Rail travel between London and York, early 1840s

[mab_browne]

My character is arranging the transport of a dead friend in a sealed coffin from his place of death (London) to his home in the north of England for burial. This link implies that it was possible to travel from London to York by rail by 1841 - close enough for my purposes

Comments

[stormwreath]

From what I can gather from these sites
http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Midland_Counties_Railway (and follow links from there)
http://www.railwaymapsanddocuments.com/page-30.htm
this is what would have happened:

The London and Birmingham Railway was opened for its full length in 1838. Trains would have left Euston and been pulled up the hill to Camden Town by a stationary steam engine pulling a cable. (They went up the hill under their own steam from 1844 onwards). Seven trains per day ran from London to Birmingham, taking an average of 6.5 hours each - the mail train, which ran non-stop, only took five hours. Cargo transport - which would presumably include coffins! - was arranged through contractors rather than directly with the rail company: Pickfords & Co were the main carriers in the 1840s.

The L&BR connected with the Midland Counties Railway (a separate company) at Rugby after 1840. From there, you would catch a train to Derby, with the journey taking 2.75 hours.

From Derby you would change to the North Midland Railway service, also opened in 1840, which would take you to Leeds. That took 3.5 hours.

The final stage of the journey was via the York and North Midland Railway, which was deliberately built to connect York to the route south towards London. I don't know how long that journey took.

So in short, you could travel by train from London to York as early as 1840, but the journey would require four separate train companies and take about 14-15 hours. It's possible that there would be express trains, even a through service (by arrangement between the companies), that would shave several hours off that time by not stopping at every intervening station.

By contrast, in 1852 a direct line from London King's Cross to York was opened, and the total journey time from London to Edinburgh was 11 hours - York would presuably be about half that time. Then again, technology was advancing quickly enough that 1850s locomotives were doubtless much faster than 1840s ones, which would also increase the speed.

[donald_r_oddy]

General cargo trains would take longer than the same passenger service. However it's possible that a coffin could be taken as luggage on a passenger train.

I'm not sure there would be much time saving from non-stopping trains as they still had to stop to take on water fairly frequently. The mail train would probably have priority and other services scheduled around it.

Agreed that the latest locomotives would be far faster in the 1852 than in 1840 but some railway companies would be using old ones.