Classic route
Avanti West Coast
London → Birmingham · England
- Distance
- 182 km
- Fastest time
- 1 h 23 min
- Average speed
- 132 km/h
- Top speed
- 200 km/h
- Operator
- Avanti West Coast
- Train
- Class 390 Pendolino
- Countries
- England
- In service since
- 1838
- Runs
- every 20–30 min
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
Traces the pioneering 1838 London and Birmingham Railway, the first great trunk line driven into the capital, from Euston to England’s second city.
The London & Birmingham Railway of 1838 was the world’s first long-distance trunk line, engineered by Robert Stephenson with earthworks on a scale nothing had demanded before. Kilsby Tunnel alone, with its vast ventilation shafts, nearly broke the project. Pendolinos now cover the 182 km in under an hour and a half, sharing the corridor with the HS2 works being carved alongside for the 2030s. Coventry’s three spires pass on the right before New Street’s underground caverns swallow the arrival.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 6345528 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 3 m from it
- Checked against the running timetable via Transitous: our line sits 1.1 km from the shape of Avanti
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- Euston departure over Camden bank
- Kilsby Tunnel of 1838
- HS2 works alongside
- Coventry’s three spires
- Birmingham New Street
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