Mallard BASIC
It was also optimised for speed it is named after the LNER A4 class 4468 Mallard locomotive, the fastest steam locomotive in the world, once again displaying the company's fondness for railway-oriented nomenclature. (For instance, see the company name itself.) In fact the Locomotive name came from the phrase "To run like a train" and it was this theme that was used to name Mallard BASIC no other Locomotive product was named after anything railway-oriented.
James Holden (locomotive engineer)
The Decapod developed mainly under Chief Draughtsman Frederick Vernon Russell was an extraordinary endeavour to develop a steam locomotive which could perform at the level of electric traction. It was built in 1902 to forestall an imminent scheme for an electrified railway out of London to suburbs served by the GER. Since the proponents of the scheme had a slogan about electric trains accelerating to thirty miles an hour in thirty seconds, Holden resolved to obtain the same performance with steam traction. A massive boiler with Wootten firebox, three cylinders each with its own blastpipe cone, and ten smallish driving wheels ensured a lively acceleration. On trial it did rather better than 30 mi/h (50 km/h) in thirty seconds, accelerating at 1.46 ft/s² (0.45 m/s²): This performance put an end to the electrification scheme even though (as Holden had known all the time) the regular use of so massive a machine would never have been permitted by the civil engineer.