dynomometer car behind Mallard recorded 120mph, which saw of the LMS's record. However there was a small window before the crew needed to slow down for the Essendine curves so they accelerated even more. For a quarter of a mile the dynomometer car confirmed the train was travelling at 126mph. Now the German record was also gone.

It was claimed that the train rocked so violently that the dining car crockery smashed and red-hot, bullet-like cinders from the locomotive broke windows at Little Bytham. The force exerted the brakes being applied has caused Mallard's big end bearing to run hot and a slow run to Peterborough was needed to prevent Mallard from being written off.

Driver Duddington and fireman Bray received a hero's welcome in London. But of course they were soon back on the footplate for another ordinary day at work.

Wikipedia has an article about "Mallard" that tells us:

London and North Eastern Railway locomotive numbered 4468 Mallard is a Class A4 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotive built at Doncaster, England in 1938. It is historically significant as the holder of the world speed record for steam locomotives at 126 mph (203 km/h).

The A4 class was designed by Sir Nigel Gresley to power high-speed streamlined trains. The wind-tunnel-tested, aerodynamic body and high power allowed the class to reach speeds of over 100 miles per hour (160 km/h), although in everyday service it rarely attained this speed. While in British Railways days regular steam-hauled rail services in the UK were officially limited to a 90 mph 'line speed', pre-war, the A4s had to run way above 90 mph just to keep schedule on trains such as the Silver Jubilee and Coronation, with the engines reaching the magic three figures on many occasions. Mallard covered almost one and a half million miles (2.4 million km) before it was retired in 1963.

The locomotive is 70 ft (21 m) long and weighs 165 tons, including the tender. It is painted LNER garter blue with red wheels and steel rims.

Mallard is now part of the National Collection at the United Kingdom's National Railway Museum in York.

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