Bristol to London - one of the slowest journeys to the capital in the UK?

[whole diary]

[grahame]

"Bristol has one of the slowest train services to London out of all the UK^▸ (United Kingdom)'s major cities" says Bristol Post

New figures have revealed that Bristol has one of the slowest rail connections to London out of all the major cities in the UK.

Out of Britain’s 20 biggest cities, Bristol has the 17th slowest travel speeds to the Big Smoke.

The extensive analysis by Trinity Mirror’s data team shows that journey speeds from Bristol to the capital average just 55mph – including waiting times for connections.

That’s 25mph slower than the average journey speed from Newcastle to London, with only residents in Southampton, Portsmouth and Hull facing slower speeds if they were to visit the metropolis.

Bizarrely, despite that measly average speed, travelling to London is still faster than travelling to any other major city in the country from Bristol.

The most drawn-out trip you can make from Temple Meads is to Cardiff, with journey speeds averaging just 28mph.

[ChrisB]

Be interested to know how far up the league table it'll be when the additional services start via BPW^» (Bristol Parkway - next trains). Those are limited-stop

[stuving]

That has a strong smell of fake news about it, don't you think? (Subcategory: spurious statistics.) Coming mainly from the idea of averaging journey times including connections when there are plenty of direct trains - who decides what indirect journeys get included in this average?

[grahame]

That has a strong smell of fake news about it, don't you think?

Yes - I was wondering where the stats came from when I posted. 

London (Paddington) to Bristol (Temple Meads) - 118 miles. Typical journey 98 minutes.  Average speed 72.25 m.p.h.

It would take 129 minutes at an average of 55 m.p.h.
I suspect that transit time from city centre to city centre might be include?   Bristol Bridge to Trafalgar Square, anyone?
No immediate reference back to source data that I could see in the article

[didcotdean]

They take as the crow flies distances, divided by the journey time by rail, which would be over a longer route, maybe significantly so if not direct etc.

Seems to be a manufactured story appearing in many papers, eg this one from Leicester

Rail journeys from Leicester are among slowest in country

Rail journeys from Leicester to all other major British cities average just 39 mph, exclusive new analysis reveals.
Research into hundreds of train routes has revealed that, of the 20 biggest cities, only passengers in Bradford, Nottingham and Coventry face slower rail journeys to any of the other cities.

It found that rail journeys from Leicester to the 20 other biggest British cities average 39 mph, including waiting times, which is below the national inter-city average of 42 mph.

Included in the above is: 16-mile journey from Southampton to Portsmouth takes travellers an hour, on average

An hour is the longest journey by rail; a more typical one would be 41 minutes. The hour-long journey has over a dozen stops.

[stuving]

Seems to be a manufactured story appearing in many papers, eg this one from Leicester

All Trinity Mirror papers, no doubt - even the Leicester Mercury, despite not being listed on Wikipedia. Presumably these days local papers can't even afford their own local news-manufacturers.

[patch38]

I suspect that transit time from city centre to city centre might be include?   Bristol Bridge to Trafalgar Square, anyone?

Charing Cross is normally used to represent the centre of London.