Ch5 – Intercity 125 :The Train That Saved Britains Railways
The inter city 125 a British design classic even today when I see one I’m pleased to be getting on that train I think it’s a beautiful machine it still holds the world speed record for diesel It’s Sleek there’s no question about it it looks like the thing’s actually moving even when it’s sitting
Still each of these highspeed truck RS has clocked up more than 9 million miles that’s 19 trips to the moon and back I do get a kick out of driving a big train at 125 mph after more than 40 years the 125s are now being replaced by newer
Foreign models but our love affair with the 125 is far from Over the 125 is still to this day the standard by which other trains are measured it’s time to celebrate a shining Beacon of British engineering genius suddenly you got a train that was designed to be a train an
Entity but the 125 is more than just a train it’s a homegrown hero with a secret History for this Great British success story to Triumph it had to overcome some formidable foes defiant unions people who are driving trains day in day out said not on your life violent football Hooligans I decided having watched football most of my life I didn’t want to ever see it
Again and even the Soggy British roil sandwich cheese sandwich on white bread and I think they were stale before they were even ever gotten the Train the press used to say that I’d been hired to uncurl the British Rail sandwich the 125 beat them all and if you’re traveling long distance by
Train in Britain today chances are you’re still on a 125 but now new foreign trains are finally replacing the 125s and many will miss Them it’s Heather’s job to shump them into the maintenance shed she’s got quite a thing for the 125 oh I love her they’re just there’s so much character them when you’re driving it you really feel like you’re driving a train you’re not sort of sat in some playing a video
Game or something you can feel the power they’ve got you can feel the characteristics each one’s different to drive each one’s got different tweaks and that but yeah it’s they are really fun these will take anything on snow floods you know they’ll keep going I come from a railway background um so I
Grew up around trains a lot and then there um when I left University I got a job working on board serving teas and coffees but I knew I wanted to come and drive them I get to shent as well which is the fun part the 125 was only ever meant to be a
Stop Gap train instead it ended up saving Britain’s Railways so how did that happen to find out we need to go back to the 60s a time when our Railways were on the brink of Extinction there were actually propositions around that the railways might just actually be closed down some
Countries in the world did actually close their Railways in the 60s and70s it’s something that was great in the 19th century but now we have the car now we have the the airplane maybe let’s just forget about the railers is it any wonder they were thinking of getting rid of trains
Entirely until 1968 British Rail was still running steam trains while at the same time British Airways was testing Concord pop mogle Pete Waterman is a firsthand witness to the sorry state of Britain’s Railways back then he helped drive a steam train trains were running late didn’t turn
Up they were also dirty some of the Rolling Stock was 70 to 80 years old Ruth Goodman joined British Rail after University I worked for a couple of years as a ticket Clark on a commuter station in the middle of nowhere and she was all too familiar with the out of
Date trains I was used to the old diesel slam door stock you were in compartments they were quite old and rather worn and they stank of cigarette smoke in fact for many people the 60s and’ 70s were Grim whenever I see it on the Telly we get this sort of
Jazzed up Rosy tinted rich people’s version of the 60s and 70s and I I certainly don’t remember much of that come on Ruth it wasn’t all doom and gloom you could catch some great kids Telly like tis was oh sorry that’s blue Peter oh yes they had a bit of a thing for
Trains I’m sure you can guess from that that this isn’t the original Locomotion and you’d be right I’ve always liked trains and of course we had a blue Peter locomotive which was called Blue pet which we renamed in donc and we’ll all be back on but while children’s TV is
Going through a golden age Britain’s Railways face a crisis it was actually more convenient to drive than to go by train train was not an option that you would choose so we we drove literally everywhere dirty oldfashioned it was labor intensive I mean it was a
Poly nobody cared who who would want to travel on the kind of trains that we had then and so people didn’t used to sorting out half-baked ideas even celebrity chef PR leth is shocked when she joins the board of British Rail what surprised me was how people disparaged
The railways they hated the railways um you know there were constant jokes the British public thought the railways were were Dreadful new and glamorous domestic air travel is grow growing rapidly but it’s the new motorways that are most attractive to traveling Brits by the early ’70s there are 19 million cars on
