Cornish Riviera Express

The Cornish Riviera Express is a British express passenger train that has run between London Paddington and Penzance in Cornwall since 1904. Introduced by the Great Western Railway, the name Cornish Riviera Express has been applied to the late morning express train from London to Penzance continuously through nationalisation under British Rail and privatisation under First Great Western, only ceasing briefly during the two World Wars. The name is also applied to the late morning express train running in the opposite direction from Penzance to London. Through performance and publicity the Cornish Riviera Express has become one of the most famous named trains in the United Kingdom and is particularly renowned for the publicity employed by the Great Western Railway in the 1930s which elevated it to iconic status. Today it is operated by the Great Western Railway train operating company. there [is] surely no train ... to which the word romance could be more aptly applied than to the Limited Through trains from London Paddington to Penzance began running on 1 March 1867 and included fast services such as the 10:15 Cornishman and 11:45 Flying Dutchman, but these still took nine hours or more for the journey. In the early years of the 20th century there was keen competition between the Great Western Railway (GWR) and the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) for the rail traffic between London and Plymouth. The LSWR route via Salisbury was 15 miles shorter than the GWR via Bristol, but to counter this the GWR started running non-stop to Exeter, and this provided the basis of a plan for a fast train to Plymouth and Penzance. A new express service with limited stops was promoted by the GWR, commencing on 1 July 1904. It left London at 10:10 and was timed to reach Penzance at 17:10 running to Plymouth in 4 hours 25 minutes, a cut of 28 minutes on the previous fastest service. It conveyed six carriages to Penzance, including a dining car, and one more carriage for Falmouth that was detached at Truro then added to a branch train to complete its journey.