Mallard (Locomotive)

Mallard is a British LNER Class A4 streamlined steam locomotive, numbered 4468, designed by Nigel Gresley and built at Doncaster Works, entering service on 3 March 1938 for long distance express passenger trains. Its wind tunnel tested streamlined shape and a new double Kylchap chimney were meant to improve smoke clearance and reduce air resistance. On 3 July 1938, during a brake trial on Stoke Bank near Grantham, driver Joseph Duddington and fireman Thomas Bray took Mallard to 126 miles per hour hauling a seven coach train weighing 240 tons, a speed that remains the fastest ever recorded for a steam locomotive. Mallard covered about 1.5 million miles before its 1963 retirement and is preserved at the National Railway Museum in York.