The world speed record for locomotives – steam trains – was set on the 3rd July 1938 by Number 4468 Mallard. Built at the Doncaster railway works of the London and North Eastern Railway in England just four months before its record-setting journey, Mallard was retired in 1963. Despite being restored to working order in the 1980s, it’s now a static exhibit at the National Railway Museum in York.

Mallard set the record of 125.88mph on a stretch of slightly downhill railway track at Stoke Band, south of the town of Grantham. The A4 Pacific Class locomotives, of which Mallard ...