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By 1923 most of the railway companies had grouped into what was regarded as the "Big Four" – Great Western; London & North-east; London, Midland & Scottish; and Southern. Each went on to develop railways in their regions, quite often assimilating smaller branch railways and it was an era of great advances in the industry. It was during this period that the speed record (Mallard in particular) was broken and advances in engineering techniques were made. By all accounts the railways ran on time, in all weathers and carried huge amounts of freight as well as passengers – the era before road transport came into its own. The year 1923 saw the introduction of the "Flying Scotsman" service, linking London and Edinburgh, a service still in operation today.
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This period until the outbreak of World War II then saw a major growth in rail traffic, a vast improvement in standards and some famous railway engineers began designing bigger and more powerful machines. Sir Nigel Gresley, born in Edinburgh in 1876, was to become the designer of the "Pacific" class, including "Mallard", the fastest steam locomotive in the world, which reached 126 mph after passing Stoke Summit between Peterborough and Grantham on July 3rd 1938.
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The engine was numbered 4468 and was in the LNER blue livery. The carriages were teak and although that run was not a scheduled passenger service "Mallard" did subsequently run at high speed on the East Coast Main Line.
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Gresley's contemporary and great rival Sir William Stanier (1876-1965), also built some wonderful steam locomotives. William Stanier was born in Swindon in 1876 and followed in his father's footsteps by joining the GWR. By 1932 he had become chief Engineer and was responsible for the design of many great steam locomotives including the Princess class (includes the famous Duchess of Sutherland loco introduced in 1938) and also the famous Black Five class, introduced in 1934 – its power output was about 3,500 hp, a huge amount at the time though it pales into insignificance against a Eurostar train of today, for example, which produces about 32,000 hp.
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During the Second World War the management of the four companies worked together extensively, sharing equipment, ideas and maintenance. Obviously, with a war on, it became difficult to obtain spares for certain items and the war effort put a severe strain on the companies.
Once the War was out of the way and the UK, among other countries, struggled back to a peacetime economy, it was felt that the railways in the UK should be nationalised. The Atlee government effected this in 1947 bringing the railways under the overall control of the British Transport Commission – later to be called the British Railways Board, then British Railways, British Rail and so on.
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