GREAT news for rail buffs is that Flying Scotsman, the world’s most famous locomotive, is back on display in York’s National Railway Museum following its painstaking five-year-long overhaul – virtually a rebuild, you might suppose.

Hopefully, the legendary loco, the first to officially reach 100mph, will also soon be even more in the public eye, proudly steaming around the rail network.

But a finishing touch sure to make headlines could still be applied. Why not refresh its image with a different name and number?

Maybe 2549 Persimmon, a scrapped member of the same A3 class, named after a winner of the Derby and St Leger, would do? Sacrilege?

Well, for a reason that remains a mystery, another much-loved locomotive, the A4 Bittern, number 4464, recently had the name and number of a long-gone stablemate – Dominion of New Zealand, number 4492 – foisted upon it. Justifiably, rail fans are furious.

But why should Flying Scotsman, whose number 4472 is as well-known as its name, escape such indignity? Perhaps every blowtorched loco should take a turn in reappearing.

ON May 17, the Government appointed Mary “Queen of Shops” Portas to carry out a review aimed at reversing the decline of Britain’s high streets.

Prime Minister David Cameron said he hoped that Ms Portas, who is on record as blaming supermarkets for “killing”

Britain’s smaller shops, would “help us to create vibrant and diverse town centres and bring back bustle to our high streets”.

Exactly a week later, in the teeth of opposition from the district council, local traders and many townsfolk, the Government, through a planning inspector, approved an £18m plan by Sainsbury’s to almost double the size of its Darlington store.

This is called joined-up thinking.

NINETY on June 10, the Duke of Edinburgh hasn’t always struck the right chord with his unguarded utterances. Asking a group of Australian aborigines “Do you still throw spears at each other,” and telling a group of British students in China that they risked developing “slitty eyes” spring to mind.

But many of us will think that the Duke has hit the spot with his off-the-cuff comment on the Olympics: “Opening and closing ceremonies ought to be banned. Absolute bloody nuisances.”

When London won the 2012 games, this column suggested recreating the opening ceremony of the capital’s 1948 games – a simple parade of athletes. The extravaganza of Beijing can’t be topped – and why would any nation want to? A stripped down ceremony would emphasise what the Olympics is chiefly about – inspiring personal performance, not mass choreography, which has a chilling, anti-human dimension.

FORTY-EIGHT years ago last Sunday, four days before the Queen’s coronation, Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing reached the summit of Everest. It seemed the pinnacle of physical human achievement.

Last Thursday, May 26, a 16-year-old British schoolboy, George Atkinson, conquered the world’s highest peak. But a younger American, Jordan Romero, last year set the record at just 13 years ten months. How long before a toddler conquers the 29,029ft giant?