The road the car is king and the fate of Britain’s Railways hangs in the Balance 40 odd years ago it looked like our Railways were on the way out to save them British Rail needed a high tech solution Britain’s genius with science and technology had produced groundbreaking Marvels like the hovercraft and supersonic planes like Concord see the great thing about
Britain is that we all forget we are brilliant as a little Nation with technology brilliant but we didn’t have a highspeed train France investing in new locomotives new trains new routes wholesale infrastructure Improvement the country that invented the railway is lagging behind the big development of course was
The establishment of the world’s first high-speed train in Japan it ran at 150 180 mph uh on dedicated tracks you know there was that icon picture of the bullet train next to Mount Fuji so other countries maybe were doing better than we were when you looked up
And you saw what they were doing in France what they were doing in Japan you know I mean they were taking Railways to new heights doing new and very exciting things making whole new systems and we were we were doing nothing there was a good reason we didn’t have a British bullet
Train our row is lines are too bendy Britain’s Victorian Railways were built in the 1840s for much slower trains plus back then the engineers would avoid any steep hills result a railway full of bends and curves the West Coast was built by Stevenson as a very curving route it’s almost one
Continuous send all the way to Scotland and you wouldn’t have got much more than 100 mph on that route and a lot lot slower in places the line the time going to travel on around a very sharp curve and there’s a speed restriction of 20 M hour around the hole of the
Curve you can’t just start cutting off corners of of train tracks and corners of Britain cities it’s just impossible people now lived in the places you want to put new train tracks even if you could persuade homeowners to move there’s no money to lay new tracks in straight
Lines British Rail had a problem it only had a finite pot of money they had to decide where to invest that money do you invest in something which is going to be just the new stock to cope of the old uh rail network or do you invest Wholesale
In a complete new system so to Wrangle this problem in 1964 British Rail set up a research center in Derby and hired a team of top buffins to work there country to what many people think British Rail was actually a very Innovative organization and it was uh a completely integrated operation so it
Ran the trains it actually developed trains it built trains so it called in kind of Engineers from different sectors like uh Aeronautics and said you know how do we do this rolls rice had gone through a sticky period and rolls rice were based in Derby and and a number of
Royals rice Engineers moved over to British Rail research on the AP team so there was totally new thinking there compared with the traditional Railway thinking this was new new uh Cutting Edge technology and it was mainly people by people who come from outside the rail industry and didn’t have this desire to
Evolve what was there before to save itself from Financial ruin British Rail bet everything on a simple formula for every 1 mph gained in speed rail Revenue would increase by 1% speed would win back passengers and save Britain’s Railways but British rails main engine is the deltic a heavyweight diesel
Locco the deltics for example this class 55 these great big racehorses on the East Coast Mainline the old Tech eny they weren’t going to cut it they were too heavy they couldn’t go any faster they were just too heavy to go really really fast the diesel trains are
Running at about 90 or 100 m hour and the Japanese were already getting at 200 M hour by that stage so we had to do Something the buffins at Derby start work on designing a brand new kind of train kit spachman had joined the team from the motor industry the research and development department uh was relatively new but was learning new things at the time um and was very much at the front end of
Railway technology then we really saw this as the Big White Hope of the future and the air analogy I guess was concorded it was going to go at 150 mph on test it was going to be gas turbine powered and it it felt like an airplane on Rails it was incredibly Innovative
Nothing else like this had been developed anywhere in the world the big challenge is to cut Journey times without slowing down through the curves if you’re on a high-speed train that’s tilting into a curve you do require the extra tilts because the centrifugal force is pulling
You and that extra tilt is required just to try and normalize some of that experience as a human being going around that corner otherwise it’s pretty hideous it was very steeply graded and some very very sharp curves now the the trains would have to slow down from say
A nominal 125 mph for the curves because otherwise the passengers would go out through the window instead of rebuilding the tracks without curves kit spachman devises a groundbreaking solution build a train that can tilt around corners sensors would activate hydraulic jacks to automatically tilt the Train
