Reading to Paddington record

[Doctor Fegg]

I used to commute out of Paddington morning peak in early 2000 and used to time the trains. The HST+7 often did it in under 20 mins, with full power off the blocks, clearly over 125 and heavy braking at Reading. The only issue was being held for a space at P4, then I'd miss my shuttle bus!

That surprises me. I used to catch the 0800 from Paddington every morning in 1998-99. It would frequently do it in 22 or 23 minutes - enough for me to catch the 08.24 from 4A. But I don't ever recall a sub-20 minute run.

 

[cambsy]

The special 91 run London-Edinburgh, did York in under 97 mins, and the fastest London-York on one of the Scottish Pullmans is few secs over 97 mins, was doing around 130mph, there are logs of 135-140mph runs by 91’s, there is one i have seen which did London-Doncaster in just under 80 mins, due to fitters attention, stopped center road, then went like clappers again to York, about 138mph, if had managed clear run, no signal stop, could have done London-York in about 95 mins, and several other 135-140mph runs have been recorded, and these were done by experienced time and speed loggers, so trust there speeds and times.

 

[irish_rail]

That surprises me. I used to catch the 0800 from Paddington every morning in 1998-99. It would frequently do it in 22 or 23 minutes - enough for me to catch the 08.24 from 4A. But I don't ever recall a sub-20 minute run.

Quite. That is certainly not possible driving within speed limits , I think it pretty doubtful that most drivers where speeding 20 years ago.

 

[paul1609]

I think we can safely say this is complete and utter fake news. At 188.5 miles that would imply the journey being done in 1h31m57s which never happened. My best memory is that when the C91 was being tested a BR Record run was done in 1h37m but this was sanctioned to run at 140mph in places. I think the best a HST will have done was when BR ran some promotional Tyne-Tees pullmans in the mid 80s, one shortened HST completed Newcastle to London in ~2h20m but again with special sanctions to run above line speed in places.

According to the Rail Performance Society the fastest recorded Non Stop HST York to London achieved an average of 103.9mph and only one northbound service was ever recorded as achieving an average of over 110 mph (at 110.3 mph).

 

[hexagon789]

I think we can safely say this is complete and utter fake news. At 188.5 miles that would imply the journey being done in 1h31m57s which never happened. My best memory is that when the C91 was being tested a BR Record run was done in 1h37m but this was sanctioned to run at 140mph in places. I think the best a HST will have done was when BR ran some promotional Tyne-Tees pullmans in the mid 80s, one shortened HST completed Newcastle to London in ~2h20m but again with special sanctions to run above line speed in places.

As I stated above the fastest ever public timing was 1h41 King's X-York - you can see an examplw printout with actual timings in this post here: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/gner-to-glasgow-central.181338/post-3967343

 

[hexagon789]

Quite. That is certainly not possible driving within speed limits , I think it pretty doubtful that most drivers where speeding 20 years ago.

If not impossible given the requirement for ATP to be functioning for an HST post-Southall/Ladbroke Grove to be allowed into service.

 

[EveningStar]

At least you would often enough hit the 125, I feel as though high-speed trains on the continent love to trick you by getting with about 3km of linespeed then slowly drifting down then back up but never quite touching the magic 300 or 320!

Funny you should say that, because soon after the Channel Tunnel opened I got a Eurostar cab permit to and from Paris. Outward we got held at Ashford while somebody sorted out a gapped EMU, so we lost us our path through the tunnel and once into France we got behind a Calais stopper, so it was only after Lille that we could properly get going. It was interesting how left to its own devices the Eurostar was doing exactly as you describe, a few kph below the magic number, so our driver, old school BR, took over and carefully (had to be ... official cab permit meant he had a traction inspector looking over his shoulder!) held us at 300. We did not make right time into Paris, yet our driver cut a big slice out of the deficit ... O.S. Nock would have described the journey in fulsome tones.

 

[hexagon789]

Funny you should say that, because soon after the Channel Tunnel opened I got a Eurostar cab permit to and from Paris. Outward we got held at Ashford while somebody sorted out a gapped EMU, so we lost us our path through the tunnel and once into France we got behind a Calais stopper, so it was only after Lille that we could properly get going. It was interesting how left to its own devices the Eurostar was doing exactly as you describe, a few kph below the magic number, so our driver, old school BR, took over and carefully (had to be ... official cab permit meant he had a traction inspector looking over his shoulder!) held us at 300. We did not make right time into Paris, yet our driver cut a big slice out of the deficit ... O.S. Nock would have described the journey in fulsome tones.

Must be the way the speedset works, the one on our Class 90s and 91s I believe holds speed within 2 mph of the set figure, so on a setting of 110 it'll accelerate to 110 then allow speed to drop to ~108 before repowering, those on continental trains often seem to stop powering 3-5km/h below the set figure by comparison.

Though I'm not sure of the 373s have a speedset presumably they do if it was a 373 you travelled on?

 

[peteb]

Still on topic, sort of, does anyone have logs of the class 50 hauled Paddington to Oxford services in the late 1989s? I often used those and recall some cracking runs to Reading in Mk1 compartment stock, bouncing along on 90mph bogies at 100 or thereabouts. Fastest I recall was about 30 mins start to stop in the down direction. Can't honestly recall a sub 30 minute run.

