I suppose the nearest benchmark you could use would be the recently built A1 pacific 'Tornado' which I would think is pretty similar in tractive effort and maximum drawbar horsepower to a Gresley A4.
In terms of running to a schedule on today's railway infrastructure the biggest challenge would probably be braking efficiency rather than maximum speed. Plus the current ECML electrics are probably something like double the horsepower so can accelerate much more quickly than an A4 I would think. Plus the A4s did tend to break if you did over a ton in then.
Agree that on the face of it many of today's long distance schedules aren't that much feaster than the 'streaks' managed, but the loads are much heavier today and there are often more intermediate stops.
Thanks for the link above, not seen that before, I usually use:-
www.uksteam.info/tours/trs10.htm
Last edited by: spamcan61 on Tue 2 Mar 10 at 09:31
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