Hypothesis

I’ll be honest; this is a labour of love. I started my railway career in the timetabling department and I always have a soft spot for the department.

I wanted to look at how journey times across the UK Railway network have changed throughout the past 70 years. There is a common belief that our network is slow, despite running at linespeeds of 125mph along certain routes. But how much of that is true and how much of it is a preconception? One of the only documented ways we can show this is through looking at the timetable to plot those journey times.

Methodology

The best place for all of this information is the Timetable itself. Throughout the 20th century, the railway printed timetables for circulation amongst staff, travel agents and the working public. There are hundreds of thousands of copies for purchase on eBay and specialist bookshops. The last printed version was published in 2014 - bringing an end of this chunky guide of numbers, times and locations. However, a digital version continues to be published on the Network Rail website and follows a very similar format.

Rather than going overboard and choosing a timetable from each year, I took the liberty of utilising a timetable from each decade shortly after a key event occurred. The exception for this was the 2000’s as it was important to highlight a key piece of work - more later.

The timetable years I have chosen were:

1955 | 1967 | 1978 | 1982 | 1991 | 1994 | 2004 | 2007 | 2014 | 2023

What makes these years so special?

1955

• Our post-war railway was still utilising Steam locomotives and saw the publishing of ‘A Blueprint for the Modernisation of British Railways’ by the British Transport Commission. It seems like the best place to start following the recovery from World War 2.

1967

• Following the 1964 rebranding of British Railways to British Rail, Steam has been eradicated across the entire British Railway network and electrification has began on key routes. New diesel locomotives are being built whilst the first generation of ‘prototypical’ diesel locomotives have been phased out due to reliability issues.

1978

• There’s something new in the timetable for the Western Region in the shape of a HST and the ‘Parkway’ becomes a reality, whilst the electrification of the West Coast Main Line has been completed for just under a decade.

1982

• The last batch of HSTs are rolling off the production lines to enable retirement of the Deltic Locomotives on the East Coast Main Line and to support the Cross Country services between Newcastle and Plymouth. Class 87s are seen on the West Coast Main Line, representing further development of technology.

1991

• I was lucky enough to find a 1991 timetable for sale at Jacob’s Antiques in Cardiff; providing the opportunity of seeing the full ECML electrification timetable with the Intercity 225 sets along the Selby Diversion. Sprinters and ‘Express’ sets are in highlighted in the timetable - The latter would become known as Alphaline services operated by Class 158s.

1994

• There are bigger things happening outside of the timetable - Margaret Thatcher has staved off Privatisation of British Rail, but John Major pushes forward and the Railway is tendered to the private sector in 1993.

2004

• The West Coast Main Line has it’s first major project initiated since the 1960s, which will modernise the infrastructure throughout the entire route and enable tilting trains to run. They’ve been running for 2 years already, but there is still a chance to gain further improvements. The CrossCountry franchise ends the use of Class 47s and HSTs in lieu of Bombardier Voyager units for ‘Operation Princess’, but this is a failure and cuts services to improve performance. Southern Region stock based on the Mark 1 carriage is removed from service to be replaced by Siemens units.

2007

• The West Coast Main Line Modernsiation project has been completed, which paves the way for Virgin West Coast’s ‘Very High Frequency’ (VHF) timetable operated with Voyager and Pendolino sets. The SRA (Strategic Rail Alliance) winds up Central Trains and incorporates their services into the Cross Country and East Midlands franchises.

2014

• Electrification of the Great Western Main Line begins, whilst the Thameslink Programme reaches the final hurdle.

2023

• The railway emerges from COVID-19 with a funding challenge overseen the Johnson/Truss/Sunak Governments. The Great Western Main Line has been fully electrified between London Paddington and Cardiff Central, using Class 80x IEP (Intercity Express Programme) trains. Elsewhere, the same units are being used on the East Coast Main Line following withdrawal of HSTs and Intercity 225s. The Pacer has become a thing of the past as it has been removed from service, ushering a raft of new stock for Northern, Transpennine and Regional services.

Data Analysis

Here’s the juicy stuff, fresh out of the timetables.

I have looked at the Departure and Arrival times, converted them to minutes and plotted them into line charts. Nothing too fancy - after all, it is fairly simple data to work with.

As for the selection of trips, I opted for a wide spread of services across the network with the idea of British Rail’s ‘Sectors’ in mind - Long Distance services, Inter-Regional services and Local Services. Those acquainted with railway history will instantly recognise these as ‘InterCity’, ‘Provincial’ and ‘Regional Rail’ services.

Those services I’ve chosen are:

Results

InterCity

Looking at The Flying Scotsman, we see constant improvement between 1955 and 1994. There’s good reason for this too:

• In 1955, services were using A1 or A3 locomotives - don’t forget, The Flying Scotsman was also a name of locomotive.

