Glasgow to Euston in 5 hours 44¼ minutes
IT is a remarkable age in which we are living. No sooner have we recovered our breath from the 113mph maximum of the LNER ‘Silver Jubilee’ in August last than the LMS puts up the astonishing locomotive performances of November 16 and 17. The nature of the LMS record consists in the continuous steaming of one locomotive at such speeds for a distance of over 400 miles nonstop; on the down journey the time over the 401.4 miles from Euston to Glasgow was 353minutes 38sec giving an average of 68.1mph, and on the return journey of the following day the time was 344min 15sec, 153/4 minutes under the six-hour schedule which had been laid down for the test, with an average of precisely 70mph. These are easily the fastest non-stop runs of over 300 miles in length, let alone 400 miles, that have ever been made by a steam locomotive; and it is notable that the combined average of two consecutive days was one of 802.8 miles at 69mph by the one locomotive. This compares with the 2,323 miles covered in each of two successive weeks by the streamlined LNER Pacific Silver Link at an average of 70.4mph, in the first fortnight's working of the ‘Silver Jubilee’, but divided up into two 232.3-mile runs daily, with 3 1/2 hour interval between each pair.
Only diesel propulsion has made higher continuous speeds on rails; in this connection it will be remembered that recently eight cars of the new 12-car Denver Zephyr unit of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy RR, of the United States, were run without a stop over the 1,017 miles from Denver to Chicago in 12hr 12/2 min, at an average of 83.3mph for the entire distance. But the diesel engine, with no limitations of heavy reciprocating parts and
