LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard in the context of The Coronation (train)

The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a 393-mile-long (632 km) electrified railway between its northern terminus at Edinburgh Waverley and southern terminus at London King's Cross. Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham and Newcastle are on the line, which is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Great Britain running broadly parallel to the A1 road. The main line acts as a 'spine' for several diverging branches, serving destinations such as Cambridge, Leeds, Hull, Sunderland and Lincoln, all with direct services to London. In addition, a few ECML services extend beyond Edinburgh to serve other Scottish destinations, such as Stirling, Inverness, Dundee, or Aberdeen.

The line was built during the 1840s by three railway companies, the North British Railway, the North Eastern Railway, and the Great Northern Railway. In 1923, the Railways Act 1921 led to their amalgamation to form the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) and the line became its primary route. The LNER competed with the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) for long-distance passenger traffic between London and Scotland. The LNER's chief mechanical engineer Nigel Gresley designed iconic Pacific steam locomotives including Flying Scotsman and Mallard, the latter of which achieved a world record speed for a steam locomotive, 126 mph (203 km/h) on the Grantham-to-Peterborough section on 3 July 1938.

A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomotive's boiler to the point where it becomes gaseous and its volume increases 1,700 times. Functionally, it is a self-propelled steam engine on wheels.

In most locomotives the steam is admitted alternately to each end of its cylinders in which pistons are mechanically connected to the locomotive's main wheels. Fuel and water supplies are usually carried with the locomotive, either on the locomotive itself or in a tender coupled to it. Variations in this general design include electrically powered boilers, turbines in place of pistons, and using steam generated externally.

Sir Herbert Nigel Gresley CBE (19 June 1876 – 5 April 1941) was a British railway engineer. He was one of Britain's most famous steam locomotive engineers, who rose to become Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME) of the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). He was the designer of some of the most famous steam locomotives in Britain, including the LNER Class A1 and LNER Class A4 4-6-2 Pacific engines. An A1 Pacific, Flying Scotsman, was the first steam locomotive officially recorded over 100 mph in passenger service, and an A4, No. 4468 Mallard, still holds the record for being the fastest steam locomotive in the world (126 mph).

Gresley's engines were considered elegant, both aesthetically and mechanically. His invention of a three-cylinder design with only two sets of Walschaerts valve gear, the Gresley conjugated valve gear, produced smooth running and power at lower cost than would have been achieved with a more conventional three sets of Walschaerts gear.

In typography, text or font in all caps (short for "all capitals") contains capital letters without any lowercase letters. For example: THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG. All caps text can be seen in legal documents, advertisements, newspaper headlines, and the titles on book covers. Short strings of words in capital letters appear bolder and "louder" than mixed case, and this is sometimes referred to as "screaming" or "shouting". All caps can also be used to indicate that a given word is an acronym.

Studies have been conducted on the readability and legibility of all caps text. Scientific testing from the 20th century onward has generally indicated that all caps text is less legible and readable than lower-case text. In addition, switching to all caps may make text appear hectoring and obnoxious for cultural reasons, since all-capitals is often used in transcribed speech to indicate that the speaker is shouting. All caps text is common in comic books, as well as on older teleprinter and radio transmission systems, which often do not indicate letter case at all.

The LNER Class A4 is a class of streamlined 4-6-2 steam locomotives designed by Nigel Gresley for the London and North Eastern Railway in 1935. Their streamlined design gave them high-speed capability as well as making them instantly recognisable, and one of the class, 4468 Mallard, holds the record as the world's fastest steam locomotive. Thirty-five of the class were built to haul express passenger trains on the East Coast Main Line route from London Kings Cross via York to Newcastle, and later via Newcastle to Edinburgh. They remained in service on the East Coast Main Line until the early 1960s when they were replaced by Deltic diesel locomotives; they themselves proving to be worthy successors to the A4s. Several A4s saw out their remaining days until 1966 in Scotland, particularly on the Aberdeen – Glasgow express trains, for which they were used to improve the timing from 3.5 to 3 hours.

The National Railway Museum (NRM) is a museum in York, England, forming part of the Science Museum Group. The museum tells the story of rail transport in Britain and its impact on society. It is the home of the national collection of historically significant railway vehicles such as Mallard, a Stirling 'Single', Duchess of Hamilton and a Japanese bullet train. In addition, the National Railway Museum holds a diverse collection of other objects, from a household recipe book used in George Stephenson's house to film showing a "never-stop railway" developed for the British Empire Exhibition. It has won many awards, including the European Museum of the Year Award in 2001.

Starting in 2019, a major site development is underway. As part of the York Central redevelopment which diverts Leeman Road, the National Railway Museum is building a new entrance building to connect the two separate parts of the museum together. At the same time, the space around the museum is to be landscaped to provide public spaces.