Railroad record breaker

Great Western Railway’s battery-powered Class 230 has broken the world record for the longest journey on a single charge.

The former District Line unit (230001) travelled 200 miles in the early hours of Wednesday August 20 in a route that took it from Reading-London Paddington-Oxford-London Paddington-Reading.

Once the unit returned to Reading Traincare Depot the engineering team said it still had approximately 22% of charge left.

“We got back here with one of the six batteries onboard, untouched,” explained GWR’s Technology Development Manager, Julian Fletcher.

“So we’ve got a lot left in the tank. I reckon we could do another 50 miles on top of the 200 we’ve already done.”

The run took place over night so as not to disrupt passenger services on the busy Great Western Main Line.

During the next six and a half hours it travelled at speeds of between 33 and 38mph. That meant the journeys between Oxford and Paddington took typically around twice as long as scheduled services between the two stations.

The journey between London and Reading was just slightly slower than trains on the Elizabeth Line, allowing the battery powered unit to slot in between timetabled services.