The Flying Scotsman Leaving King's Cross Station in London on Its First Non-Stop Run to Edinburgh, 1928
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The Flying Scotsman leaving King’s Cross Station in London on its first non-stop run to Edinburgh, 1928. 1 Sandwiches, Savouries and Strawberry Fizz: Dining at Speed on the Flying Scotsman Adam Balic The ‘Flying Scotsman’ is the name of Britain’s sections of the East Coast Main Line linking best-known and well-loved railway locomotive, London and Edinburgh. But a process of as well as the entire Flying Scotsman train mergers and acquisitions soon led to the running on the route between London and formation of three main companies, the North Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. The ‘Flying British Railway, North Eastern Railway and Scotsman’ steam locomotive was the fi rst in Great Northern Railway, along that route. In the United Kingdom to be clocked at 100 miles 1860 those companies collaborated to establish (160 km) per hour, earning it an enduring place the East Coast Joint Stock company, with a in the country’s railway history. In 2004, more shared fl eet of passenger carriages. than forty years aft er it had been withdrawn From this collaboration came the fi rst from service, it was purchased for the nation Special Scotch Express, which began running by the National Railway Museum in York, in 1862 with simultaneous departures at 10 England, largely with money donated by the a.m. from King’s Cross station in London and public. And in 2016, aft er a restoration costing Waverley station in Edinburgh. By the 1870s, £4.2 million, the ‘Flying Scotsman’ steam the colloquial name for the Special Scotch locomotive ran from London’s King’s Cross Express train had become the Flying Scotchman station to York railway station, watched by or Flying Scotsman. thousands of people along the route. The Railways Act of 1921 grouped all of The origin of the Flying Scotsman rail service Britain’s existing railways into the ‘Big Four’ is rooted in the mid-nineteenth century, two years later, with the joint stock company when several railway companies began oper- that operated the Special Scotch Express train ating a number of highly competitive train becoming part of the newly formed London services, known as Scotch Expresses, on both and North Eastern Railway. And in 1923 a new east- and west-coast routes between London steam-powered locomotive, numbered 1472, and the main cities of Scotland, Glasgow and rolled out of the Doncaster Works railway plant Edinburgh. On the east coast many small inde- in England. In 1924, highly aware of public pendent railway companies created diff erent relations, the London & North Eastern Railway Food on the Move: Europe officially gave theFlying Scotsman name to reduced to eight and a half hours by 1890, both the locomotive (now renumbered 4472) including a twenty-minute lunch break at York and the entire train when the locomotive was station. Although this was a large improvement displayed at the British Empire Exhibition in over travel time by horse-drawn coaches, it was England that year. And on 1 May 1928, the Flying not an especially comfortable experience. And Scotsman train made the first non-stop jour- for the first thirty years of the service, travel- ney from London to Edinburgh, the longest lers’ food choices were limited to whatever non-stop scheduled service in the world at they brought on board the train themselves that time. or purchased at the brief refreshment stop in The ‘Flying Scotsman’ locomotive itself went York. Since toilet facilities were also lacking on on to set a world record in 1934, becoming the trains during that period, those early travellers first locomotive to be officially clocked at 100 might also have been more preoccupied with miles per hour. Those record-breaking achieve- making a quick dash to the toilet than with ments, as well as the publicity generated by the dubious merits of the railway station food. the railway company, ensured that the Flying Food was supplied at most main stopping Scotsman became and remains to this day the points, either by refreshment trolleys on the most famous train in the United Kingdom, a station platform or ‘refreshment rooms’ inside train whose name is also recognized by railway the station itself. Items offered by refreshment enthusiasts all over the world. trolleys were by necessity those that could be While the Flying Scotsman was to become quickly consumed: hot and cold drinks, cakes, known as the epitome of comfort and luxury fresh fruit and sandwiches. The refreshment in train travel in Great Britain, it took several rooms offered a more substantial range of decades for high-standard rail travel to arrive food: a typical set-price menu consisted of in the United Kingdom. Like many low-cost soup, a fish