Six streaks reunited: Eisenhower and Dominion are coming home

The National Railway Museum has reached a formal agreement to temporally repatriate A4s 60008 Dwight D Eisenhower, from Wisconsin, and 60010 Dominion of Canada, from Montreal, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of sister locomotive Mallard’s 1938 record breaking speed run.

During their stay in the UK, the two locomotives will feature in a series of events to mark this historic event, including line ups at various locations with the 4 surviving UK based A4s.

The survival of 60008 owes much to the tenaciousness of the then chairman of the National Railroad Museum’s board, Harold Fuller, who, on learning that a locomotive was named after Eisenhower, from a lady on holiday from the UK, was determined to add it to the museum’s collection. When the A4 was withdrawn in 1963 British Rail agreed to donate it to the museum along with 2 LNER carriages. Fellow A4 60010 was also donated by British Rail and resides in the Canadian Railway Museum.

Mallard, with driver Joseph Duddington at the regulator and Thomas Bray on the shovel, reached 126 mph near Little Bytham on July 3rd 1938. Such was the high esteem that driver Duddington was held, that when he retired in 1944 not only was it covered by a Pathe film team, but the LNER ensured that his last turn was on Mallard.

Both 60008 and 60010 are expected to arrive in the UK this autumn. Whether they make a return to their birthplace , and where 13 of the A4s were scrapped, of Doncaster remains to be seen.