ABSTRACT
The Big Four could all point, in the late thirties, to achievements of quality. The two northern companies could highlight their streamliner services, the combination of comfort and high speed producing new standards for steam traction. Every weekday afternoon from July 1937 until the outbreak of war, the Coronation streamliner express ran from London to York at an average speed of just under 72 miles an hour; on a Sunday afternoon in July 1938, a LNER streamlined Pacific set a new world speed record for steam of 126 miles an hour. The Southern had expanded its electrification to include mainline services: to Brighton in 1933 and to Portsmouth in 1937. The Great Western could emphasise the generally high quality of its express services; it was frequently praised for its pioneering of Automatic Train Control, whereby locomotivemen received an audible indication of the state of the signalling.1
