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The Top Gear Race to the North was an epic race organised and made by Top Gear. It involved presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May and was aired on the 21st of June 2009 on BBC2, taking up a whole episode of Top Gear. It was a race between a Jaguar XK120 a Vincent Black Shadow motorbike and British rail steam locomotive 60163 Tornado.

The Race[]

The race would start at London's Kings Cross railway station and the finish line was at the bar inside The Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh which was located next to Edinburgh's Waverley railway station. The race would be given a 1940's post-war Britain theme so there would be no motorways and no modern trains in the race. While the car and bike could drive directly to the hotel the train would run run to Edinburgh's Waverley station and then the presenter on the train would have to run from the station to the hotel. The steam train would travel along the LNER's (London and North East Railway's) East Coast Mainline while the car and bike would travel along great north road otherwise known as the A1, motorways hadn't yet been invented.

Before the race was to begin the three presenters needed to decide on who would use what form of transport in the race, the three would pull out a piece of paper from a hat and their chosen transport would be what was written on the paper. Richard picked out a piece of paper first (after being told he'd accidentally picked the label) and he got the Vincent motorbike. This being to the huge relief of Jeremy as he wasn't a fan of bikes and hadn't had a good experience in Vietnam when the trio had to use bikes instead of cars. Jeremy picked next and he would be traveling on the steam train (this not being what he wanted) & James was left to drive the classic Jaguar.

Meeting the DB Schenker footplate crew of Tornado which included the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust's operations director Graham Bunker, Jeremy realised that traveling on the train didn't sound as bad an idea as he had first thought. With it being a steam locomotive rather than a modern diesel or electric locomotive Jeremy was begining to feel excited at being able to sit in the drivers seat on the footplate of Tornado for the journey to Scotland. Unfortunately for him his hopes were quickly dashed as he discovered that while he would be traveling on the footplate he wouldn't be driving, he would be positioned on the right hand side of the cab (loco being left hand drive) and would be looking after the fire. To his horror this meant that for the next 8 hours he would be shoveling the coal, in the narration Jeremy stated "I'd be shovelling a lot of coal, 8 tons of it".

A quick change into a set of overalls and at gone 7:23am the race began with a blast on Tornado's chime whistle. James was quick to dash over to the car and upon closing the door had to just put on his seatbelt, turn a key, press a button and he was off). After a slow departure from Kings Cross station Jeremy was off too bound for Edinburgh. Hammond meanwhile had to change into his leather bike suit before he could even depart Kings Cross and despite being ready to go he then couldnt get the bike started, he eventually had to be assisted by a member of the crew to get the bike started.

Now all underway the three presenters set off on their long journey from London to Edinburgh. The car and bike at select locations would need to stop for petrol which would involve a game of leapfrog where one would overtake the other, while the steam locomotive would need to stop four times on the journey for water. These locations would include Grantham, York, Newcastle and Berwick upon Tweed (with an extra long stop taking place at Newcastle to take on more coal alongside water). In steam days watering would have been done using water troughs between the rails with a water scoop in the tender, had this been possible and watering could have been done while on the move the steam train would have easily won the race).

Richard's motorbike broke down on a number of occasions and one breakdown which happened 20 miles south of Doncaster he'd accidentally left the reserve tap open on his bike which pulled up a load of sludge from the bottom of the fuel tank which had then clogged up the left hand carburetor and had stopped the engine. James didnt show much sympathy when Richard contacted him laughing at the thought that while Richard was fine but the bike was in bits. This breakdown required recovery to be called out and with the amount of time it would take to repair it the bike, this left him far behind and out of the running meaning that the main race was now up to James and Jeremy (car vs train). Despite assuming he was no longer running the bike was eventually repaired and still south of Doncaster set off to try and close down the gap, both Jeremy and James at this time were on the approach to Newcastle.

From London until Newcastle the train had opened up a huge lead over the car and bike but on the approach to Newcastle Jeremy discovered that James had caught up with him and was only 20 miles south of Newcastle, with a 34 minute stationary stop at Newcastle's Tyne Yard now ahead of them this would mean that James was no question gonna overtake them and would be a whole 10 miles ahead of the train when they eventually set off. Eventually while helping to load the coal James rang Jeremy and told him that he had overtook him and was now in the lead, it was however still to play for as there was still 114 miles to go until they both reached Edinburgh and both would have to make another stop respectively for petrol/water.

A lengthy fuel stop for James meant that Jeremy managed to close down the gap and retake the lead, however not long afterwards one of the steam locos water injectors had stopped working which meant they had to drop down from their 75mph top speed to only 50mph in a bid to get water into the boiler, eventually after 10 minutes the injector started working again and they could now resume their 75mph running. By the time Richard had reached Scotch Corner (41 miles south of Newcastle) both Jeremy and James were leaving Berwick upon Tweed for the final leg of the race to Edinburgh.

The final champion of the race was James as he arrived at the bar first. Jeremy finished a close second (10 minutes behind) while Richard failed to finish owing to problems with the old motorbike.

Trivia[]

Unlike the car and bike which were originals from the 1940's, the steam locomotive that Jeremy travelled on was infact a brand new member of the Peppercorn A1 pacific class steam locomotives which had only been completed the year before the race took place (2008). Built between 1948 & 1949 all of the 49 original Peppercorn A1 steam engines were withdrawn and scrapped by 1966. An attempt had been made to save one member of the class 60145 Saint Mungo but this failed and the engine was eventually scrapped.

Plans were drawn up by the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust in 1990 to build a new member of the class, which would be a brand new classmember rather than a replica of an original. After aquiring the original plans for the engine which had to be rescued from a skip when the LNER's works in Doncaster & Darlington were demolished and once all the required plans had been aquired plus modifications noted down for modern mainline running, construction commenced in 1994 and was eventually completed in August 2008 (8 months before the race), the loco was therefore only 8 months old at the time of the race. The railtour company which ran the railtour was Steam Dreams and the train was named "The Cathedrals Express".

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