A train has broken the record for the fastest time from Plymouth to London Paddington, First Great Western (FGW) has claimed. The non-stop train reached Paddington in 2 hours 43 minutes, 17 minutes faster than the previous record. FGW said fast journey times between the South West and London were very important to the company. The company said timetables had been developed to best meet the needs of the region within the constraints of available resources and the existing rail infrastructure. As an example, FGW cited a new high-speed morning service from December which will leave London Paddington at 0706 to provide an earlier morning business arrival into Exeter, with connections to Plymouth. In July the company announced it was adding more carriages on its Night Riviera service because of the increase in demand for the sleeper from Penzance to Paddington. BBC News 
There was more on the excellent Transport of Delight blog last week:
The journey was made in 2:43, though booked for 2:41. Official figures show the train departed Plymouth five seconds early at 12:49:55 and that it arrived in Paddington two minutes and 18 seconds late at 15:33:18, which (to the second) as a recorded journey time of 2:43:23. The specific record-breaking attempt was undertaken by FGW to promote its new morning service between London and Exeter, connecting there for Plymouth.
Finally there is a nice little, if somewhat pedantic discussion on how the official timing of the record was conducted over at Railway Eye
From the Plymothian Transit Store...
Source page on BBC News
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