The Race to the North is the name given to two summers in the late 19th century when British passenger trains belonging to different companies would literally race each other from London to Scotland over the two principal rail trunk routes connecting the English capital city to Scotland - the West Coast Main Line which runs from London Euston via Crewe and Carlisle and the East Coast Main Line route from London King's Cross via York and Newcastle.
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The first Race to the North was between day trains from London to Edinburgh in 1888, and the second was between night trains from London to Aberdeen in 1895. The actual 'finishing post' of the latter race was Kinnaber Junction, 38 miles (61 km) south of Aberdeen, where the Caledonian Railway and the North British Railway routes joined- the last section being run on Caledonian-owned track. On the approach to Kinnaber Junction the two routes ran on either side of the Montrose Basin, with trains often racing for the junction within sight of each other - a spectacle widely reported by the journalists who rode on the trains during the height of the races.
Great Northern Railway GNR used the 4-2-2 Stirling Single (eight-footer) constructed by Patrick Stirling for their express. GNR Stirling No 668 brought the East Coast express over the 105.5-mile (170 km) track from King’s Cross to Grantham in 1 hour 41 minutes with an average speed of 62.7 mph (101 km/h). After engine change in Grantham GNR Stirling No 775 made the 82 miles (132 km) to York in 1 hour 16 minutes, average speed of 64.7 mph (104 km/h). The total distance from London to Edinburgh was covered in 6 hours 19 minutes (for a speed of 63.5 mph, 102.2 km/h) and the extended 523-mile (842 km) distance of London to Aberdeen in 8 hours 40 minutes (average speed 60.4 mph (97.2 km/h), or 51.9 mph (83.5 km/h) for the final section).
Two days later, on 22 August 1895, London North Western Railway (LNWR) train with Precedent No. 790 Hardwicke 2-4-0 took 2 hours and 6 minutes for the 141-mile (227 km) run from Crewe to Carlisle, with an average speed of 67.1 mph (108 km/h).
A serious derailment at Preston in 1896 resulted in public calls for safety rather than speed. It was also realised that the race trains caused great inconvenience to passengers precisely because of the speed of the journey- instead of arriving at Aberdeen at around 7am (as before) trains were arriving in the early hours of the morning, leaving passengers with an awkward wait on a deserted station for any connecting local trains. Because of this the racing was abandoned in favour of more realistically timetabled services. There followed an agreement on speed limits, which was revoked in 1932.
With the end of specially staged train races, later rivalries between the West Coast and East Coast routes centred on timetabled services based largely on improvements in traction technologies.
In 1927 LNER started the famous non stop express train Flying Scotsman from London to Edinburgh. Speeds respected the old agreement and so were low, but time was gained through making the run non-stop over the whole distance of 393 miles (632 km). This was done by means of a special corridor tender which allowed engine crew changes at speed. However to show that the old rivalry was not dead, just prior to the inaugural date of the LNER train, the LMS thwarted them by running separate "non-stop" trains from London to Glasgow (401 miles/645 km) and London to Edinburgh (399 miles/642 km). These were operated respectively by one of the new Royal Scot locomotives and by a standard LMS Compound 4-4-0 locomotive both with volunteer crews.
Following the successful launching of the German Flying Hamburger high-speed diesel railcar set in 1933 and the Bugatti cars in France, the LNER began to examine the possibilities of introducing similar trains for key services.[1] On examining German specifications, management concluded that better speed and accommodation should be possible using steam locomotive powered trains. To test the feasibility of this a high-speed trial was run in 1934 between London and Leeds using locomotive no. 4472 Flying Scotsman, then in modified A1 condition. During this run the first fully authenticated speed of 100 mph (160.9 km/h) was reached. On a similar test run from London to Newcastle and back, A3 No 2750 Papyrus reached 108 mph (174 km/h), a world record for a non-streamlined steam locomotive. When the streamlined London-Newcastle and Silver Jubilee service was inaugurated, the specially-built A4 improved Pacifics pulverised all records, starting with a maximum of 112 mph (180 km/h) on the inaugural run. The high-speed service was extended to Edinburgh in 1937 with the introduction of the Coronation train.
The LMS again countered in 1937 with the London-Glasgow Coronation Scot streamlined train for which an updated Pacific locomotive type, the Princess Coronation Class was also specially developed, These locomotives proved fully equal to the A4 and on a press run between Euston and Crewe, 6220 Coronation briefly snatched away the world speed record with a top speed of 114 mph (183 km/h).[2]
In 1979, British Rail set a new record of 3 hours 52 minutes on the 401-mile (645 km) length of the WCML between Euston and Glasgow with its revolutionary Advanced Passenger Train (APT). This record for the northbound run still stands, although the southbound record was broken in 2006 by the APT's spiritual successor, the Class 390 "Pendolino" with a time of 3 hours 55 minutes, and an average speed of 102.4 mph (164.8 km/h). However these times cannot normally be achieved on the WCML under normal operating conditions as it requires other services on the line to be specially re-timed in order to provide a train path for a non-stop express from Glasgow to London.
In contrast the advertised Flying Scotsman service on the East Coast route can be achieved within 3 hours 59 minutes within a normal service pattern, and with stops at York and Newcastle - however, still making for an average speed of 98.7 mph (158.8 km/h).
When Britain's railways were privatised in the mid 1990s, the West Coast and East Coast routes were now once again operated by two different companies - now Virgin Trains and East Coast. Unlike the pre-1948 era however, the two operators have played down the fact that they are in effect rivals on the Anglo-Scottish routes, and have rarely been seen to advertise themselves as direct competitors meaning that a re-emergence of the Races To The North is unlikely.
C.David Wilson: Racing Trains, Sutton Publishing 1995. A comprehensive review of the participants in the 1895 Railway Races to the North