Flying Scotsman in America
Posted: Sat Dec 25, 2021 10:46 am
Somewhere there are two photographs of it on it's way back from the US to the UK but I do not know where they are.
When William McAlpine wanted to bring the locomotive back to the UK I believe that he was quoted some sort of ridiculous price to carry it by ship.
He was friends with the Vestey family, the owners of Blue Star Line, the Dewhurst butchers chain and various other companies. I was told that Lord Vestey shipped it free of charge, though McAlpine had to pay for it to be craned on and off the ship.
It was loaded onto the Blue Star Line container ship California Star. Two 40ft container flats were placed onto one of the hatch covers and then the locomotive and tender were put on the flats and chained down. (A certain well know website that claims to be an encyclopedia says it was welded to the deck. That was not the case and anyway is rarely done as is more likely to result in damage to both the load and the deck.)
A framed photograph of the locomotive secured to the deck was for some years in the Chief Engineer's cabin on the ship where I saw it when I visited my father onboard. He was relieving the regular Chief who was a railway enthusiast. My guess is that the photograph went with the regular Chief when he left the ship a few years later. It was used as a publicity shot in the Blue Star magazine called Gangway but I don't know which date it appeared.
Sometime later I saw another unconnected photograph of the ship transiting the Panama Canal with the locomotive clearly in view on the deck. I don't know the origin of that one, my guess is that it was a lucky spot by someone.
Alan