I feel the need, the need for speed

I ought to have blipped this yesterday because a) that would've been the correct date, and b) I'd only just thought of it, but this is my blip gallery and I make the rules. :⁠-⁠). Yesterday, being July 3rd, marked 87 years since A4 Pacific no.4468 Mallard hit 126mph going down Stoke Bank.  Officially the record has never been beaten, although there are lots of persistent rumours that the Pennsylvania Railroad S1 – a gigantic, one-off machine built in 1939 – reached 152mph once. It easily reached 100mph, as did all the A4s on half the power, and was good for 120mph in service. Although the S1 was "unnecessarily large", it begat the smaller (but still huge) T1 class, and there is a project to build a new one.  The closest we will get on these shores is probably the late David Elliot's P2 project which is well underway and a similar P2 project building the streamlined variant.  Mallard's record is certainly not for the taking just yet.

Today though I was the antithesis of fast.  Yesterday's migraine made me sleep two hours longer than usual, so I haven't done a lot apart from sorting some photographs and having tea with Mum and Dad, with the obligatory slideshows. :⁠-⁠)