Many thanks, work to do for me then haha
I was gonna say! Must of been some serious speeding there! The only improvement I could legally of made in my run would of been to go off plat 10 and not 11 at Reading.
Thank you
Ha ha in that case i beat it, as I did the maths slightly wrong due to leaving Reading 2 seconds after the start of the minute, by my calculations i did it in 21.25 , not 21.27 but admittedly I didn't record to that degree of accuracy to those decimal places. I didn't even go off plat 10 at reading. I'm surprised the record is actually that slow , sure others have done it quicker just not been recorded.
Interesting. Well in my mind I can be a record breaker anyway!! Thanks again for the info!
Probably not as much as you think, its only 3 seconds a mile quicker.
So my time of 21minutes and 25 seconds is technically the record (unverified obviusley)
The reason I was able to have such a good run was due to fewer trains running meaning whereas normally if you are running early you get held at royal oak whilst a HEX slowly makes it's way out of Paddington. The day in question I literally had all greens except for the single yellow at royal oak.It's having hardly any pax on board that makes it possible!
Rough estimates here: if by that logic 140mph (I assume that's what ETCS L2 will permit) was achieved for 25 of the 36 miles between Paddington and Reading, that would save 75 seconds, which while not huge, could make the record around 20m10s, threatening the 20 min line.
I think you'd definitely be able to get below 20 minutes with 140mph. I reckon I could have saved about 25 seconds on my time if going off plat 10 instead of 11 at reading plus if I'd approached the 100 restriction at acton and the 40 at westbourne park harder.
Well seeing as the driver of the record IET run was slower than me I'll give my thoughts. Mainly due to ATP warbling at me if I brake too late , I am forced to brake earlier than I could do if driving further west on none ATP lines. Another adverse factor i forgot to mention, I came into platform 3 at paddington which is now 30mph compared to 5 to 9 which are still 40mph. So that's a couple more seconds which could have been saved given the right platform allocation. I adopted a degree of defensive driving throughout (as all drivers will do nowadays) , but i did push it to a point that i knew still to be safe but perhaps a little more adventurous than usual!
Drivers nowadays cannot be gung ho. All we can do is push the limits whilst driving safely and professionally.
By the way some *cough* Bristol *cough* drivers brake for Reading (triple digits onto the flyover on the Up, signal off at the end of the platform) or the 40 by Gantry 6, I’d love to know whether Stoke Gifford’s discovered a secret bit of braking force past full service, but not emergency!