“RACING” TRAINS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1746, 23 August 1905, Page 8

“RACING” TRAINS

(From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, June 30. “I think of her waiting, waiting, And long for a common hansom.” When the late W. E. Henley penned those lines apropos of a railway journey in a train scheduled as an “express ’ our railway co'mpanies were all content to leave railway records in the hands ox the Americans. To-day our railway managers are showing much more enterprise, and fast long-distance runs, especially on -our northern lines, are becoming quite a commonplace feature of most ♦of our systems. Last Saturday tliq North-Western introduced a service of non-stop expresses between London and Liverpool, which are to cover the 201 miles in 208 minutes, and by way of answer to this challenge the Midland Railway is running non-stop trains daily from St. Pancras to Leeds, 196 miles! in 205 minutes, and the Great Northern is doing a like journey in five minutes longer.

It is, however, on the London to Sheffield route that competition is keenest, and here we have three rival lines making a bid for the record. The Great Central are now covering the 164£ miles between Marylebone and Sheffield in 170 minutes, and as for nearly 40 miles their trains have to go comparatively slowly over the Metropolitan companies metals, the G. C. Railway “fliers” are called upon to run the miles from Ayiesbury to Sheffield in 2 hours, a speed of nearly 64 miles an hour. The Great Northern have also put. on a non-stop London to Sheffield train, which covers the 162 miles between Kings Cross and the Cutlery town in the same time as the Great Central'© express. But the longest non-stop run will be that of the Great Western Railway, who have arranged for a daily service by which the 247 miles intervening ’twixt Paddington Station and Plymouth will be covered ip 265 minutes, or at an average rate of nearly. 56 miles per hour for nearly 44hours on end. They may be able to better these times :n America on occasion, but in the way of fast regular train service methinks the Old Country will hold her own with any land.