060 National Railway Museum, York, England 53° 57 38.76 N, 1° 5 47.58 W Chariots of Fire You don't have to be a trainspotter to appreciate the power, romance, and beauty of rail travel, and the National Railway Museum in York is the place to understand the development of the railway from the earliest days of the Indus- trial Revolution to the present. No British railway museum would be complete without the early steam loco- motive Stephenson's Rocket, and the National Railway Museum has two. Both are replicas (the original is in the Science Museum in London; see Chapter 77). One of the replicas is in working order, and the other is cut into sections so that visitors can understand the design and operation of the first successful steam locomotive. The Rocket traveled at about 20 kph in 1829. The fastest steam train ever, the Mallard, is on display and has been completely restored. On July 3, 1938, it set the world record for steam locomotives, traveling at over 202 kph. The locomotive is one of the most important exhibits at the National Railway Museum and is in complete working order. There's also an enormous KF7 steam train, which was built for the Chinese rail- way and ran between Canton and Hankou, and Nanking and Shanghai. Be- cause of the steep inclines and weak bridges along the routes, the train had to be both powerful and light, and it also had to be capable of burning the poor- quality coal available in China at the time. Perhaps the most famous steam train of all, the Flying Scotsman, is also pre- served at the National Railway Museum. It ran from 1923 to 1963 along the East Coast line from King's Cross station in London to Edinburgh. It was the first train to pass 100 mph (160 kph), and could make the trip from London to Scotland on a single tender full of coal, with no need to stop along the way. 223