• There was a 100 minute improvement in 1967; Class 55 ‘Deltic’ locomotives had replaced Class 40 locomotives (which had replaced A1 & A3 steam locomotives in 1955). The Deltics were lighter than Class 40s and A1 & A3 locomotives, meaning they had improved acceleration.

• By 1976, there was a slight improvement of 9 minutes - possibly due to the electrification between Finsbury Park and Moorgate, increasing speeds at the start of the journey.

• The 1982 timetable brought HSTs to the ECML, allowing the Deltics to bow out in grace. Further electrification had taken place in Cambridgeshire, enabling top speeds to met earlier in the journey, reducing the full journey time.

• By 1991, the Selby Diversion had been established and full electrification of the route had been completed. Intercity 225 sets were ruling the roost, with HSTs demoted to diesel-only routes.

• At the time of the 1994 timetable introduction, I’m unable to identify what brought a further 7 minute improvement - perhaps it was new units being introduced across the Doncaster and Finsbury Park areas, unlocking capacity?

• Post 1994, we can witness the growing challenge of congestion. It’s well known this challenge exists - particularly with the number of bottlenecks across the route.

London to the West Country

The Great Western Main Line is an engineering marvel, being built in wonderfully straight sections throughout Berkshire and Wiltshire. This is one of the reasons to why the journey from London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads has seen such little improvement.

When Diesel Hydraulic locomotives took over from highly refined Steam Locomotives built in Swindon, the journey time increased rather than decreased! It wasn’t until 1978 when HSTs were introduced and brought 125mph speeds to the Route did the journey times improve - and they did so significantly.

As the GWML began to increase in services carried, the creep of congestion also started. By 2007, journey times were matching the same times seen with Steam locomotives, culminating in the late 2010s.

In 2019, electrification of the line between London Paddington and Cardiff Central had been completed, but gaps exist between Wootton Bassett Jn and Bristol Temple Meads that prevent the Intercity Express Programme (IEP) Class 80x units from using electric power for the entire journey. Electrification has supported capability of the GWML however it demonstrates that the pursuit of faster travel comes with the challenge of capacity.

London to the South West

It’s important the we don’t forget the LSWR route between London Waterloo and Exeter Central - known to many as ‘the Long Slow Way Round’ or professionally as ‘The Atlantic Lines’.

When I saw the graph, I genuinely had to check my data to ensure everything was correct. And unfortunately, it is.

We actually have a long distance route in 2023, that is slower than it was in 1955 despite massive strides in technology. Furthermore, the journey is slower today than what it was in 1991 when there was a lesser number of trains operating along the route.

Following the Beeching Report, sections of the route to the West of Salisbury were reduced to single tracks. This meant trains often had to be regulated for the section ahead of them to be cleared - increasing journey times. My research tells me that Diesel Hydraulic locomotives were in charge of these trains during 1966 and 1967, but these were replaced for Class 33 diesel locomotives until the early 1980s, when Class 47’s and Class 50’s eventually took over.

By 1991, Class 159 Express units were in charge - however the line speed and signalling capability of the route had not changed much. In 2023, the situation is as it was in 1991.

The average for each of the above journeys have been plotted into this graph, showing 35 years of improvement and 32 years of stagnation in travel times.

We can see the great improvement seen with the withdrawal of Steam Locomotives between 1955 and 1967. Remarkably, we can identify when Privatisation occurred on this graph but cannot fully conclude whether it was the cause for stagnation - this will require further investigation later.

I’m intrigued by the jump in journey times from 2007 to 2014 - we’ll identify what caused this in our breakdown.

London to Scotland

Perhaps this review is best to start with the most premier services on our network - The Flying Scotsman and The Royal Scot. Both of these competed against each other during the times of the LMS and the LNER - but having been incorporated into British Rail, overall competition seems ridiculous post 1948.

For The Royal Scot, there appears to be a really interesting story. There wasn’t much of an improvement after the end of Steam in 1967 - only 20 minutes! The biggest improvement wasn’t fully witnessed until 1974 when the final mile of electrification had been completed, enabling faster acceleration being delivered by Class 86 locomotives between London and Glasgow.

The increase of 26 minutes by the 1982 timetable is highly likely the reaction to moving services to accommodate the new Advanced Passenger Train (or APT for short). My 1982 version of the timetable comes with a bookmark showcasing the unit and what it would bring to the route - such as a reduced stopping pattern and shorter journey times due to faster speeds throughout the timetabled path. This did mean that services had to be ‘flexed’ or shifted out of the way. History tells us that the demise of the APT was a failure due to Government intervention and it would not exist in the timetable for much longer.