Adust the right angle to suit the speed on the curve on a motorcycle you automatic ically take up the correct angle to go around the corner um and doing that with a train would seem to be a logical progression this Innovative new project the first of its kind in the
World is called the advanced passenger train or AP everything that had to be done at that period to produce the advanced passenger train was new um we were talking about running the train 50% faster than was running at present time within a year kit has mocked up this prototype tilting
Train it can tilt a carriage to 9° in 1 second testing it on a track running parallel to the a74 road in Scotland kit decides to take on a sports car at speed there was a guy looking from the lby on the a74 to right alongside looking over
The top of this and uh he was in a Porsche 928 and um we got the green and everybody dived back into the train and so off we went R and this guy took off down the a74 towards the South and was somewhat surprised a short while later
By this Bailey bridge on Wheels whistling past him at a considerably faster speed than he was with this guy standing on the outside taking a photograph of him as he went past but was Kit’s tilting train fast enough British Rail was desperate to challenge air travel from London to Scotland we
Just had to beat the airlines the airlines were about an hour to London we were about 5 hours so the advanced passenger train was a big hope it seems kit and The A Team are on the right track they set about testing every part of it to destruction
Everything about it was completely brand new so almost nothing from previous years went forward and of course the fundamental thing was the fact that the DAR thing had to be stable on the track but management want instant results we were expecting this wonderful infant to be born and perform perfectly
Immediately and we didn’t realize how radical it was almost all the ingredients on the advanced passenger train were clever and were needed but to put them all on the same prototype in one go put it on the traction and expected to work was asking too much the network is crying out for its
Highspeed train but the AP tilting train project is taking far too long British ra has pumped all this money into the A on one side but also started to put money into other projects too and there was real concern within British Rail itself that actually this wasn’t the
Right way forward we looking at a brand new future A Brave New World of rail travel that might never pay off looking on from the sidelines at this very moment is a rival group of Engineers they don’t have degrees in Aeronautics but they do know how trains
Work and they have a plan to save Britain Railways there were two teams at Derby one was the advanced passenger train you know and their aeronautic engineers and these buffins in white coats and their Thunderbird train and those who are being developing stuff that have been developed in the past and just evolving
It slightly and uh many of them were quite upset these new sort of fangle people coming from the air industry were coming in and stepping on their Turf you know this wasn’t their land they belonged up in the sky at the airports what are they doing on the railways the
Advanced passenger train teams tended to be new Engineers from outside the rail industry with new ideas and the highspeed team tended to be inside the industry evolving traditional ideas the inter city 125 Engineers who were quote real Railway unquote rather thought uh we lot over there were upstarts and um
Coming from the Aerospace and the motor industry as we did we knew absolutely nothing about Railways British Rail has its own in-house team of Engineers with years of experience under their belt coming from such different backgrounds rivalry was inevitable we were all one big happy family but actually we we would like to
Get one over them and we always thought AP has been just a buffins experiment the in-house Engineers launch a bold bid to make their own rival train based on tried and tested technology they said let’s develop a train that isn’t tilting but goes fast is is very uh powerful can
Go maybe up to 125 mil an hour we’ll call it HST high-speed train or 125 as it uh soon became known as um and they said we can develop this in a couple of years the board decided they really needed something else to get us across the
Divide and it was going to be a stop Gap it turned out to be an extremely good stop because it’s outlived anything else that was been designed before or since the engineers get to work on their stop Gap solution producing a viable prototype high-speed train or HST within just 2
Years in the department were several people who had experience of other trains so they knew a lot about the troubles VAR bits of equipment are likely to give and when they heard what the AP were thinking about they said well this is the way to go forward let’s use conventional
