Penny Pegler, daughter of Alan Pegler,who saved Flying Scotsman from being scrapped, is to wave off the first train of the day from Swanage station on Saturday 22nd October.

Penny is making the journey from her home in Portugal for the special occasion.

After waving off the first train of the day, Penny will ride in Car 14, a Devon Belle Observation Carriage for the second train of the day.

Flying Scotsman is now owned by the National Railway Museum and has recently been out of service undergoing an overhaul but is set to visit the Swanage Railway for five days, from Saturday 22nd October. The loco is set to be on static display on Thursday 20th and Friday 21st October as well as Thursday 27th October until Sunday 6th November 2022.

Tickets for a return trip behind Flying Scotsman cost £39 per person, but this increases to £55 per person for Premium class in a 1930s Maunsell heritage coach, and increases to £99 per person to ride in the Pullman No. 14, which includes breakfast pastries, champagne and canapes or afternoon tea.

Penny Pegler said: “‘Flying Scotsman’ was a very important part of my life as a child. I was nine years old when my father came up up to my room on a snowy night in January, 1963, to say goodnight and told me, with a twinkle in his eye, that he had just bought a beautiful steam locomotive to save her from being cut up in a scrapyard.

“Over the next few years, my father and I went on many wonderful trips all over the UK with ‘Scotty’ as we called ‘Flying Scotsman’. For me, she was lovely and a special part of my family life. On many occasions, I followed my father through ‘Flying Scotsman’s corridor tender and sat in the fireman’s seat for a short while. There is nothing quite like it.

“It is going to be such fun to see ‘Devon Belle’ Car No. 14 again. I spent so many happy and exciting days travelling with the team across the United States in this lovely observation carriage, watching the beautiful scenery go by and waving at the crowds of onlookers who came out in their thousands to see ‘Flying Scotsman’ run by.

“My father had a passion for ‘Flying Scotsman’, ever since he saw her as a four-year old boy in London, and wanted to keep her running – not to be just a static exhibit – so it will be wonderful to see her hauling trains from Swanage into the beautiful Purbeck countryside.

“He wanted to keep her alive for future generations to enjoy and today she is everybody’s locomotive with everyone having their own special memory of ‘Flying Scotsman’. My father would be so happy to see that and he must be looking down and smiling,” added Penny.

The Swanage Railway Company’s volunteer chairman, Robert Patterson, said: “We owe a great debt of appreciation and thanks to the late Alan Pegler for bravely preserving such a splendid stallion of speed which still has a very special place in the nation’s heart.

“’Flying Scotsman’ was the Concorde of its time and we are looking forward to welcoming Penny Pegler to Swanage and seeing her ride in the Car 14 carriage that she rode in, as a teenager with her father, across Canada and the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s,” added Robert who is a volunteer station porter on the Swanage Railway.

To find out more about the visit of ‘Flying Scotsman’ to Dorset’s Isle of Purbeck, go on-line to swanagerailway.co.uk.