By 1991, the APT had been flushed out of the timetable. Class 90s were introduced on Intermodal freight services whilst older diesel locomotives (such as Class 25s and Class 31s) were being removed from service in the northern sections of the route to be replaced by Class 37s or Class 47s, bringing improved acceleration to freight services. Sprinters had taken the place of many services that had been operated by a locomotive and a rake of carriages, reducing the need for turnaround manoeuvres at key stations - which in turn had released capacity for trains to run with shorter dwells at stations.

Journey times had unfolded by 1994. It seems bizarre that an increase of 26 minutes had occurred in the mid 1990’s with no good reason. I can’t find anything to explain it, other than a possible increase in services across the West Coast Main Line that had started to eat capacity. By 2003, this was had increased to 53 minutes.

In 1997, Virgin Trains outlined they had wanted to introduced tilting trains to the WCML as part of the modernisation of the Route. These trains came in the form of the Alstom Pendolino (Class 390) in 2005. The tilting characteristics enabled 125mph running throughout key sections of the route. The modernisation programme of the WCML had also brought a 4 track section into operation along the Trent Valley, freeing capacity for services to operate and reducing journey times for those longer distance services. The introduction of the Pendolino also resulted in the retirement of HSTs on North Wales services and Class 86, 87 & 90 locomotives on all service groups. The full compliment of Pendolinos supplemented with Bombardier Voyagers had resulted the end of locomotive haulage throughout 'the ‘Premier Route’ of the UK.

The rise in journey times between 2007 and 2014 can only be answered by one key change - the introduction of the Very High Frequency (VHF) Timetable. The entire modernisation of the West Coast Main Line not only supported an increase in speeds, but also an increase in capacity. With the VHF timetable in place, journey times increased slightly, but the number of services also increased. With this increase, it seems unfair to argue that a detriment in journey times was acceptable. However, it directly outlines the question of capacity and capability of our railway network to deliver these services. By 2023, very little had changed - the introduction of the Norton Bridge bypass (written into the timetable by yours truly) had opened up opportunities at the North end of the Trent Valley, but these would have really only proved to be an improvement to Birmingham to Manchester services.

We now turn our eyes to Yorkshire to study London Kings Cross to Leeds - sometimes known as The White Rose. This has forever been ‘the darling of the railway’ and a highly politicised journey throughout history.

The introduction of the Class 55 Deltic locomotives in 1967 can clearly be seen as an improvement over Steam locomotives. The continuous improvement can be seen beyond 1982, when HST sets take over - and then finally in 1991, these diagrams are replaced by InterCity 225 sets.

Things begin to trend negatively beyond 1991, culminating in a 15 minute increase in 2007. The introduction of Eurostar sets on this service group relieved the heavy loadings however did nothing to support the speeds along the ECML.

Across the 9 years between 2014 and 2023, there had been no improvement whatsoever. It feels disappointing to type this and I’m not sure the best way to conclude it.

London to the Midlands and the North

The West Coast Main Line (WCML) has always been Britain’s core route - connecting the largest cities and carrying the largest amount of rail freight. Looking at the graphs for journey times it doesn’t seem as if there’s been much improvement throughout the decades, especially for the Manchester services.

Between London Euston and Manchester Piccadilly, services were hauled by rebuilt Royal Scot or Jubilee steam locomotives until the mid 1960’s. The 1955 Modernisation Plan outlined that the WCML would be electrified, with Class 40 locomotives leading the way until the electrification plan was complete.

Once the wires had reached Manchester Piccadilly, these trains were pulled by Class 86 locomotives - which remained in service until 2003! This explains the slow improvement to 2003, when the WCML Modernisation Project was underway.

The 2007 timetable saw tilting trains and 125mph speeds along much of the route, and the 2014 timetable was the ultimate compliment.

As for the 2023 slowdown? I’m afraid I cannot answer off the top of my head. Perhaps congestion at Stockport or Slade Lane Jn? Or maybe the bottleneck at Colwich started to bite?

The stretch between London Euston and Birmingham New Street saw a swift reduction of speeds at the immediate retirement of Steam.

However, the constraints of the section between Rugby - Coventry and Birmingham New Street begin to show themselves from 1982, culminating in a 102 minute journey time in 2003.

With the West Coast Route Modernisation Programme in 2004 completed along the Southern section of the WCML, we can see the instant improvement that was delivered - mostly by increased line speeds, the introduction of 125mph running with Class 390 Pendolino multiple units and infrastructure changes at Milton Keynes Central and Rugby. As a result, the journey time had hit a low of 89 minutes.

2014 brought a slight increase in times due to the introduction of the VHF (Very High Frequency) Timetable, but this also resulted in an increase of services too.

A drastic improvement came by 2023, which saw the movement of InterCity services (now operated by Avanti West Coast) from behind Provincial and Local services - to being placed ahead of them from Rugby, unlocking capacity and journey time improvements for everyone.