course, grilled or roasted meat, airline travellers today, early passengers on the dessert and cheese. However, consuming this Special Scotch Express train in the nineteenth amount of food in such a short amount of century did not have great expectations of time was obviously challenging and not comfort or luxury. The speed of the journey without its dangers. Several decades after the was the prime consideration, because even York refreshment stop had ended, people still after much improvement of roads and coach recalled that: design, travel by horse-drawn carriage between London and Edinburgh took several days. The lunch was provided in the refreshment room There were no dining facilities on the Special on the platform and in the early days the soup Scotch Express and no corridors (hallways) was served so hot that when the cry, ‘Take your in the railway carriages. Travellers entered seats’ came, many passengers had to dash back their compartments directly from the station to the train, having obtained nothing save a few platform through a door that opened on to the spoonfuls of soup and a burnt tongue. Experienced individual passenger compartments. Initial travellers always passed the soup and got on travel time by train was ten and a half hours, with as much of the other courses as possible.1 22 Dining at Speed on the Flying Scotsman These refreshments were mainly supplied So it was not surprising that many passengers by the railway companies, and while the food opted for purchasing a lunch basket to take at York station was described by a writer at on the train instead of buying a sub-standard the time as ‘worthy of the highest praise’,2 railway sandwich. railway station food in general soon gained a Victorian and early twentieth-century bad reputation, with particular scorn reserved rail travellers of course had the option of for the railway sandwich. Even by the 1860s, packing and bringing on board their own several years before the Special Scotch Express lunch baskets, but many chose to purchase trains were launched, the ‘railway sandwich’ a ready-packed version. Passengers could comedic trope was already firmly established order wickerwork lunch baskets at the station, in Britain, and it continued to be an item of and many hotels also supplied their guests derision during the remainder of the nine- with lunch baskets on request. However, the teenth century. Comments included, in 1884: common practice was to order a lunch basket ‘The existence of the railway sandwich and its from the guard (conductor) on the train. spread throughout the country has long been The empty baskets were later returned by the a source of terror to the people and of anxiety railway company to their point of origin by to the medical fraternity.’3 And in 1890, trains travelling in the opposite direction. For travellers on the Flying Scotsman, the avail- A Disclaimer. A well-known firm of refreshment ability of lunch baskets thus eliminated the contractors write us, giving an emphatic denial to inconvenience of the rushed refreshment stop the report which has been freely circulated during at York. that last few days, as to their having accepted a Although the contents of the railway lunch contract for repaving the Strand with their well- basket were not exactly gourmet, they did known railway sandwiches.4 provide much-needed nourishment during the long train journey. A late nineteenth- The nineteenth-century English novelist century advertisement from the Midland Anthony Trollope offered his own vivid descrip- Railway Company offered both cold and hot tion of the offending sandwich: luncheon baskets at several stations, packed with meats, cold salad or hot vegetables, bread, We are often told in our newspapers that England butter, cheese, and a half-bottle of burgundy, is disgraced by this and by that: by the unreadi- claret or stout, or bottled water. It went on to ness of our army, by the unfitness of our navy, by say that ‘Passengers who wish to be supplied the irrationality of our laws, by the immobility of with luncheon should give notice to the guard our prejudices, and what not; but the real disgrace of the train they are travelling by, who will, of England is the railway sandwich, that whited when necessary, telegraph (free of charge) sepulchre, fair enough outside, but so meagre, poor, for it to be in readiness at the point required.’6 and spiritless within, telling us that the poor bone One of the many oddities of British rail whence it was scraped had been made utterly bare travel during the first half of the twentieth before it was sent into the kitchen for the soup pot.5 century was the presence of first- and 23 Food on the Move: Europe East Coast Joint Stock North first-class restaurant car interior, operated by North Eastern Railway (NER), 1909. third-class carriages, but not second class.