Bits the engineers must overcome a crucial problem no existing diesel engine can run a service over 100 mph Legend has it that an apprentice piped up with a revolutionary idea use two engines one at either end of the train to boost its speed an highspeed train together which coaches in between has
Two power cars each end so it’s got the driver at the front of it you know and a second man a rim for the guard at the back that’s a power car it’s an entirely self-contained unit that comp power itself up and down the tracks two power cars increases the potential for Speed
But existing Locos can only manage 100 m hour BR had the ambition to go much faster 125 M hour to do that they needed more power but the problem was you couldn’t just put bigger engines into uh Locos uh and expect them to travel faster because of the
Weight if British Rail is to survive they need something faster the engineers have got to find a lightweight Engine with more power they turn to the Navy who used Paxman engines that fitted the Bild the arroyal they ad valent engines they were never the main propulsion there were always auxiliary supplies I
Believe they had eight valent engines in that arroy 79 L uh engineed so put it in perspective 79 times the size of your average family car the Paxman Valenta engine has a Turbocharger which gives the 125 its distinctive how some of the enthusiasts can tell you two miles away what Loco’s coming
Because of the noise that that the engine’s making but the HST certainly had their own unique sound the 125 team have their new engine but they now face yet another major problem one that could derail the whole Project 1972 British rails team of In-House Engineers now have a high-speed train that can travel at 125 mph but they still have a major problem how to stop it if you speed a train up you’ve got to assume it has to slow down as well and
Of course if you speed it up it takes a longer time to slow down the new high-speed trains traveling at 125 mph have to stop in the same distance as older trains traveling at 100 mph and the traditional braking system isn’t up to the job moving every signal to allow
For longer stopping distances would bankrupt British Rail could the Wizardry of new electronics be the answer I was a very young engineer at the time moved from the defense electronics Industry into the railway industry to look at the application of Electronics To Train control systems which was something in those days was very very new Ron is
Among a small group of ELC Electronics specialist invited to Derby by the 125 engineering team Electronics of course was black magic to a lot of people in the traditional Railway industry because Electronics were were unknown the reliability was perhaps not appreciated and I remember as a very Junior engineer
Being invited to make a presentation and I could see people taking three Paces to the rear of the room and looking at shock and horror the thought of using Electronics to control the brake system it seems that Ron’s pioneering theories might never see the light of day luckily the chief
Mechanical engineer sees some promise in them he stood up and said I think we should try it give him a chance and that was it we went away and developed an electronically controlled system Ron’s electronic system cut some 600 yards off the traditional stopping distance the length of six football pitches this
Means they don’t have to move the signals saving British roil from financial disaster today at the Neville Hill Depot in Leeds these aging beasts survive for routine maintenance on their brakes each train has 160 brake pads Andy has to check every single one they got to be changed every uh 2 or
3 weeks depending on how quickly the we and uh when they get to about that thickness they need to be taken out and changed for a new one you can see the difference uh in thickness so I born the year the Prototype came out 1976 it’s a long time
It’s still a solid train the frames and the chassis are still solid and they can go on for another 202 years if they needed to but mucking out these work horses can be a nasty job ever wonder why the signs say don’t flush the toilet while the train is in the station it’s
Because the 125 has no sewage tanks the toilets empty straight onto the tracks companies say it’s too costly to retrofit tanks on trains that might soon be replaced so luckily for Andy emptying the L is one job they don’t need to do here but there’s plenty more going on
Behind the scenes Heather’s part of the operation is keeping these veterans running for East Midland so whether it’s just a quick winds screen change or a massive engine overhaul there is a lot of work goes on on a daily basis here operating 89 stations and around
1,000 M of track this is a 24hour 7 days a week operation ensuring these 125s are back carrying passengers as quickly as possible they see them come into the station they get on they travel on them all of the this I don’t think never C happens back in
1972 the engineers have met their brief in record time coming up with a new train that would keep cost down improve speed and stop in the right distance but to be the finished package the train needs a modern makeover 1970s style they call on one of Britain’s new breed of industrial
