Classic route
Avanti West Coast
London → Manchester · England
Avanti West Coast in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 296 km
- Fastest time
- 2 h 7 min
- Average speed
- 140 km/h
- Top speed
- 200 km/h
- Operator
- Avanti West Coast
- Train
- Class 390 Pendolino
- Countries
- England
- In service since
- 1966
- Runs
- up to 3× hourly
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
Italian-built tilting Pendolinos lean into the curves of the West Coast Main Line, holding 125 mph where an upright train would have to brake.
Electric expresses transformed this run in 1966, and the tilting Pendolinos of today still exploit that modernisation, banking through the Trent valley at 200 km/h with up to three departures an hour. The route’s engineering bookends span the railway age: Kilsby’s ventilation shafts from the 1830s under the Northamptonshire uplands, and the approach over Stockport’s colossal 27-arch brick viaduct before Piccadilly. Two hours and change between Euston’s concourse and Britain’s second city.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 6343608 — 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 6 m from it
- Checked against the running timetable via Transitous: our line sits 1.3 km from the shape of Avanti
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- Trent valley racing stretch
- Crewe — the railway town
- Cheshire plain
- Stockport viaduct’s 27 arches
- Manchester Piccadilly
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More train routes in United Kingdom · England.
Planning this trip? Journey time & direct trains: London → Manchester · Manchester → London.