September 22, 2006 was a red-letter day both for Virgin Trains and The Railway Magazine when ‘Pendolino’ set No. 390047 smashed the record for the fastest-ever journey time from Glasgow to London. Packed with RM readers, the tilting train ran the 401.3 mile length of the West Coast Main Line in just three hours 55 minutes to knock no fewer than 18 minutes off the previous validated southbound record.

In so doing, it become not only the first train to run from Glasgow to Euston in under four hours but the first public train to travel the route at an average of more than l00mph, the first to run non-stop on that line since 1949 (first southbound since 1936) and the first electric train ever to run non-stop from one end of the WCML to the other! It was a day reminiscent of the glamorous pre-war races between the LMS and LNER.

The previous southbound record on the West Coast, of 4hrs 14 min, had been held since 1981 by its British-built ancestor, the tilting APT (see page 87).

Set No. 390047, which had been named Heaven’s Angels by RM editor Nick Pigott before setting off from Glasgow Central that morning, is one of S3 (now 52) Class 390 tilting train sets built for Virgin by Alstom/Eiat in the early part of the 21st century. Although its bodyshell and many of its components were manufactured abroad, the train was assembled at Alstom’s now-closed Washwood Heath Works, in Birmingham, and tested on the Old Dalby test track, near Melton Mowbray, before being registered with Network

Rail for front-line service on the WCML in June 2004. Like its classmates, it has since performed with great distinction. Allocated to Longsight depot m Manchester, it can also be found when not on duty at any of the class’s other servicing depots in London, Wolverhampton, Liverpool and Glasgow.

With the exception of the ‘Euros tars’, the 390s share with the Class 91s the fastest design speed in Britain for classic routes (140mph/225km/h), although, like their Hast Coast counterparts, they are currently restricted to 125mph because of signalling limitations.

Ironically, although the APT was scuppered by lack of investment and insufficient national pride to sec the job through, much of the technology produced by the scientists of BR’s Derby Research Centre found its way into the ‘Pendolino’, so in addition to being assembled in the UK, the West Coast facers can be thought of as British in other respects too.

In common with Virgin Chief Sir Richard Branson’s flair for innovation, they and their VT contemporaries the ‘Voyagers’ incorporate a number of innovations, including a walk-in shop and at-seat aircraft-style headsets.

Most of die class carry names with a Virgin prefix (e.g. Virgin Knight) but some arc named after cities on die WCML, and a few others have been renamed for promotional reasons. In 2008, the go-ahead was given to build more coaches’ for the fleet.