What was the fastest steam locomotive?
3674433#1
The F7s are major contenders for the fastest steam locomotives ever built, as they ran at over daily. One run in January 1941 recorded by a reporter for "Trains" magazine saw achieved twice—in the midst of a heavy snowstorm. Baron Gérard Vuillet, a French railroading expert, once recorded a run between Chicago and Milwaukee where the locomotive reached and sustained an average for . However, the British locomotive LNER Class A4 4468 "Mallard" is officially accepted to be the world's fastest, with a run recorded at but authenticated at 126 mph in 1938.
Milwaukee Road class F7
267455#0
Sir Herbert Nigel Gresley (19 June 1876 – 5 April 1941) was an English railway engineer. He was one of Britain's most famous steam locomotive engineers, who rose to become Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME) of the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). He was the designer of some of the most famous steam locomotives in Britain, including the LNER Class A1 and LNER Class A4 4-6-2 Pacific engines. An A1 Pacific, "Flying Scotsman", was the first steam locomotive officially recorded over 100 mph in passenger service, and an A4, number 4468 "Mallard", still holds the record for being the fastest steam locomotive in the world (126 mph).
Nigel Gresley
51147580#7
The most famous steam locomotive operating on the British main line is the 1923 built "Flying Scotsman". After being taken into public ownership in 2004, following a decade long refit it returned to mainline service in 2016. The fastest steam locomotive ever built, the 1938 built "Mallard", was also certified for main line operation briefly in the 1980s.
Mainline steam trains in Great Britain
7337761#14
The fastest steam locomotive
Locomotive 498.106 ČSD, nicknamed Albatross, reached top speed 162 km/h on railway test circuit Velim (August 27, 1964)
Czech rail records
1250505#4
It was also optimised for speed it is named after the LNER A4 class 4468 Mallard locomotive, the fastest steam locomotive in the world, once again displaying the company's fondness for railway-oriented nomenclature. (For instance, see the company name itself.) In fact the Locomotive name came from the phrase "To run like a train" and it was this theme that was used to name Mallard BASIC no other Locomotive product was named after anything railway-oriented.
Mallard BASIC
174685#0
The Class A4 is a class of streamlined 4-6-2 steam locomotive designed by Nigel Gresley for the London and North Eastern Railway in 1935. Their streamlined design gave them high-speed capability as well as making them instantly recognisable, and one of the class, 4468 "Mallard", holds the world record as the fastest steam locomotive. Thirty-five of the class were built to haul express passenger trains on the East Coast Main Line route from London Kings Cross via York to Newcastle, and later via Newcastle to Edinburgh, Scotland. They remained in service on the East Coast Main Line until the early 1960s when they were replaced by Deltic diesel locomotives. Several A4s saw out their remaining days until 1966 in Scotland, particularly on the Aberdeen - Glasgow express trains, for which they were used to improve the timing from 3.5 to 3 hours.
LNER Class A4
716938#0
London and North Eastern Railway locomotive numbered 4468 "Mallard" is a Class A4 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotive built at Doncaster Works, England in 1938. It is historically significant as the holder of the world speed record for steam locomotives at .
LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard
3671122#2
They hauled the fastest scheduled steam-powered trains in the world. Running at 100 mph or greater was required to keep these schedules; the class A locomotives were designed to cruise at over and be able to achieve . A run with a dynamometer car behind the locomotive was made on May 15, 1935 by locomotive No. 2 between Milwaukee and New Lisbon, Wisconsin. Over a stretch the speed of was recorded. This was the fastest authenticated speed reached by a steam locomotive at the time, making No. 2 the rail speed record holder for steam and the first steam locomotive to top . There are reports, without evidence or accurate records, that these locomotives could exceed . Such speeds would have placed the class A in contention with the LNER Class A4 and German BR 05 for the crown of fastest steam locomotive until that time, but no records have been unearthed. The successor Milwaukee Road class F7 was even more powerful, with a claimed top speed of .
Milwaukee Road class A
5521877#87
If running is achieved, "Tornado" would also become the second fastest operational steam locomotive in the world. Regular steam operation was last seen in Britain in 1967 with the Merchant Navy class Pacific locomotives operating on the Waterloo to Bournemouth route. The fastest operational steam locomotive in the world is Deutsche Reichsbahn 18.201, allowed to run in Germany up to .
LNER Peppercorn Class A1 60163 Tornado
24109303#12
On 11 May 1936, high-speed steam locomotive 05 002, hauling three express carriages and a test van, reached 200.4 km/h at the 52 km mark between Vietznitz and Paulinenaue, a world record for steam locomotives.
On 15 May 1933, Germany’s first high-speed diesel train, DRG 877 "Fliegender Hamburger" ("Flying Hamburger"), was introduced on the line. With a travel time of two hours and 18 minutes the "Fliegender Hamburger" had an average speed of for the , between Hamburg Hauptbahnhof and Berlin Lehrter station. The "Fliegender Hamburger" was the world's fastest scheduled rail service. The majority of travellers still travelled in ordinary steam-hauled express trains with a travel time of three and a half to four hours. With the outbreak of World War II, military priorities meant that high-speed projects were abandoned.
Berlin–Hamburg Railway
1186922#27
The locomotives were cross balanced and ran on drivers. They had an oil-fired grate and a rated boiler pressure of , which gave the boiler a high capacity in relation to the cylinders. Designed for a light-weight train of five to six passenger cars, they were considered as probably the fastest steam locomotives ever built in the United States, possibly capable of matching any locomotive in the world. The fleet covered their schedule in 400 minutes with several stops en route, at an average speed of more than on some sections and often arriving with one or two minutes to spare.
4-4-2 (locomotive)