History is full of anomalies in terms of fame. It's not just Flying Scotsman. For example Brunel is lauded as a genius but if you look at his record, he made some appaling decisions I7 foot gauge, Atmospheric Railway, baulk road, etc) and lost huge amounts of money for the people he worked for. He was also an awful manager and so his contracts never went to plan (read Adrian Vaughan's books). He caused at least one person to commit suicide. There were other engineers around at the time who built railways on time and to budget who have been completely forgotten. Margaret Thatcher is far more famous than Clement Atlee and yet he achieved far more in terms of transforming society. People are just inconsistent and illogical and so we often focus on things which when examined closely are not particularly deserving of the attention.