Ravenwood - 05/31/05 07:30 AM
The Sunday Times reports that "In the age of steam, express trains averaged over 80mph... today they're lucky if they beat 60".
According to Bradshaw's Threepenny Railway Guide from 1900, three express trains an hour linked Liverpool and Manchester, taking just 40 minutes. A century later, it takes seven minutes longer. It took 35 minutes to travel from Portsmouth to Southampton in 1898, compared with 46 minutes today. In the 1930s, steam expresses regularly averaged more than 80mph.I've heard similar stories about Los Angeles. Something like in the 1950s, the average freeway speed was 50 miles per hour. In the 1990s, it was 15 miles per hour.
Comments
Well, auto traffic slows down because there are more cars on the road...Ive seen studies where there's a tipping point, after which, average speed declines rapidly.
With trains, it's probably a mix of safety regs (either worried about speed with bigger, heavier trains) or speed through crossings (which there are probably a lot more of) as well as noise regulation.
Posted by: Heartless Libertarian at May 31, 2005 2:52 PMIn the 60s, the DC-to-NYC Penn Central run ran at 130mph in Maryland, I guess, when I timed the mileposts a couple of times.
Regular coach equipment pulled by a single GG1 locomotive.
Posted by: Ron Hardin at June 1, 2005 5:23 AM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014
