SS Great Eastern
She also had six masts (said to be named after the days of a week – Monday being the fore mast and Saturday the spanker mast), providing space for of sails (7 gaff and max. 9 (usually 4) square sails), rigged similar to a topsail schooner with a main gaff sail (fore-and-aft sail) on each mast, one "jib" on the fore mast and three square sails on masts no. 2 and no. 3 (Tuesday & Wednesday); for a time mast no. 4 was also fitted with three yards. In later years, some of the yards were removed. According to some sources she would have carried . This amount of canvas is obviously too much for seven fore-and-aft sails and max. 9 square sails. This (larger) figure of sail area lies only a few square metres below that the famous Flying P-Liner "Preußen" carried – with her five full-rigged masts of 30 square sails and a lot of stay sails. Setting sails turned out to be unusable at the same time as the paddles and screw were under steam, because the hot exhaust from the five (later four) funnels would set them on fire. Her maximum speed was 24 km/h (13 knots).
Race to the North
Following the successful launching of the German Flying Hamburger high-speed diesel railcar set in 1933 and the Bugatti cars in France, the LNER began to examine the possibilities of introducing similar trains for key services. On examining German specifications, management concluded that better speed and accommodation should be possible using steam locomotive powered trains. To test the feasibility of this a high-speed trial was run in 1934 between London and Leeds using locomotive no. 4472 "Flying Scotsman", then in modified A1 condition. During this run the first fully authenticated speed of 100 mph (160.9 km/h) was reached. On a similar test run from London to Newcastle and back, A3 No 2750 "Papyrus" reached 108 mph (174 km/h), a world record for a non-streamlined steam locomotive. When the streamlined London-Newcastle and Silver Jubilee service was inaugurated, the specially-built A4 improved Pacifics pulverised all records, starting with a maximum of 112 mph (180 km/h) on the inaugural run. The high-speed service was extended to Edinburgh in 1937 with the introduction of the Coronation train.