Famous Trains

The Flying Scotsman has been running between London (Kings Cross) and Edinburgh since 1862; it has left London at the traditional time of 10am since its beginning, and still runs today. Originally, the Flying Scotsman was the name of the route from London. It was actually a nickname, which was not used officially until 1924. In order to attract publicity for the route, a new steam locomotive was given the same name and put on display at the British Empire Exhibition that year.

The steam locomotive Flying Scotsman was mainly used for promotional purposes, but it also hauled trains. It broke several records in its day, making the London-to-Edinburgh trip in eight hours non-stop and also surpassed the 100 mph barrier. Since then it has been to America and Australia on promotional tours and has also been used to pull privately owned Orient Express replica trains. At one time the train featured an on-board hairdressing salon, a cinema coach and a Louis XVI dining car. You can still ride the Flying Scotsman route from London to Scotland today, though powered by an electric loco. You can also see the record-breaking Flying Scotsman steam locomotive at the National Railway Museum in York.

The Devon Belle was a luxury express passenger train which ran between Waterloo, in London, and Ilfracombe and Plymouth between 1947 and 1954. The Southern Railway was anxious to encourage the resumption of normal leisure activities after the war years, and it commenced operation of the train on June 20th 1947. It set high standards for comfort and luxury, and was comprised entirely of Pullman coaches. Two unusual features of the train were that all seats were reservable, and there was an observation car, attached at the rear for the benefit of passengers to and from Ilfracombe.

The Southern Railway was especially adept at publicity, and both the westbound and eastbound trains started their journey at midday, and uniquely the train ran non-stop between London and Sidmouth, a distance of 160 miles. The journey time was about five and a half hours. At this time all other trains on the Southern Railway's West of England main line stopped at Salisbury for water and to trim the tender coal, as the Southern Railway did not have water troughs. To enable the non-stop run, the train made an unadvertised stop at a small station two miles west of Salisbury for an engine change.

The train headboards had a red background unlike the customary green nameboard backgrounds on Southern Railway express trains. Following the war, Britain was in a state of economic austerity for several years, and a luxury train service involving a supplementary fare was a difficult concept to sell. Despite initial popularity, the train was not as much of a success as hoped, and the Plymouth portion was dropped in September 1949. Services were further reduced in 1952 and withdrawn entirely at the end of the 1954 summer season. Usually the train was hauled by a Merchant Navy class 'Bulleid Pacific' locomotive between Waterloo and Exeter, with Light Pacific locomotives handling the train west of that point. The normal formation was for four carriages to form the Plymouth portion, and eight to form the Ilfracombe portion. The use of powerful locomotives was essential to cope with the steep gradients on the Ilfracombe line. For the eastbound departure from Ilfracombe, it was usually necessary for assistance to be provided by a bank engine for the 1 in 36 climb from the terminus to Mortehoe and Willerton. Two distinctive observation cars were used on the service. They were numbered 13 and 14, and both had started life as other vehicles. No. 14 was a LNWR ambulance coach of 1918 that was converted into a Pullman car in 1921. It was rebuilt as a Bar car in 1937, and remodelled as an observation car in 1948, especially for the Devon Belle service.

The observation cars were 'single-ended', due to the large windows that allowed passengers to see out from the back of the train. They had, therefore, to be turned round at the end of each journey. Both observation cars have been preserved: No 13 is still in revenue-earning service, working on the Paignton & Dartmouth Steam Railway; No. 14 went to the USA in 1969 for a tour accompanying the Flying Scotsman. Due to financial difficulties, the carriage could not be shipped home immediately, and it remained in America though arrived back in the UK at Southampton Docks in early 2007, having travelled by ship via the Panama Canal, and was then immediately transported by road to Ramparts railway workshops at Derby where restoration work is approaching completion in Spring 2008.

The Blue Pullman was a class of luxury train used from 1960 to 1973 in the UK. The Blue Pullmans were the first diesel-electric multiple units designed for high-speed Pullman train services incorporating several novel features. Named after their custom blue livery, the trains were conceived under the railway 1954 Modernisation Plan, to create new luxury first-class diesel express trains, to compete with the motor car and the emerging domestic air travel market. Although not entirely successful in their own right, the Blue Pullmans demonstrated the possibility of high-speed fixed-formation multiple-unit Inter City train services and inspired the later development of the InterCity 125. After their withdrawal, none of the units survived into preservation.