Designers Kenneth Gra The Man Behind iconic designs from the Kenwood chef and the parking meter to the angle Poise lamp is brought into tackle the largest product he’s ever worked on on one hand I could easily count the people who were practicing product design so it not surprising that you’d
Get a toothbrush to do in the morning and a train in the afternoon Kenneth gra was a modernist he is naturally infused and intrigued by objects and wants them to be as fun and as joyous as they can be whenever I got a product to design that
Happily let me do all the packaging that went with it sometimes bit of advertising so you you dabble and you play and so on gra is commissioned to design a new paint job for the train they came to me and said uh look this is what they’re planning to do and
Gave me a model of a rather crude looking train but we need to decorate it he didn’t think much of the existing design when he initially saw the very boxy design that British Rail had come up with I think he felt that this could be better it really was quite brutal
Clumsy I thought oh I’d like to get my hands on that although the brief was nothing to do with the shape absolutely not at all without consulting British Rail gra takes it upon himself to redesign the entire shape of the front of the train to make it more streamlined
We used to make a model and then go down to Imperial College and give the bloke a fiver and he’d wind up the wind tunnel and we produced some photographs of shape because there was no other basis on which to design as far as I was concerned he made some models that he
Felt would not only improve the design but improve the speed of the train Grange comes up with a much more erod HC nose cone the air goes around the size of the train leading to faster speeds and sleeker design knowing he has gone well beyond the given brief he
Takes his radical new design to the board serious Players Board of Directors of the railways um uh they were expecting at this meeting to see a a smart new paintwork on this model and I pulled out these pictures of the Wind Tunnel the smoke trails and things and to their Everlasting credit they
Said oh that seems even better so they got both and I was up and Away gr’s draft design is given the green light but the timing is terrible British Society is suffering from a serious hooligan problem hooliganism wasn’t invented yesterday there’s always been bad behavior in this country there is an underlying uh violence in the British character ever since the’ve been Railways there have
Been um what I must politely describe as Village idiots there had been quite a few incidents where small boys would hang a house brick over the edge of a bridge and enjoy seeing a train smash into it well that wasn’t good for the driver that’s sure marks get
Set the problem was so serious this public information film conjured up a terrifying fantasy world where School sports day took place on the local railway line it was pretty strong stuff Broken Window two points direct h on driver six points uh uh total for for yellow eight points but it wasn’t just a
Fantasy there had been incidents of driver fatalities from front windows being smashed with bricks this new train was going to address that and it was going to have armor plated glass to protect the driver British Rail turns to specialist glass manufacturer Pilkington Pilkington were the Leading Edge in World development of glass and
If you’re designing window for aircraft then you’re the people you’re going to go to when it comes to the need for a an armor plated window on a train this famous British company was making the windscreens for Concord they Supply the 125 with the same high strength
Glass now to make the interior of his train as light as possible Grange looks to the latest technological advances in space travel NASA had been developing a particular knitted fabric that they were using for aeronauts chairs and therefore were massively lightweight and so we made a prototype and it really looked to
Be well on the way and quite radical but very unhappily it coincided with a fashion among football fans to carry Stanley knives at that point football fans tended to go around the country by train and if they were vicious enough and nasty enough and vile enough they planned their their little um outings
And trains were being wrecked because these guys would just RI the seats apart now you couldn’t conceivably go to the marketplace with a net chair once again the Great British hooligan has done a number on the design of the 125 Grange is forced to come up with an alternative made of stronger material
He designs an upholstered chair with molded armrests setting the style for train seats today gr’s groundbreaking new train design now appears to be finished and this fully functioning prototype is built ready for Testing before any finished passenger trains can go into production the Prototype has to undergo a series of rigorous tests at the time none of us knew whether the whole project would go forward and having got a prototype would it ever get to a production build hundreds thousands of of of new
