IN your feature on the 200th anniversary of steam locomotion (February 19), three references are made to the fact that the Great Western Railway's City Of Truro is the first locomotive - and locomotive, please, not a train - to reach 100mph.
This is a piece of railway mythology peddled for far too long and it is surprising to find it being attached to the celebrations to be staged at the National Railway Museum this year.
On the high speed run of the Ocean Mails from Plymouth to London on May 9, 1904, City of Truro was the locomotive hauling the train between Plymouth and Bristol. The record for which it should be justly credited is for the fastest time to date between those two places.
The GWR's publicity was for a record run from Plymouth to London and no claim was made of any particular speed. The suggestion of 100mph only arose several years later in correspondence from an amateur timer on the train whose timing methods were questionable.
There was no technical vehicle in the train recording accurate speeds as was the case on Mallard's world record run in 1938.
While City Of Truro was certainly running very fast, there is no evidence to confirm it reached 100mph and good reason to doubt that, under the conditions applying on May 9, 1904, it could have done so.
Hopefully the NRM will not be perpetuating this spurious story in its publicity for the locomotive this year.
Michael Blakemore,
De Grey Terrace,
Avenue Road,
York.
Updated: 10:02 Thursday, February 26, 2004
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