TRAINS SLOW DOWN TO 61 M.P.H.

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 430, 11 August 1928, Page 16

TRAINS SLOW DOWN TO 61 M.P.H.

BRITAIN’S FAST SERVICES Although railway speeding-up has been much to the fore recently, most people will be surprised to learn that main line railway travel is not so fast now as before the war. The Railway Year Book for 1928 makes this point clear in a comparison of fastest times between London and the chief provincial towns for 1914 to 1925. A list of 64 runs is given, varying from Cambridge (55 miles) to Inverness (567 miles). Comparing the present times with those of 1914, it is shown that 11 are the same, 22 faster, and 31 slower. Aberdeen, Inverness, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Perth are all 30 to 32 minutes further away from London on certain routes by the present-day schedule than they were before the war. On the other hand, 20 minutes have been knocked off the run from Harrogate, 15 from Scarborough, and 12 from Portsmouth. A passenger who undertook all 64 journeys would take 42 hours longer than in 1914. According to another table, there are only three scheduled runs of 60 miles an hour on British railways, these being:—-

Distance. Speed. M.P.H. Rlwy. 1925. 1914. G.w.R. Swindon-Padd’ton . 77.3 61.8 61.1 I-..35T.E. Darlington-York .. 44.1 61.5 61.5 L.N.E. Leicester-Nottingm. 22.6 61.5 61.5 Here also there Is no advance on pre-war performances.

It is necessary to go back almost a Quarter of a century to get the fastest railway run on record in the British Isles—7l.3 miles an hour for the 118 miles from Bristol to Paddington by the Ply mouth-London Transatlantic mail train. This run, says the Year Book, included two slow-downs, and the average speed between Swindon and Paddington was 80 m.p.h., with a maximum of 91.8 at Slough.