Bits and pieces in the train and all these had to be designed and proven tested it was a big Gumble a big Gumble if the project is to succeed the Prototype train must hit speeds well above any existing diesel locomotive on June the 12th 1973 the 125 prototype was on the test
Track on the highspeed run I recollect being sat on the floor by the door of the toilet with a a measuring device to measure the airflow not very glamorous the chamers coming 130 something before we knew what we were doing and air is whing past and also a
Lot of air is coming through so if you got any loose clothing you’d be uh looking to keep it on the Prototype 125 sets a world diesel speed record of 143.5 mph it felt very fast because I’d not experienced more than 100 miles an hour before I don’t think many people in the
UK had we were happily doing 130 without difficulty and finally 143 when the national press got hold of the fact we’d got uh a new speed record we’ got not only had got the speed record for the UK but we’re now the fastest diesel train in the world and you may have noticed
But those on board were presented with a commemorative tie which says hst1 143 but I can say I got the tie justifiably we bought a copy of every National paper and to see what it said about our train and what struck in my mind ever since is what the O post
Said the Dark Days Are Over the slumping moral as the great network of roots dwindled has been dispersed by the high-speed blast of a new Railway Era Amazingly the original prototype is still around today it’s been lovingly restored by the 125 group on a 10m Heritage line near Nottingham it still works but not quite at the speed of its Heyday this is the last remaining prototype it really is a National Treasure and uh I can assure you we look
After it very well this actual prototype power car it broke the world speed record for diesel rail traction back in 1973 doing a 143 mph which was uh hell of a speed in those days it’s every uh boy’s dream isn’t it to be a train driver who wouldn’t want
To be in charge of a uh 125 mph highp speed train encouraged by this success British Rail is Keen to get their dual Engine train into action in Hope of persuading passengers back onto their Railway the first prototype went out set a new world record everybody happy as Larry and then
There was a change the management and the unions decided between them that um they’d need two People the Prototype has been built for a single driver but the unions are insisting that a train traveling over 100 mph needs two drivers and so requires a larger wind screen for them to see out of the train drivers unit stuck its heels in over the design of the
Prototype have and there was good reason for that there are occasions where you do need two drivers in charge of a train so they both need chairs to sit on they both need a good view through the wind screen so really the Prototype 125 it it didn’t fit the Bill with the unions refusing to budge it looks like Grange will have to redesign the cab completely to accommodate two drivers it meant that the original design that Kenneth came up with which was a quite small window would need to be expanded and he was worried then about losing the gains that
He had made through the aerodynamics a larger piece of glass across the cab would interrupt the shape of gr’s design creating harsh Corners at the edges and increasing wind resistance so there was a bit of an onass there we we really stuck know what to do the obstacles keep coming and the
Future of rail travel in Britain is hanging by a thread does this spel the end for British Rail 17th of June 1973 the Prototype of the new inter city 125 high-speed train has broken the world’s speed record for diesel but before it can go into production it’s
Hit a serious problem the unions are insisting that a train traveling over 100 mph needs two drivers and so requires a larger windscreen to see out of designer Kenneth Grange is struggling to keep his design aerodynamic before going back to the drawing board he consults British roils chief engineer in
Derby I said look let’s just go back over the whole the whole rigar of this geometry I said and the buffers and he said well actually on this train we don’t need buffers traditional trains need buffers to couple together and shunt their carriages but because the one 25’s power cars would be permanently
Connected to its carriages they would never need to shunt anything and so in fact don’t need buffers this is the key the key key change of the whole thing this shape here um could be Nally that shape there removing the buffers frees grain to give the nose cone a much sharper
Design he angles the larger wind screen to create more space for two drivers and gives the train a Sleek aerodynamic shape the 125s iconic profile is Born that particular piece of like the geometry of the train has given it its visual personality so it’s a peculiar set of happy accidents it looked terrific it had this new uh front end the the wedge shaped front which is the iconic symbol of in
City I guess even today uh 40 years on and we owe him a big thanks for creating something great gr’s distinctive yellow and blue paint job makes the new train instantly recognizable this blue gray and yellow was absolutely brilliant it looks like the thing’s actually moving even when
