THE countdown is on for a unique gathering which is expected to attract thousands of railway enthusiasts from across the country.
It is just two months to go until the National Railway Museum in York marks the 75th anniversary of the A4 Pacific Class Mallard setting a world steam record which still stands.
And from July 3 to 17 Mallard and her five surviving sister A4 Pacific Class locomotives will be gathered together around the Great Hall turntable in the museum in York - a sight never seen before.
Two of the Doncaster-built locomotives, Dominion of Canada and Dwight D Eisenhower, have even been temporarily repatriated from their homes in North America to take part in the anniversary celebrations.
Mallard was just one of a fleet of 35 A4 class locomotives, the streamlined ‘racehorses’ of Britain’s railway. From the 1930s to the 1960s, she and her sisters hauled express trains on the East Coast Main Line including the luxury Silver Jubilee train.
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