Islands Around
In the summer of 1895, two rival groups of railway companies sent their express trains from London to Aberdeen as fast as they could. Officially, there was no race. The companies insisted they were not racing at all, but the newspapers followed every night’s run and called it the ‘Race to the North’.
This page contains affiliate links, which may earn us a small commission.
Train journeys had already become much quicker. A through service to Aberdeen in 1855 took seventeen and a half hours. By 1889 it took nearly thirteen. When the Forth Bridge opened in 1890, the East Coast route could run directly through Scotland to Aberdeen. It faced a rival on the West Coast, which had its own line north.
The two routes met near Kinnaber Junction, about 500 miles from London, and shared the same track from there to Aberdeen. The train that reached the junction first got a clear line, so every minute counted.
Both sides began to cut weight and stops. Trains were made lighter, some pulling only three or four carriages, and stops along the way were reduced. Night after night, the arrival times in Aberdeen came earlier. On some runs, both trains averaged more than 60 mph over the whole journey.
Newspapers sent reporters to stations along the route to telegraph reports through the night. Crowds gathered on platforms, even in the early hours of the morning. Some papers also asked whether the speeds were safe. In Fife, workers had to repair the track each night after the express had rushed round a curve.
The fastest run came on the night of 22 to 23 August. The West Coast train, with only three carriages, reached Aberdeen at 04:32, after a journey of around eight and a half hours. By then, the East Coast companies had already decided to stop racing, and the two sides soon returned to slower timetables.
The following summer, a West Coast express derailed at Preston after taking a curve too fast, and one person died. The companies then agreed that trains from London to Edinburgh and Glasgow should take at least eight hours. The London–Aberdeen record set that night was not beaten until the late 1970s.
