The Railway Magazine of June 1904 mentioned the maximum speed. However the morning after the run two local Plymouth newspapers did report that the train had reached a speed between 99 and 100 miles an hour whilst descending Wellington Bank. This claim was based on the stopwatch timings of a postal worker, William Kennedy, who was also on the train. Rous-Marten first published the maximum speed in 1905, though he did not name the locomotive or railway company: Before his death in 1908 Rous-Marten did name the locomotive as City of Truro. Official confirmation from the Great Western Railway came in 1922 when they published a letter written in June 1905 by Rous-Marten to James Inglis, the general manager, giving further details of the record. This sequence of eight quarter-mile timings is thought to start at milepost 173, the first after the tunnel, with the maximum speed at milepost 171. From 1922 onwards City of Truro featured prominently in the Great Western Railway's publicity material. Doubts over the record centred on the power of the locomotive and some contradictions in Rous-Marten's passing times. However his milepost timings are consistent with a speed of 100 mph or just over. The latest research examines the evidence and uses computer simulation of the locomotive performance to show that a speed of 100 mph was possible and that the timings do indeed support such a speed. This record was set before any car or aeroplane had attained such a speed. However, in May 1904 City of Truro was not the fastest vehicle in the world, as had been reached the previous year on an experimental electric railway near Berlin. References Railway inclines in the United Kingdom Rail transport in Somerset Bristol and Exeter Railway Works of Isambard Kingdom Brunel Wellington, Somerset