It’s sitting still and that’s why it’s so great it’s got this high energy High visual yellow front to it back in the day you’d get trains which had mixed carriages they weren’t all matched they weren’t all painted the same it basically looked a bit of a mess
Suddenly you got a train that was designed to be a train an Entity the radical design didn’t stop with the exterior inside the Train the passenger experience has been reinvented new Mark I carriages feature modern Interiors with automatic doors between open plan carriages double glazing and air Conditioning at the inside they were warm the air conditioning I mean who’d ever even heard of air conditioning before the 125 had kind of brought back up again the idea of style and a bit of you know a bit of highspeed Elegance to the railway Network there’s no doubt that the 125 was revolutionary in terms of train travel just compare the idea of being pulled Along by a smelly old locomotive or even a a a diesel train belching kind of smoke compared to the smooth running of the 125 with its kind of nose cone
That looked kind of sleek what was there not to like the first inter city 125 leaves Paddington Station on the 4th of October 1976 Bound for Bristol those who try it love it my first journey all know a25 was out of Paddington and I was immediately
Impressed when I walked on the train it it look modern than I felt for the first time I was part of a modern Railway it was definitely modern instead of being a sort of rattling door clanging uncomfortable cattle truck it was a luxurious thing where you sat down and
You saw the world go by British Rail has finally got a world-beating high-speed train that could save it from impending disaster surprisingly though it isn’t champagne all around I can’t remember any fanfares or this that and the other they just went into service was just let in quite
Slowly it wasn’t expected to be a success it wasn’t required to be a huge success it was there as a stop Gap solution 27 new trains are ordered to run on the relatively straight Great Western route where their top speed can really slash Journey many times but British Rail actually needs around 100
New high-speed trains to cover its entire network despite everything it’s still pinning its hopes on the AP the tilting Train That’s waiting in the wings the 125 was supposed to be just a stop Gap there would be this revolutionary train the a advanced passenger train which would take over
Because of its tilting capability able to run faster than the HST I don’t think there’s any doubt the AP was a finer train it was a more refine train than the 125s coming up next time the 125 is put front and center of a bold new ad
Campaign and who’s ever heard of a train Jam this train might actually be the savior of British Rail super share PR leaf takes on British rail’s image problem so he said that they are Britain’s most popular sandwich and I said well of course they are they’re the
Only sandwich you can buy and disaster strikes the 125 the Yellow Freight tray was virtually cut in two by the inter city 125 how will this Underdog stop Gap train ever make its Mark well if there’s anyone with a passion for trains it’s Rob Bell and he’s uncovering a whole network of
Hidden wonders tonight join him walking Britain’s lost Railways new at 9 next inter city 125 continues for over 40 years the inter city 125 Britain’s first high-speed train has been the Workhorse of the railways frankly it was the train that saved British railways saved them from their fate worse than death maybe that’s
Where the railway turned the corner and start to become an acceptable Modern Way of transport a Triumph of British design you know even today when I see one I’m pleased to be getting on that train I think it’s a beautiful machine had this new front end the the wedge shaped front
Which is the iconic symbol of in city I guess even today it’s got that Sleek look with the lines that makes you think of efficiency we’ve all traveled on one but now the 125s are slowly being replaced by new electric trains from Japan the 125 will
Be sorely missed oh I love them when you’re driving it you really feel like you’re driving a train you’re not sort of sat in some playing a video game or something you can feel the power they’ve got this is the story of the inter city 125 single-handedly it would revolutionize train travel Revitalize
British rails image and in time establish itself as a true icon of the Railway Age back in the 1970s clever marketing showcased the virtues of traveling by high-speed train we were brave enough to start having advertising slogans like this is the age of the train this is the even the British Roy sandwich got a makeover I had got it into my head that
I would do something about the sandwiches and they were wrapped up in on the cling and they were soggy and they were tasteless but before we get to the age of the train and the end of the Soggy s we need to get back to the mid
