The Flying Scotsman has made its inaugural journey following a decade-long, £4.2 million refit.
The world famous locomotive travelled from London King's Cross to York, where it will go on display at the National Railway Museum.[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"content_original","fid":"91424","attributes":{"class":"media-image","style":"font-size: 0.8125em;"}}]]
Bearing the traditional green livery of early 1960s British Rail, the train left King's Cross as scheduled at 7.40am, but was briefly held up by people standing on the track to take photos near St Neots, in Cambridgeshire.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Passengers said the Scotsman came to a "shuddering stop" due to photographers on the track and Virgin Trains East Coast warned other services were being delayed by up to 15 minutes.
On board for the five-hour trip were 297 VIPs, fundraisers, competition winners and ticket-buying members of the public, says the Guardian.
Among them was Great British Railway Journeys presenter Michael Portillo, who said: "This is certainly the most famous journey and most famous locomotive in Britain."
The Flying Scotsman was "an engineering triumph", added the former MP, who was filming the journey for a BBC documentary. He also praised its designer, Sir Nigel Gresley, for having "an eye for engineering, for design, for style and for marketing".
Paul Kirkman, the director of the National Railway Museum, said the Flying Scotsman was a reminder that "railways have been making this country run properly for nearly 200 years".
The museum bought the locomotive for £2.3m in 2004, before work got under way on its restoration two years later.
It had been a "long old journey", said Kirkman, but it was "incredibly satisfying" to see the locomotive returned to service. It will stay at the museum until 6 March and then embark on a tour of the country.
In honour of today's journey, the BFI tweeted a short video showing what the Flying Scotsman was like to ride on when it was first built in the 1930s.
-
Rail strikes: is Britain on track for a ‘summer of discontent’?Speed Read The ‘biggest rail strike in modern history’ is planned for next week
-
‘See it. Say it. Sorted’: is it the end of the line for train announcements?Speed Read The transport secretary has pledged a ‘bonfire of the banalities’ on England’s railways
-
UK to bring in airport Covid tests for arrivalsSpeed Read MPs call for stricter border measures as South African variant of coronavirus spreads
-
UK records biggest jump in transport use since pandemic beganSpeed Read Monday rush hour sees spike in commuters across country as trains return to 90% of pre-coronavirus services
-
Coronavirus: what are the odds of catching Covid-19 on a plane?Speed Read Studies suggest air travel is safe despite concerns about air quality
-
Plane crashed ‘as distracted pilots discussed Covid fears’Speed Read Preliminary report says ‘human error’ to blame for crash in Pakistan that claimed 98 lives
-
Coronavirus: Virgin Atlantic tells staff to take unpaid leaveSpeed Read Move comes amid warnings that global pandemic could bankrupt aviation industry
-
UK airlines call for multibillion-pound coronavirus bailoutSpeed Read Demand comes ahead of ‘bloodiest week in British aviation history’
