The ''Cheltenham Spa Express'' is a British named passenger train service from Paddington station, in London, to Cheltenham Spa, in

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of ...

, via

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spell ...

, Kemble,

Stroud Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021. Below the western escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at the meeting point of the Five Va ...

, Stonehouse and

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east o ...

. During the 1930s, when operated by the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

, the service was more popularly known as the Cheltenham Flyer. Even prior to the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

the Great Western Railway ran a high-speed service between Cheltenham and London, covering the from Kemble Junction to Paddington in 103 minutes. After the war an additional stop was made at

Swindon Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon unitary authority area had a population ...

and the time for the to Paddington was scheduled at 85 minutes. Cheltenham_Flyer_Swindon_museum

However, in 1923 the first batch of Charles Collett's GWR 4073 Class (also called Castle Class)

4-6-0 A 4-6-0 steam locomotive, under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives by wheel arrangement, has four leading wheels on two axles in a leading bogie and six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles with the ...

express engines entered service and this enabled a significant improvement in timings. The name "Cheltenham Spa Express" was given to the service, which reached Paddington in 75 minutes from Swindon, an average speed of making it the fastest start-to-stop scheduled service in Britain. Fierce rivalry between the four main railway companies during the 1920s and 1930s to run the fastest train in the country, and therefore in the world, led to further accelerations to the service. In July 1929 the scheduled journey time became 70 minutes, an average speed of , and publicity proclaimed this as ''the fastest train in the world''. By now the train had acquired its popular nickname of the "Cheltenham Flyer", although this was never adopted officially. Two years later in 1931 the Canadian Pacific Railroad ran a train with a slightly faster schedule, taking the ''fastest train in the world'' title across the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

, but the GWR train was again accelerated in July to an average speed of . On Monday, 6 June 1932, the train broke railway speed records with a time of 56 mins 47 seconds at an average speed of . Such a journey speed had never been previously recorded and this made this run the fastest railway run in the world. The train was hauled by Castle class 5006 ''Tregenna Castle'' and was crewed by Driver Harry Rudduck and Fireman Thorp of Old Oak Common shed."Great Western Railway Magazine" July 1932 In September 1932some sources give 1931 the time from Swindon to London was further reduced to 65 minutes, giving an extraordinary average speed, for the time, of over the whole trip of . This was the first occasion in the history of railways that any train had been scheduled at over . The unofficial title of ''Cheltenham Flyer'', never used officially in timetables, ceased currency before

World War 2 World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

when trains elsewhere regularly achieved faster timings but British Rail Western Region, as the successor to the Great Western Railway, continued to use the "Cheltenham Spa Express" brand until the 1960s, when it fell out of use. It was reintroduced in 1984, and continues to be used by

. , the "Cheltenham Spa Express" forms the 11:36 departure from Paddington (arriving in Cheltenham at 14:03), and the 14:46 departure from Cheltenham (arriving in London at 16:56). (The service runs Mondays–Fridays only.)

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The Cheltenham Flyer
''Mike's Railway History''
First Great Western
{{Authority control Named passenger trains of the Great Western Railway Named passenger trains of British Rail Railway services introduced in 1923 Transport in Cheltenham

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