The Great Gathering …. On July 3rd 1938, Mallard established the world speed record for a steam locomotive near Grantham on the East Coast Main Line. The record will now stand forever.

This month the event was celebrated at the National Railway Museum at York with the gathering of the six remaining locomotives of this type – the A4 Pacific designed by Sir Nigel Gresley after whom one was named. Four of them were in the UK but two, “Dwight D. Eisenhower" and “Dominion of Canada" were returned from the US and Canada for the occasion.

These machines were not removed from service with British Railways until 1963 so, as a young enthusiastic nerdy ten year-old trainspotter, I had the chance to see them regularly thundering out of Newark when my long suffering parents could be persuaded to take me. The fact that The Great Northern pub was at the crossing at Carlton-on-Trent probably helped my Dad to be persuaded.

York was the first stop on a motorcycle trip that Mick Sumpter and I are taking – up the east side of the UK, around Scotland anti-clockwise, and then back to Cambridge via the Lake District and the Pennines. All the pretty bits with nice roads. I am sure that local ales and whiskies will be involved along the way.