 

[Peter C]

Still on topic, sort of, does anyone have logs of the class 50 hauled Paddington to Oxford services in the late 1989s? I often used those and recall some cracking runs to Reading in Mk1 compartment stock, bouncing along on 90mph bogies at 100 or thereabouts. Fastest I recall was about 30 mins start to stop in the down direction. Can't honestly recall a sub 30 minute run.

The Railway Performance Society has a brilliant database full of records. If you go to www.railperf.org.uk/fastest.php and set the desired origin and destination points (I set origin to Paddington and destination to Oxford), and then set the traction type to Diesel Loco, you can find that the fastest such run was as follows:

Date: Sat 1 Oct 1988
Train: 1702 London Paddington - Hereford
Class: 50
Loco: 50033
Time: 48:36

For Paddington to Reading, the database shows a Class 47 (47829) as having the record for fastest diesel-hauled run.

Hope this helps,

-Peter

 

[hexagon789]

Still on topic, sort of, does anyone have logs of the class 50 hauled Paddington to Oxford services in the late 1989s? I often used those and recall some cracking runs to Reading in Mk1 compartment stock, bouncing along on 90mph bogies at 100 or thereabouts. Fastest I recall was about 30 mins start to stop in the down direction. Can't honestly recall a sub 30 minute run.

The Carriage working book says these were timed for 100mph and looking at coaching stock allocations the NSE Mk1s seem to have all been Commonwealth or B4 bogies anyway so 100 would've been perfectly 'legal' on these trains.

 

[peteb]

The Railway Performance Society has a brilliant database full of records. If you go to www.railperf.org.uk/fastest.php and set the desired origin and destination points (I set origin to Paddington and destination to Oxford), and then set the traction type to Diesel Loco, you can find that the fastest such run was as follows:

Date: Sat 1 Oct 1988
Train: 1702 London Paddington - Hereford
Class: 50
Loco: 50033
Time: 48:36

For Paddington to Reading, the database shows a Class 47 (47829) as having the record for fastest diesel-hauled run.

Hope this helps,

-Peter

Excellent, many thanks

 

[peteb]

The Carriage working book says these were timed for 100mph and looking at coaching stock allocations the NSE Mk1s seem to have all been Commonwealth or B4 bogies anyway so 100 would've been perfectly 'legal' on these trains.

Ah, that's ok then! Still very bouncy mind you!

 

[Peter C]

Excellent, many thanks

You're very welcome.

-Peter

 

[alangla]

Must be the way the speedset works, the one on our Class 90s and 91s I believe holds speed within 2 mph of the set figure, so on a setting of 110 it'll accelerate to 110 then allow speed to drop to ~108 before repowering, those on continental trains often seem to stop powering 3-5km/h below the set figure by comparison.

Though I'm not sure of the 373s have a speedset presumably they do if it was a 373 you travelled on?

Slightly O/T question, but given most cruise control fitted cars that I’ve driven can maintain speed to within about 0.1mph of target, why is rail speed control so coarse, especially on electrically powered vehicles with electronically controlled traction equipment?

 

[notadriver]

Slightly O/T question, but given most cruise control fitted cars that I’ve driven can maintain speed to within about 0.1mph of target, why is rail speed control so coarse, especially on electrically powered vehicles with electronically controlled traction equipment?

i’d guess because controlling thousand of horsepower takes longer to respond to a few hundred that a car has (often less in a car) and less weight. Planes in cruise flight seem to flunctuate too.

 

[hexagon789]

Slightly O/T question, but given most cruise control fitted cars that I’ve driven can maintain speed to within about 0.1mph of target, why is rail speed control so coarse, especially on electrically powered vehicles with electronically controlled traction equipment?

Perhaps the very nature of rail transport - the steel wheel on a steel rail and the vagaries involved with trains compared to road transport in general in that sense? Also the way the systems are set up perhaps?

Some more modern trains fluctuate very little, Pendolinos I believe will hold right on the button more or less.

 

[Horizon22]

I know that during the timing trials before the new GWR Dec '19 timetable the fastest time recorded was 21m 45 secs.

 

[4REP]

Just wondering if any of the recorders out there can tell me what the recorded best time start to stop for Reading to Paddington. I did 21.27 recently and got me thinking how that stands in grand scheme of things? Does the rail performance society hold the data for best times?? (I know mine isn't a best just want to know how far off it is!)

I remember timing one journey back in 1995 and it were just over 19 minutes on an off peak service around 7pm HST on a Plymouth service.

 

[irish_rail]

I know that during the timing trials before the new GWR Dec '19 timetable the fastest time recorded was 21m 45 secs.

Good to know I beat all them haha

 

[Ian Umpleby]

I remember timing one journey back in 1995 and it were just over 19 minutes on an off peak service around 7pm HST on a Plymouth service.

The Railway Performance Society did a theoretical exercise in 1988 to determine the fastest possible exit from Paddington and approach to Reading with a legal run. The time to Hayes (10m 74chains at 125 mph) was 7m 39s and the closing time from Sonning (MP 34) was 1m 35s. It may have been possible to clip a second or two off these with "gung-ho" driving.
Taking 9m 14 secs off 19 mins leaves 23miles and six chains in 9m 46 secs, an average speed of 142 mph; 9m 14 secs off 19m 30secs leaves 10m 16 secs at an average of 135 mph. This assumes a start-to stop run of course.
If you have any further details of this run, assuming it was a start-to-stop run, the Society would like to see the log.
Ian Umpleby RPS