Speeding Locomotives?

Question

What was the first ever Steam Engine to Reach 100 mph...

( it wasn't the Mallard..which still holds the World Steam Record..).

Answer 1

Unofficially, it was the City of Truro

Officially, it was the Flying Scotsman

Answer 2

Think it was GWR's City of Truro about 1904

Answer 3

The answer is that both claims are worthy. GWR's City class no. 3440, City of Truro, which was built at the Swindon Works in May 1903, was hauling a mail train from Plymouth to London in May 1904 when it reached a claimed top speed of just over 102 mph. This was while going down a slope at Whiteball near Somerset.

The background of this engine is that it was one of 20 built during the first decade of the 20th century. By the 1920s it was thought to be out of date and by 1931 all of this class had been scrapped except City of Truro. This locomotive was then taken to the newly set up Transport Railway Museum - now the National Railway Museum. It has been brought out of retirement a couple of times previously, but this year it was overhauled and put back into working order at a cost of £130,000 for the centenary of the record run and the rail bicentenary, Railfest.

The 102.3mph run, however can only be a claim. It was recorded by railway journalist Charles Rous-Marten, but there was no second timekeeper to confirm his reading. City of Truro's record has therefore always been a matter of dispute.

By 1934, however, locomotives attempting records had a dynamometer car attached, with all sorts of devices for measuring speeds. The name 'The Flying Scotsman' referred to an express train service, which ran between London and Edinburgh. From 1925 to 1963, a Pacific steam locomotive pulled it and was itself named Flying Scotsman. It was designed by the engineer Sir Herbert Nigel Gresley. Flying Scotsman was the third of the A1 Pacifics to be built, and the first new locomotive built for the new London North Eastern Railway (LNER). The locomotive first ran in 1923 and in 1924 she was at the British Empire Exhibition. It was on 30 November 1934 that Flying Scotsman achieved the first properly authenticated 100mph for a steam engine. This was while she was running between Leeds and London.

Answer 4

City of Truro on Whiteball Bank in Somerset - but there wasn't a means of verifiying it as the GWR thought such high speeds would scare customers...

Flying Scotsman was the first to be officially timed...

Answer 5

the answer to this question is the flying scotsman in 1934 while she still held the engine number 1472 later that year she was re-numbered 4472