In all, five complete Blue Pullman train sets were built by Metro Cammell in Birmingham, formed from a total of 36 vehicles. Designed by British Railways, they were initially operated by the luxury train operator the Pullman Car Company. Shortly after their introduction, in 1962, the PCC was fully nationalised, and operation of the Blue Pullmans was incorporated into the BR network. Originally given the last PCC vehicle numbers, towards the end of their operational life the trains gained the British Rail TOPS classification of Class 251 (motor cars) and Class 261 (kitchen and parlour cars), although they never carried these numbers. Initially, the Blue Pullmans were used on the London Midland and Western regions of British Rail, from St Pancras and Paddington respectively. The trains were withdrawn from the London Midland region in 1967 following electrification of the Euston to Manchester line, and the Blue Pullmans were transferred to augment those in the Western region. The Blue Pullman was an advanced and luxurious design, befitting a Pullman train, although they did suffer some criticism, particularly over a persistent ride quality problem. Over time it became costly to maintain as such a small fleet of trains. By 1972, the surcharge for Blue Pullman services seemed uneconomical to passengers and BR managers, and in 1973 the trains were eventually withdrawn.

The Blue Pullman train sets were formed from three basic types of car, a motor car, kitchen car and parlour car. In service the cars were permanently coupled and hermetically sealed for maintenance of the air-conditioning settings. For maintenance, the sets were formed from symmetrical pairs, with a motor car at each end, and 2 kitchen cars serving their respective halves of the train. In an emergency, the buffers on the front of the sets were used in conjunction with a normally-concealed coupling hook. Train sets were originally formed in 6 or 8 car lengths. The Midland region operated two sets of 6 first-class seated cars, with the Western operating 3 sets of 8 cars with first and second-class seating. Withdrawal of the Midland services also allowed operation of 12-car formations. The seating in the full length of the parlour cars was augmented by seated sections in the motor and kitchen cars, and motor cars also featured a car compartment.

Le Mistral was the name of an express train operating between Paris and Nice, which started in 1950 but retired in 1982 when the route was taken over by the much faster TGV, cutting the original journey time from nine hours to today's five. More details of this service will be on this site shortly. Photo by Cyril Pettit, 2007

The Glacier Express runs from Zermatt to St Moritz, or Davos (in the summer only) in Switzerland and is one of the great train journeys in the world. It is not an "express" in the sense of being fast – it is, in fact, the slowest "express" in the world. Leaving Zermatt at around 10am the train makes the trip in a relaxed 7½ hour railway journey across 291 bridges, through 91 tunnels and across the Oberalp Pass at 2,033 metres in altitude. It arrives in St Moritz at 17.43 – on the dot, of course! Large portions of the line use a rack-and-pionion system on the steep grades. The two railway companies that jointly operate the Glacier Express are the Matterhorn-Gotthard Railway (formerly the Brig-Visp-Zermatt Railway and the Furka-Oberalp Railway) and the Rhaetian Railway.

In the roaring 20s, as winter sports suddenly became popular to the well-heeled from all over the world (and who did not have to contend with mounds of snow every winter at home !) the world discovered the rustic charms of the Swiss Alps; previously remote mountain villages such as Zermatt and St.Moritz were transformed into chic health resorts and the three railway companies of the time were not slow in cashing in on this popularity by putting in rail services for their customers, in both summer and winter. The Glacier Express has been popular ever since and is the almost perfect way to spend a day in luxury admiring the glorious views of the Swiss Alps.

The Rheingold Express was originally started in 1928 running from the Hook of Holland to Basle in Switzerland via Cologne, Mainz and Baden-Baden. It used steam power between Holland and Mannheim, then switched to an electric locomotive. It was all-electric from 1935. The early trains had a distinctive dark blue livery, the dining cars run by the Mitropa company (a catering organisation), and all the Pullman carriages were very luxuriously fitted out. By about 1931 the name Rheingold was printed on the sides of the carriages. In its early days the trip took about 11 hours.

Service was suspended in 1938 as war beckoned and it was not until 1951 that service was resumed. In 1962 the Rheingold became part of the Trans Europ Express network which had been set up in the 1950s by the railway companies of Holland, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. By the late 1960s the carriages had been replaced by DB burgundy & beige carriages, also seen on our model. The service finally came to an end on May 30th 1987 as the new ICE trains took over more of Germany's main routes.

The Broadway Limited ran between Washington DC or New York (Penn) and Chicago. The name did not, as many think, refer to Broadway, New York's theatre district, but the broad way across America. The service started in 1912, when it must have been a great but was brought to an end in 1995 as the airlines really took over most routes of this distance within the United States. As well as having several sleeper cars the service also had a Secretary's office for travelling businessmen, and a barber's shop. The operator was the Pennsylvania Railroad. The train, which many thought was named after the famous Broadway in Manhattan, was not. In fact it referred to the broad way of the Penn Railroad's four sets of tracks on several sections. The train covered the 900 miles between Chicago and New York in 16 hours Its great rival was the 20th Century Limited, operated by New York Central Railroad, from New York's Grand Central station to Chicago. It was, in its heyday, the most profitable train in the world, making over $10 million per year. It ran for the final time in 1967 and was featured in several films and a Broadway show.

For more famous trains go to the next page "More Famous Trains" and also see our special feature on "The Orient Express" on its own page.