In the time between making "Day of the Deltic" and releasing this episode, I had gone back home and had a long think about my aspirations for the series. I wanted this to be an entertaining film for youtube, I wanted it to look as professional as possible, and I had also wanted it to be an interpretation of an historical event, something I had done before in "The Legacy of Gadwall" but not entirely successfully.

Andrew Roden's book "The Flying Scotsman" was the first time I had read an account of the then 60103 and her near-fatal run from Leicester, in which her injectors had failed. I would like at this point to thank Mr Roden for a thoroughly detailed and entertaining account of the incident in question.

It is little pieces of history such as this that make railways so fascinating to me. This episode would be an interpretation of the events recounted in that book, from the perspective of the locomotive, Scott. How should I film it? What should the set look like? How much steam...and so on.

I made a list of requirements for this video, and at the top of my list was "more accurate set". I bought some books on Great Northern Engine sheds, made some enquiries, and started making the set in what little spare time I could find. You can find the accounts of my building the Copley Hill set here: Copley Hill Works

I invested in a fog machine, and then a second to do different smoke effects on the layout - and this was one of the best parts of filming this episode. The fun I had with those fog machines: lining up shots with the camera and taking the HD Widescreen footage was great.

In the end, my only hope is that I did the event itself justice. The episode starts out at the sheds, with the engines teasing Scott for his double chimney, and then moves to a flashback in which Stephen recounts the tale Scott told him a few years ago...

In all, the look and feel of this episode is vastly different to all that went before. The set looked much more historically accurate, the steam effects were blinding at times (!) and the sound effects were recordedings I had made over the summer of real engines - in most cases, as close as I could get to the actual prototypes, or at least their cylinder arrangements.

In setting myself some goals, I feel I really impoved my film making, and hopefully have set the standard by which newer episodes can be judged and, crucially - enjoyed.

That's what its all about.