"FASTEST NATION"

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 114, 6 January 1932, Page 7

"FASTEST NATION"

TRXBUTE TO BRITAIN FROM AN AMERICAN JOURNAL. ALL SPEED RECORDS. Notwithstanding tradition, Great Britain to-day can fairly elaim to be the fastest-moving nation in the world, says the Christian .Science Monitor, editorially. With Lieutenant Stainforth's mark of 415 miles an hour she holds the world's speed reeord in aviation, in speed boat trials, and in motor racing; and now that the "Cheltenham Flyer" has travelled the 77| miles from Swindon to London at 80 miles an hour, she has asserted her supremacy on the railway track, well surpassing the previous Canadian. world's reeord of 68.9 miles -an hour. It has taken a long while for trains to make an appreciable impfession on earlier records. As long ago as 1895, rivalrv between the east and west

coast routes from London to Scotland resulted in the 540 miles from London -to Aherdeen being covered in 5-12 minutes, at an average speed of 63 miles an hour, a feat of which any railway company in the world might well be proud. Eight years later Britain established another reeord in the train world, one of her engines on the track between Plymouth and London attaining a speed of 103 miles an hour. In 1928 a British railway company claimed a third reeord, the King's Cross non-stop run of 392 % miles to Edinburgh, which is stated to be the longest non-stop run ever accomplished. Nevertheless, there is a strong feeling that, if seriously put to it by foreign competition, Great Britain could surpass fairly easily even these fine achievements. An average speed of 100 miles an hour for ordinary commercial purposes is regarded as being by no,means outside the range of possibility, But at the present moment, not being urged on either by external rxvalry or puhlic demand, the British companies are more or less content with the speed of their hest trains, and are concentrating on making their engines more powerful rather than faster.