Mallard: How the Blue Streak Broke the World Steam Speed Record

by Don Hale (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $3.40

  'It ought to be a film, of course, pitched somewhere between The Right Stuff and Chariots of Fire. Meanwhile, Don Hale's well-ordered, compelling book will do nicely' Andrew Martin, Daily Express Seventy years ago, on 3 July 1938, on the East Coast main line, the streamlined A4 Pacific locomotive Mallard 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. Reissued for the 75th anniversary of the speed record, Don Hale tells the full story of how the record was broken, from the nineteenth century rivalry to be fastest between London and Scotland, and, surprisingly, traces Mallard's futuristic design to the Bugatti car and Germany's nascent Third Reich, which elevated the train into an instrument of national prestige. And he celebrates the singular figure of Mallard's designer, Sir Nigel Gresley, one of Britain's most gifted engineers. Mallard is a wonderfully nostalgic evocation of one of British technology's finest hours. Don Hale is the author of Town without Pity, about his investigation of the wrongful conviction of Stephen Downing for murder, for which Hale was awarded the OBE.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2005

  $3.25

  On the third of July 1938, the superbly streamlined A4 Pacific class steam locomotive Mallard set a world speed record on the East Coast main line of 126mph, a record which still stands. Since then millions of people have seen Mallard , either at the Science Museum in London or, more recently, at the National Railway Museum in York. Now, some 65 years on, Don Hale tells the full story of how the record came to be broken. It's a tale that goes back to the late 19th century, when the rival railway companies first began to vie with one another to set speed records between London and Scotland. It charts the technological development of the steam engine through the early decades of the 20th century into a hugely powerful and truly locomotive machine. It shows, surprisingly, how the international quest for technological supremacy developed, during the 30s, into a battle of national prestige between Britain and Germany under the nascent Third Reich. And above all, it focuses on the singular and larger-than-life character of Sir Nigel Gresley, Mallard's designer and one of the most gifted engineers Britain has ever produced - who was to the steam engine what the Spitfire designer R.J. Mitchell was to aviation. Then, in an account that includes interviews with surviving crew members and their relatives, the book sets the scene for the big day itself, and follows hour by hour the nailbiting attempt to break the record, as the giant Blue Streak thunders up the main line through the heart of England and into the record books. Illustrated with many archive photographs from the National Railway Museum's collection, Mallard is a piece of nostaliga that should appeal to anyone interested in one of Britain's finest hours in technological history.