Race To The North - London To Edinburgh, 1888

London To Edinburgh, 1888

From 1885 the main London to Edinburgh services were as follows.

In 1885, the east coast express service comprised GNR from King's Cross stopping at Grantham and York and then NER stopping at Newcastle, Berwick and Edinburgh Waverley – a distance of 393.2 miles (632.8 km). On the west coast, LNWR from Euston stopped at Willesden, Rugby, Crewe, Preston and Carlisle followed by Caledonian stopping at two stations in Scotland before Edinburgh Princes Street – 399.7 miles (643.3 km). Even the fastest run (Grantham to York} was slower than 50 mph (80 km/h).

East Coast had a very strong hold on the traffic and this was consolidated further when in November 1887 those companies announced that the Special Scotch Express would also take 3rd class passengers. West Coast, faced with dwindling traffic, took a decisive step. Delaying their announcement to the last minute, they stated in June 1888 that the Day Scotch Express would now arrive in Edinburgh an hour earlier, at 19:00. On 1 July the East Coast arrival time became 18:30, with the lunch stop at York being reduced from 30 to 20 minutes – on 1 August West Coast matched this time, cutting out stops between Carlisle and Edinburgh, but East Coast, seemingly in anticipation, started arriving at 18:00 on the same day. West Coast were determined to match this time and decided to run two separate trains with fewer carriages – the racing train travelled non-stop from Euston to Crewe.

This schedule started on 6 August, Bank Holiday, with the press now taking full notice, crowds turning out at Euston and bookmakers taking bets on the results. To the surprise of the experts on that first day the LNWR locomotive to Crewe was the 25 year old Problem class Waverley 2-2-2 single. Another surprise was that Caledonian ran its brand new and unique No. 123 4-2-2 single and this locomotive was used every day of the series. In fact, both trains used to arrive in Edinburgh earlier than scheduled and reporters would guess which train would arrive first and then would race the mile length of Princes Street in hansom cabs in the hope of seeing the other train arrive. The results were cabled to the New York Herald for reporting the next day. By 13 August East Coast booked an arrival time of 17:45, omitting the stop at Berwick and averaging 59.3 mph (95.4 km/h) between Newcastle and Edinburgh. On the same day West Coast abandoned any timetable at intermediate stations and the train left as soon as it was able. In this way they beat the East Coast "record" even before it had been made. Worse, East Coast arrived later than scheduled although they made amends on 31 August, arriving at 17:27. On both lines the overall speed had been over 52 mph (84 km/h). However, on 14 August the companies held a conference in London and it was agreed that minimum journey times of 7¾ hours (East Coast) and 8 hours (West Coast) would be adhered to during the rest of that month and and then times would be increased by 30 minutes.

Throughout the period, Midland Railway, who had recently completed the Settle and Carlisle Line, and North British Railway (NBR) on the Waverley Line were faced with a longer route – St Pancras, Manchester, Carlisle, Waverley – with many curves and gradients and so they were unable to be competitive on speed.

So, after August, and the end of the holidays, the racing came to an end although there were now 29 express trains a day between London and Scotland (in both directions) compared with 16 in 1885. A new prospect was appearing, however, and the Pall Mall Gazette wrote "The main cause confronts us when we see those three stupendous towers of steel which loom above the horizon of Edinburgh. When the Forth Bridge is finished the North Western and Caledonian will have to struggle hard if they wish to retain much of the traffic to Dundee or Aberdeen".