Full steam ahead for speed story

The history of the battle between England’s and Germany’s engineering powers of the 1930s is set to be topic of a lively debate at this month’s Mallard Festival –– the story of speed.

The Quest For Speed On Rail takes place at The Guildhall Arts Centre, Grantham, on Saturday at 6pm.

Dr Afred Gottwaldt, senior curator of railways at the Berlin Technical Museum, and Bob Gwynne, associate curator of rail vehicles from the National Railway Museum, will discuss their country’s respective efforts to be the rail kings of speed.

The German streamliner claimed the world steam record of 124.5mph in 1936. Two years later it was beaten by the Mallard, which tipped the needle to 125.88mph at Stoke Bank, near Grantham.

The talk also follows the history of the start of the high speed rivalry, begun by Germany’s Schienenzeppelin, an experimental railcar powered by a Zeppelin airship engine, driven by a rear propeller.

The talk will be chaired by Nick Pigott, editor of The Railway Magazine. One of the organisers, Henry Cleary, said it would highlight decades of debate on both engine’s feats and which performed to full potential.

He said: “This promises to be a lively evening with both parties explaining how the different locomotives of the 1930s culminated in Mallard just edging the battle taking the world speed record from the Germans in 1938,

“To have the famous Mallard loco with us in Grantham for the weekend is a real coup for the festival.”

The Mallard will be in Grantham at the weekend from 10am to 5pm both days.