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Ever wondered what it would be like to travel from London to Coventry in just two-and-a-half minutes?

Well now you can thanks to a timelapse video produced specially for the Coventry Telegraph by Virgin Trains.

The video condenses a 59-minute journey from London Euston to Coventry into just two minutes and 24 seconds.

The video was produced after Telegraph reporter Enda Mullen got the chance to sit in the cab of a Virgin Trains West Coast Main Line service to see what the journey looks like from a train driver’s perspective.

Here’s what he made of the experience:

Pretty much everyone has wanted to be a train driver at some point in their life, me included, so getting to sit alongside the driver in the cab of a Virgin Trains Pendolino service from London Euston to Coventry was a real treat.

The Class 390 Pendolino is the more advanced of the two trains which travel several times an hour between Coventry and the capital.

(Image: Martin Keene/PA Wire)

Pendolinos are electric-powered while the Voyagers, the other locomotives used on the London-Coventry route, are diesel-powered.

Electricity to power Pendolinos is transmitted via one of the train’s two carbon fibre pantographs, which make contact with the electric power lines above the tracks. Regenerative braking also feeds back power into the system.

The 12.03pm weekday service I was on was supposed to take 59 minutes to reach Coventry, though it actually arrived a minute early.

In reality the journey felt a lot faster, more like 20 minutes - though that was probably more to do with the novelty of riding up front in the cab and enjoying the driver’s view.

The fastest Virgin Trains service between Coventry and London is a morning one aimed at commuters that is direct and takes just 50 minutes.

The Pendolinos travel at speeds of up to 125mph (they are capable of 140mph) and in the cab you really get a sense of just how much the train tilts when it goes through twisting stretches of track.

The cab is quite noisy, there are regular loud beeps and pings, some of which correspond with the signals up ahead, which are generally green, but there’s also a loud beep every minute which prompts the driver to press a foot pedal to confirm he’s still conscious and in charge of the train.

In the past it was referred to by drivers as the ‘dead man’s pedal’ for obvious reasons. If the driver doesn’t press the foot switch within a few seconds the train will automatically come to a halt.

Driver Gareth Williams, who has been driving for Virgin Trains for 16 years, informed me that going through Tring in Hertfordshire the train reached the highest point on the West Coast Main Line outside Scotland.

From there it’s all downhill to Rugby, just a short hop away from Coventry.

(Image: Steve Parsons/PA Wire)

In terms of noise the other familiar sound in the cab is the train’s horn - sounded by the driver when there are track workers around to warn of the train’s approach.

The journey really was an experience to remember, some of the high points being a double S bend where the train’s tilting capabilities are experienced to the full and going through Kilsby Tunnel, which at a mile long is the longest tunnel on the West Coast Main Line.