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Mallard: How the â€˜Blue Streakâ€™ Broke the World Speed Record

By (author) Don Hale

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Just over eighty years ago on the East Coast main line, the streamlined A4 Pacific locomotive Mallard reached a top speed of 126mph â€“ a world record for steam locomotives that still stands. Since then, millions have seen this famous locomotive, resplendent in her blue livery, on display at the National Railway Museum in York. Here, Don Hale tells the full story of how the record was broken: from the nineteenth-century Londonâ€“Scotland speed race and, surprisingly, traces Mallardâ€™s futuristic design back to the Bugatti car and the influence of Germanyâ€™s nascent Third Reich, which propelled the train into an instrument of national prestige. He also celebrates Mallardâ€™s designer, Sir Nigel Gresley, one of Britainâ€™s most gifted engineers. Mallard is a wonderful tribute to one of British technologyâ€™s finest hours.