London to Brighton in four minutes

For some fourteen years before my retirement, I commuted daily between Brighton and London.  Leaving home at 6.00am, I was usually at my desk soon after 8.00.  AM that is, not PM.  When I heard of the problems commuters faced one day this week (Thursday, I think) I was even more glad than usual to be out of the rat race.  The 6.56 Brighton to London train was still several miles short of its destination more than five hours later.  A problem in the electricity supply led to massive delays to all trains between London and the Sussex coast.  Police and paramedics handed out water to people stuck on crowded trains with no air conditioning (and no opening windows!) and later led them along the track to safety.


Back in the day - and I'm talking 50 or 60 years ago - there was an hourly fast train between Brighton and London - and it did the 50+ mile journey in exactly 60 minutes.  Nowadays there is probably no non-stop service, and even if there were, it would take more than an hour.

It was in 1953 that the BBC did the journey in just four minutes!  Sit back and enjoy a nostalgic ride.