In the 19th century, there were a lot or railroads built by small railroad companies. The result was the ability to offer an express service from London to Edinburgh. Different companies raced on different routes to get the best time. What better way to ensure a quick trip than booking passage on The Flying Scotsman. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Here we have a Flying Scotsman with a furious head of steam making for Edinburgh. The locomotive dates the image to the 1920s. This was after the period of the great races and the competing lines had agreed on a easily doable time of 8 hours and 15 minutes London to Edinburgh or the reverse, It was the time when the image of the Flying Scotsman offering fast and luxurous travel was at it’s height.
Todays stamp is issue A335, a 17 p stamp issued by Great Britain on January 22nd, 1985. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations celebrating the Great Western Railway Sesquicentennial. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents whether used or unused. The Stanley Gibbons Collect British Stamps agrees on 35p for this used copy but in their view the unused rises to 70p. Arbitrage opportunity?
The direct express line from Kings Cross station in London to Edinburgh Waverly debuted in 1862 under the brand Special Scotch Express. The time was 10.5 hours with a half hour stop in York for lunch. By the 1870s the route was known unofficially as the Flying Scotsman. The service was offered daily leaving both places at 8:00 AM. The long distance required extra coal to be caried and a duplicate crew to switch out at the half way point with the train remaining in motion. Tech improvements saw the travel time drop down to 8.5 hours by the 1880s. The line was operated privately by a consortium of different companies using common railway stock. A competing Consortium left from London’s Pancreas station along the west coast, a route 6 miles longer.
In the period from 1889 through 1896 there were unofficial races to the North trying to get bragging rights on the quickest time to Edinburgh. The train companies denied this was happening, these remember were passenger trains and safety came first. In 1896 a train on the west coast line derailed trying to take a curve at excessive speed. An inquiry found the train had double jumbo locomotives and an inexperienced crew. An agreement was then reached between the competing firms to agree to an 8.5 hour journey time. This lasted into the 1930s.
That the journey was no longer getting faster was not important. In the 1920s the East coast line formally embraced the Flying Scotsman name that was already well known. Heating was added to the train cars and dining cars were added to shorten the lunch stop in York, It was now even possible to get a haircut on board. Meanwhile with less need for speed the load of coal could be reduced and the number of companies involved consolidated.
The Service was nationalized and denationalized and then renationalized on political whim. The train was converted to diesel power in 1962 and stopped being express. The express service was relaunched in 2011 now in only one direction but with a travel time down to four and one half hours. The service now operates Japanese trains designed by Hitachi.
In March 2020, the service was rebranded the Flying Scotswomen and now sported an all female crew. I am not kidding…
Well my drink is empty and I am going to need a few more after that twist at the end. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.