As for London Euston to Holyhead in North Wales, this has seem remarkable improvement. Much like it’s Manchester Piccadilly counterpart, it was hauled by Royal Scot locomotives as far as Crewe where an engine change would likely occur. With the demise of steam in the 1960s, Class 86s locomotives would haul the service for a diesel locomotive to take it across the North Wales Coast.

By the 1990s, it was common to see HSTs along the full route - with the exception of some services continuing the age old tradition of engine swaps at Crewe. After 2003, Virgin Trains replaced HSTs with Voyager and Super Voyager multiple units - whilst the timetable along the North Wales Coast had also began to change with Provincial services being commanded with Alstom Coradia Class 175 units. This combined change increased timetable capability between Crewe and Holyhead and reduced journey times for the best.

Beyond 2003, things continued to improve for the better - a programme of signalling upgrades had been completed by 2018, eliminating semaphore signals and improving speeds. In 2023, there was some regression - however I feel it is unfair to comment on it too much, given the radical improvement seen from 1955.

When we look at the Midland Main Line for London St. Pancras to Sheffield, we see a slow improvement over Steam locomotives - a mere 21 minutes!

The largest surprise to me in in 1982, when HSTs began to ride the rails along the Midland Main Line but brought a 20 minute rise to journey times.

Things saw an improvement again in 1991, when they reached the quickest times for this trip - with HST sets!

The journey to Sheffield has worsened from 1991 despite the introduction of Bombardier Meridian Class 222 units and the HSTs finally being retired in 2022.

It’s also a similar story for London Paddington to Plymouth, where times increased with the withdrawal of Steam. We can see that the introduction of HSTs had brought an improvement of 60 minutes against their steam hauled predecessors by 1982, with this streak of improvement culminating in 179 minutes in 1991 - and it doesn’t really get much better than that!

Following the Millennium, the wild variance in journey times is something to behold - especially when there is little to suggest the reason for these changes. The Class 80x units brought some improvements, but the 1991 record is still to be beaten.

London to South Wales

The graph of journey times between London Paddington and Swansea paints a vivid picture of railway policy within the United Kingdom.

With the retirement of steam locomotives we can see an improvement in journey times in the 1967 timetable, but for some reason, that change is negated in the 1976 timetable. I’m not sure what is driving this rise, however it could be answered by a change in traction.

With High Speed Train sets taking over fully by 1982, this was to be a constant for all South Wales Intercity services until 2019, when the electrification was completed to Cardiff Central. When the plan was conceived, it was originally going to reach Swansea - resulting in Swansea Maliphant Sidings having OLE installed by Hitachi for their Class 80x stabling point. Unfortunately, there is no overhead wires to the West of Cardiff Central but that has not stopped a further improvement seen on the journey time.

The North West to the South Coast

Known as ‘The Pines Express’, Manchester Piccadilly to Bournemouth is a key InterCity service across our railway network.

The journey is a witness to the success of our railway; look at the remarkable drop in journey times all the way to 2003! The Class 220 Voyager units were utilised on this route from 2003 but that’s not the answer to the stagnation - that’s a result of the congestion that we have South of Birmingham.

Don’t get me wrong, there is an improvement to be seen - but this graph demonstrates the capability of our network in a good way.

London to East Anglia

I must admit I often overlook London Liverpool Street to Norwich as an InterCity service; I’ve always seen it as a Provincial service, however it deserves a section in our review.

Although, by now you’ll know the story: Steam goes out, Diesel comes in and somewhere along the line, times get worse before they get better.

In 1955, Britannia 4-6-2 locomotives were running the express services. After these retired, Intercity Services in Anglia were hauled by Class 40 locomotives - one of my favourite signs in the National Railway Museum is on the front of D200, proudly exclaiming the new locomotives across the Great Eastern Main Line. Shortly after the Class 40s, Class 47s took the reigns.

Throughout the late 1970s, electrification was being rolled across the route. By 1985, this had been completed to Ipswich. A Class 47 would take the reigns from Ipswich - but this was no longer the case from 1985 when the wires reached Norwich.

Since 2005, Class 90s were the dominant force across the Anglia route. Class 745 multiple units took over in 2020, removing locomotive haulage from the timetable.

The North East to the South West

Similar to the above graph, the journey between Newcastle Central and Bristol Temple Meads is another success story, given it’s history.

From the end of steam, this was hauled by Class 45 and Class 47 locomotives - however in late 1982, it lived up to it’s name with InterCity 125 HST sets utilised on several diagrams. This explains the big drop in 1991 - a diesel train could hit 125mph, utilising the infrastructure of the East Coast Main Line and the 125mph sections South of Derby.

There had been several Class 47 hauled services up to the mid 2000’s, however these had gone by 2003 when Class 220 Voyager multiple units took over.