Race to the North

The Race to the North was the name given by the press to occasions in two summers of the late 19th century when British passenger trains belonging to different companies would literally race each other from London to Edinburgh over the two principal rail trunk routes connecting the English capital city to Scotland – the West Coast Main Line which runs from London Euston via Crewe and Carlisle and the East Coast Main Line route from London King’s Cross via York and Newcastle.

The “races” were never official and publicly the companies denied that what happened was racing at all. Results were not announced officially and the outcomes have since been hotly debated. In the 20th century there were also occasions of competition for speed on the two routes.

By the 1890s an east coast route had been established further north through Scotland over the Forth and Tay bridges allowing the North British Railway (NBR) to provide a reasonably direct Edinburgh to Aberdeen service so as to extend the East Coast consortium’s King’s Cross to Scotland route. Although NBR owned the track from further south at Berwick-on-Tweed, NER had running rights to Edinburgh.

Caledonian already had a route connecting Carlisle and Aberdeen via Stirling and Perth.

1895 Race

In 1895 a second “race” broke out but this time with the added excitement of arriving at the same station in Aberdeen.

Indeed, after some 500 miles from London, the two routes converged to being in sight of each other just before Kinnaber Junction from where there was a single track to Aberdeen.