and from London Marylebone, Leicester, Sheffield, and Manchester. It returned to the East Coast Main Line in 1953, initially based in Grantham for several months before returning to London King's Cross in April 1954, where it remained until its withdrawal in 1963. In 1962, British Railways announced that it would scrap Flying Scotsman. No. 60103 ended service with its last scheduled run on 14 January 1963, with Jack Peckston of Copley Hill running the 13:15 from London King's Cross to Leeds, with the locomotive coming off at Doncaster. Preservation Alan Pegler (1963–1972) After a previous failed attempt by the Gresley A3 Preservation Society to raise the required £3,000 to buy Flying Scotsman, businessman and railway enthusiast Alan Pegler stepped in. He first saw the locomotive at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924, and received £70,000 in 1961 for his shareholding in the Northern Rubber Company when it was sold to Pegler's Valves, a company started by his grandfather. In 1963, after 18 months of negotiations with British Railways, Pegler bought the locomotive for £3,500 with the political support of Prime Minister Harold Wilson. He spent large amounts of money restoring the locomotive at Doncaster Works as closely as possible to its LNER condition: it was repainted in its LNER livery; the smoke deflectors were removed; the double chimney replaced by a single; and its standard tender was replaced with a corridor type that the locomotive had run with between 1928 and 1936. Pegler's contract with British Railways allowed him to run Flying Scotsman on enthusiasts' specials until 31 December 1971; for a time it was the only steam locomotive running on the British mainline. Its first public run was from London Paddington to Ruabon, Wales and back on 10 April 1963, where over 8,000 people came out to see the locomotive at Birmingham. In the following year, Pegler had the engine stand on the Forth Bridge for several days while it was sketched for a portrait by Terence Cuneo. On 13 November 1965, Flying Scotsman claimed the fastest steam hauled run between London Paddington and Cardiff, working the Panda Pullman. It also set the fastest run on the return journey. By the end of 1965, Flying Scotsman had recouped the £3,000 it cost Pegler to buy it. As watering facilities for steam locomotives were disappearing, in September 1966 Pegler spent £1,000 on a second corridor tender which was adapted as