On "Downton Abbey" (supposedly in Yorkshire), people took day-trips on trains to London. Down & back in the same day? Seems implausible.?

Question

On "Downton Abbey" (supposedly in Yorkshire), people took day-trips on trains to London. Down & back in the same day? Seems implausible.?

Answer 1

Downton Abbey is set in the 1910s-1920s, in Yorkshire (though not actually filmed there), and a return journey to London in the same day would have been possible in that era.



The exact location of Downton is not given in the series but it is implied to be close to York, and therefore it would be easy to access East Coast Main Line services to London with a journey time of 3-4hrs on a steam-hauled train.



That's a bit of a long haul for a day trip but it was certainly do-able. Today's electric hauled trains manage the same journey in just 2 hours - and there are more frequent services.



Percyqted says "Overall journey times were just as fast in the late 1800's as the are now, quicker in some instances." That's completely untrue in Britain, as you will see by comparing any timetable from back then to a modern equivalent. Today's York-London electric trains routinely run at speeds of up to 125mph, which would have been a completely impossible speed for a 1890s-1920s steam train.

Answer 2

York To London Trains

Answer 3

Downton Abbey is actually filmed at Highclere Castle near Newbury in Berkshire about 65 miles west of London. The fastest trains from Newbury to London now take about 50 minutes. Now trains from London to York cover the 200 miles in 2 hours. In the 1920s it would have been more like 4 hours

Answer 4

Strange thing is that they always leave from Horsted Keynes station on the Bluebell Railway in Sussex. Last time I bothered to watch the programme the train boarded was hauled by a Great Western tank loco!

Answer 5

Why? Overall journey times were just as fast in the late 1800's as the are now, quicker in some instances.

They could do London to Edinburgh in 7hr 30mins that's twice the distance. so you say about 4 hours each way London to York

Answer 6

It was perfectly possible. Even in 1910 - the earliest that I have timetables for - you could catch the 9.40am from York, due at Kings Cross 1.40pm, and return by the 5.20, 6.05 or 8.00pm trains, arriving in York at 9.13, 10.30 or 11.45pm.

Answer 7

This would just be plausible depending on how many stops you had that day.

Answer 8

depending on what line they were using they would have to change

Answer 9

yes we can do it now you would of had less stops then so yes

Answer 10

i dont know. but we need to expand the rail systems to my town.