i THE RACE TO THE NORTH

In the mid 1880s the number of rail passengers in Britain increased rapidly. As the number of passengers grew, the competition for their business became fiercer. The locomotives became bigger and faster. The trains got longer and heavier. The number of lines and services multiplied. The network grew and grew. 

By the middle of the century there were two, competing, long-haul services from London to Scotland. The West Coast Main Line service from London Euston to Edinburgh Prince’s Street Station via Carlisle and Perth and the East Coast Main Line service from London King's Cross to Edinburgh Waverly Station via York and Newcastle upon Tyne. 

The Royal Highlander service was the star of the west coast route and The Flying Scotsman ~ the service not the locomotive ~ the flag carrier on the east coast. At 539.7 miles the west coast route was sixteen and a half miles longer than the east coast route at 523.2 miles.

In the late 1880s the owner-operators of the East Coast Main Line and the West Coast Main Line services were running an informal but fiercely fought and widely publicised nightly race. "The Race to the North". 

The directors and senior executives of the two train-operating companies denied that The Race to the North existed. They needed to sustain this denial in order to avoid being accused of irresponsibility and recklessly endangering the lives of employees and customers alike.  Despite the denial the race took place in full sight and bookmakers on both sides of the Atlantic offered odds on the result of each night’s race. Journalists filed reports on the race by telegraph from London, York, Crewe, Tebay, Carlisle, and Edinburgh. Newspapers all over the world including the New York Herald printed the results of the races. On 23 August 1895 The Glasgow Herald devoted three thousand words to the previous night’s race.

Four days earlier three London journalists had made the journey from Kings Cross to Edinburgh at the invitation of the operators of the East Coast Main Line service. At Portobello, three miles to the east of Edinburgh city centre, the line describes a series of tight bends where the official speed-limit was 15 miles per hour. On this night, as they approached Portobello the journalists, travelling in a specially equipped carriage thoughtfully furnished by the rail company with comfortable seats and refreshments, stood-up to read the speed-dials fixed to the wall of the carriage. They had just enough time to note that the train was travelling at more than 81 miles per hour before the train encountered the Portobello bends and all three hacks were thrown violently to the floor of the carriage.

Most trains were equipped with a single brake-van managed by one train-guard at the rear of the train. On this trip, however, thinking to impress the journalists with the speed of the journey but to stop short of killing everyone on the train, the management had provided two, heavily over-ballasted, brake-vans. The journalists who had been upended at Portobello struggled back to their feet just in time to confirm that the train was still travelling at 64 miles per hour as it entered Edinburgh Waverley station, upon which the guards of both brake vans slammed on the brakes and hurled the journalists back onto the floor of the carriage.

ii THE TRAINS

The steam train which was beginning to provide affordable travel for ordinary people now provided free entertainment for the lowest classes who had little leisure time and hardly enough money for bread never mind circuses.

The locomotives that pulled the trains were the biggest, noisiest, fastest, most thrilling machines that ordinary people might ever come across in their daily lives. Close up the spectacle was awe-inspiring. The cabs of the huge machines were lit by the fierce glow from the open mouth of the firebox. The locomotives spouted long trailing banners of steam, smoke and fiery sparks. Express trains roared through the stations at over sixty miles an hour. The men on the footplate, the driver and the fireman, could easily be seen, for the cabs were open sided. 

To the men and women who watched them and the children who envied them, the men who rode upon the backs of these fire breathing mythic beasts were immortals, each one a super-hero living life in the fastest lane then available.

As the fame of the Race to the North grew, large crowds turned out at stations along the route, thronging the platforms and foot-bridges to cheer the trains on their way. The crowds gathered even when, as was often the case, the trains passed through in the early hours of the morning. In the early years of the race the locomotives and the crews were changed at Carlisle. Hundreds of men, women and children gathered on both the “up” and “down” platforms at two o’clock in the morning to see the two huge locomotives being changed. A task that was accomplished in less than 2½ minutes.

Before 1887 the Race to the North started in London and ended in Edinburgh. The two competing services arrived at different Edinburgh stations. Edinburgh Waverley and Edinburgh Prince’s Street. Reporters from London newspapers could be seen galloping their horses the length of Prince’s Street to report on the arrival of both competing trains. 

By 1895, however, the race had extended beyond Edinburgh to Aberdeen. This added hugely to the excitement. The early miles of the race still took place between trains on widely separated tracks. But now, as the trains drew close to Aberdeen, the two tracks ran within sight of each other across a flat plain. Often, after five hundred miles and fourteen hours of racing, the huge steam locomotives would burst out onto the flat before Kinnaber junction only seconds apart. 

Running light having used up the tons of coal and water they carried and at full steam they could now be seen together racing neck-and-neck across the plain, panting great puffs of smoke, straining for a half-minute advantage. That half minute was crucial for once they reached the signal box at Kinnaber Junction the services shared the same track into Aberdeen Central. Getting to Kinnaber Junction second meant getting to the finishing line last. 

The West Coast Mainline operators came up with a cunning scheme to delay the East Coast Mainline services at Kinnaber Junction. The published and scheduled time for the arrival of the West Coast service at the Kinnaber signal-box was shown several minutes in advance of the time that the train would actually arrive. So by the time the East Coast service arrived the Kinnaber signalman, consulting the schedule, had already accepted the approaching West Coast train and set the signals against the East Coast train which often had to stop and watch the West Coast train overtake and go straight through to Aberdeen

In 1855 the fastest journey from London to Aberdeen took 17½ hours. By 1889 this had reduced to 13 hours. The new, bigger, more powerful locomotives could do the whole trip without being changed. This reduction in journey time was achieved even as the trains became both longer and heavier in order to carry greater numbers in greater comfort. 

So violent was the transit of these trains that the men of the line-maintenance crew at Cupar in Fifeshire, where the line describes a long curve, were called out every night after the train had passed to correct the lay of the rails. The centripetal forces generated by the drivers keeping the ever-heavier trains pressing-on around the curve, without slowing as recommended, forced the railway line many inches out of true. 

In July 1896 a West Coast overnight express took the Preston curve too fast and derailed. One person was killed and the train was wrecked. To reassure the public, agreement was reached between the owners of the two services to slow the runs from London to Aberdeen. An informal agreement to stop a race that had never existed.

As the century turned, however, the Race to the North reappeared in a different guise. The two services competed to take the World speed record. As the technology improved the record was passed back and forth between the two competing operators. The risks were understood. Attempts on the record were crewed by volunteers. 

In 1937 the East Coast service operators held the record. London Midland Scottish on the west coast route however were offering the Coronation Scot, London to Glasgow service with a specially developed, streamlined Pacific Class locomotive. Thinking to make an attempt on the record they loaded a special train with members of the press. 

Two miles south of Crewe station the train was clocked at 114 mph. LM&S had it, the world speed record. The train, however, was unable to slow down sufficiently for the series of crossover points at the approach to Crewe station. Miraculously the train stayed upright and on the tracks but the points were destroyed and had to be totally rebuilt. The violence of motion as the decelerating train hit the points at 57mph (the speed limit was 20) scared the living daylights out of everyone on board and London Midland Scottish never made another attempt at the world speed record.