'Flying' to London - on 135mph trains

The dream of travelling from Rochdale to London in well under two hours is poised to become reality after Virgin’s train drivers claim there are stretches of the West Coast Main Line where it would be safe for them to travel at 135mph.

Officials are keeping the locations secret but say the claim will form the basis of a push for train journeys which are fast enough to make domestic air travel unnecessary.

Their Pendolino tilting trains — which were introduced in time for the Commonwealth Games in 2002 — were built for 140mph but are limited to 125mph because fitting the infrastructure for ultra-safe in-cab signalling was judged too expensive during the £9bn upgrade of the line which finished at the end of last year.

Virgin says it has taken almost 80% of the market between Manchester and London, having grounded the airlines between Liverpool and the capital completely. The VLM airline axed its Manchester to London City service at the end of last month.

The train operator is now going all out for the Glasgow market — with hopes of a sub-four hour journey to London.

Virgin’s chief operating officer Chris Gibb said: “The view of our drivers is that there are many locations where you can go faster than 125mph.

“For obvious reasons, I don’t want to go through that list but we would not need in-cab signalling and we are making progress.”

Chief executive Tony Collins gave more details of the Virgin 2020 vision, outlined by Sir Richard Branson last month. He claimed that Manchester’s three trains an hour to Euston and faster times were even winning passengers from the other side of the Pennines with evidence that travellers from Huddersfield were using the Manchester link rather than the much closer East Coast Main Line from Leeds.

“We used to be the minority carrier between Manchester and London. But now almost everybody goes by train to take advantage of uninterrupted, useful journey time. There is no good reason why rail should always continue to be the minority carrier for the Glasgow market,” Mr Collins said.

Virgin’s vision is of new high-speed tracks, Heathrow Airport and HS1 for the continent linking to an enhanced West Coast Main Line.