It isn't about that at all. I would put good money on there never being a non-stop London - Glasgow service and certainly not a public train that does it in 4 hours (pre-HS2). You are desperately trying to attach significance to something which doesn't exist.
You have no idea what I am 'trying to attach significance to' so don't waste your time trying to infer that.
I can't remember if there was a Glasgow equivalent, but there was certainly an Edinburgh-Euston service which was nominally non-stop, during the 2010 ash-cloud crisis.
Just as I was travelling St.Pancras-Marseille & return. I’d always planned to travel throughout by rail but so many others hadn’t. So exciting to see how well operators like Virgin grasped the opportunity & ensured the media knew about it.
Have to say that four-and-a-half hours on regularly timetabled London Euston - Glasgow Central runs in public service, including stops en route, is still quite impressive on a day in, day out basis.
Especially as it’s hourly. I think people have short memories with frequency on the full length of the WCML.Have to say that four-and-a-half hours on regularly timetabled London Euston - Glasgow Central runs in public service, including stops en route, is still quite impressive on a day in, day out basis.
Could this ever regularly be reduced to four hours, end-to-end, but still with some intermediate calls?
Three hours 53 Minutes from London to Glasgow ....
Just to put it into perspective..
Wonder what the record is for an Embraer E190 as it regularly completes the journey in well under an Hour
Forget HST ...HSA is already here
Didn’t the APT also run at speeds far greater than the permissible speed? I believe at one point it was upto 140mph.
Could this ever regularly be reduced to four hours, end-to-end, but still with some intermediate calls?
I calculated earlier in the thread ( #318 ) that with calls at Preston and Carlisle only, 17 minutes would be saved by omitting Warrington, Wigan, Lancaster & Oxenholme (from a service which called at these places and omitted Penrith anyway). You'd end up at about 4h12m for a service calling at Preston and Carlisle.Could this ever regularly be reduced to four hours, end-to-end, but still with some intermediate calls?
So not for over a decade (or even more) then?
1974 electrification introduced a 5 hour "headline" timing, but there weren't many services and many of them took longer:
IIRC it took quite some time before the 'powers that be' were convinced about electrifying north of Weaver Junction, let alone into Scotland. While speed, frequency, regularity, reliability, comfort etc may produce more business it's never going to be possible or worthwhile to do everything. The planners if not the politicians do their best to manage a reasonable balance.
Today 1M18 17:30 Glasgow to Euston arrives 22:27, 4h57m
Yeah, think it does the likes of Rugby and Milton Keynes too.
What do any of these speed record attempts achieve to be fair. Some money raised for charity, a day out for those onboard, a bit of PR sprinkled in and the company can lay claim to beating the previous are basically the goals of any of these attempts. Doesn't achieve much ultimately but is some fun to do if the opportunity arises.
It gave me, & 2 friends I discussed it with, pleasure in following its progress & in thinking about it after.
I guess the 'ideal' solution would be to have 1x fast and 1x semi-fast Euston-Glasgow each hour. This is similar to what LNER offers from Edinburgh to Kings Cross.
Exactly. It’s all good fun with some PR thrown in for good measure. The likes of Virgin where absolute masters at this sort of thing. I miss them very much.
Yes, the PLM is limited to 160 km/h and French schedules include a standard recovery time of 3.5 min or 4.5 min per 100km (62 miles).
The geography also helped the new LGV route, as Paris-Lyon is 75km shorter than the old PLM route via Dijon.
