Last Thursday morning I was rushing down to my local station early. For once, this wasn’t because of an early morning meeting, but rather because something special was about to happen. In this case, the something special was the visit of a steam train (locomotive), the Flying Scotsman.

Once a holder of the world record for speed (being the first steam locomotive officially recorded in excess of 100mph), it had been rescued from being sent to the scrapyard at the end of mainline steam in the UK and via a series of adventures in the US and Australia had found itself in 2006 as the subject of a long, multi year restoration at the cost of 4 million pounds. It was running for the first time on the East Coast mainline with both VIPs and fare paying passengers on board.

When I arrived, about 20 minutes before the scheduled arrival…