’70s when the 125 was launched when 125 was introduced it was envisioned as a stop Gap there would be this revolutionary train the advance passenger train which would take over they deck on two different horses a classic British compromise today nearly a 100 of these inter city 125s are still in Frontline
Service and they’re still the fastest diesel trains in the world back in 1976 the stakes for British Rail couldn’t be higher they have a dual engine diesel train in the shape of the 125 but BR bosses foresee a very different future one where tilting electric trains rule the
Rails the whole point of this brand new Advanced passenger train was that it was supposed to be able to pick up speed and in order to pick up speed it was going to tilt to go around corners this ability to tilt into the bz allows the advanced passenger train known as the AP
To travel at up to 155 mph on Britain’s twisting Network it became very obvious around about 1970 that the board was backing two horses the advanced passenger train which was UN full of new technology and the highspeed train which is a more Orthodox train with traditional technology which
Could be built faster but which would only be diesel so we had both horses running at that time British Rail now has two Rivals for the high-speed Crown the diesel 125 and the electric AP in the mid ’70s the inter city 125 is running on only one route the relatively
Straight Railway line from Paddington to Bristol and South Wales and it’s proving popular so you’ve got for example on the London Bristol route uh a 33% increase in Travelers over the first 2 years after it was introduced despite this success British Rail is still hoping that the bendia
Routs of the West and East Coast main lines to Edinburgh Manchester and Liverpool will be served by a fleet of tilting trains the original prototype of the a kit spachman known as Mr tilt was a lead engineer on the project back in the 70s he played a crucial role in designing
The Train’s hydraulic tilting system everything about it was completely brand new it had to tilt to go around the corners 50% FAS it had to stop faster as well which meant new braking technology of course the fundamental thing was the fact that the DAR thing had to be stable on the track
This prototype hasn’t moved in 30 years and kit is Keen to see if its revolutionary Hydraulics still work ready again Brian y okay it’s good to see it tilting again after all this time technical problems with the AP are slowly being ironed out and by the mid 70s kit spachman and his team
Are starting to believe that their tilting train can become the fastest passenger train that Britain has ever seen some panas to leester runs were absolutely the single most important test that we ever did it proved Beyond doubt that the concept worked the route from London to Leicester is one of the
Twistiest in the country by tilting around the corners the a can travel 40% faster than conventional trains all right and it tests reaches 162 mph excellent nice to see it going after all this time the awesome feature there was getting around those curves so fast so
Curves I was used to getting around at 80 M hour we were suddenly getting round at 125 M hour and the coach was making significant tilts to the left and right rather like being on a motorcycle British Rail is so impressed with its performance they ask blue Peter
Presenter Peter peris to make a promotional film about the AP I can remember driving the advanced passenger train and it was so smooth it felt as we pulled out as it the whole thing was moving as one and we were only going from Houston Station to Brent
Sings but we still got up to 100 miles hour which was very exciting for br the future still belongs to their tilting train but after nearly 10 years in development it’s still nowhere near ready to carry passengers a was a very good train it it uh produce a lot of information about
What you could do with wheels and rails and how F you could go around curves tilting but to develop a fleet of trains that could carry passengers was going to take a long time in business time is money so British Rail is forced to fall back on the tried and tested 125 MOA
Ordered to plug the Gap while tests continue on the a but BR know it’ll take more than shiny new trains to win over the traveling public and round about that time we were brave enough to start having advertising slogans like this is the age of the
Train this is the age of the train was a darn good idea everybody said yeah dead right is the age of the Train the damn thing’s 40 years old its fate rests on an ambitious ad campaign can it sell the 125 to a skeptical Public by 1977 British Royals fate hangs in the balance the gambling that an advertising campaign will help secure the future of Britain’s Railways it’s a tall order the railways are well known for their poor customer service and delays British Rail was an absolute Nightmare and it was famous for being
That way it was dirty it was ramshackle and you know were you going to get there on time I think in those days if you had to go on a train it was a Penance and you went and you paid through the nose if you could avoid a
Train if you could go under your own steam you did so the early stuff Train’s not running on time everything’s sort of dirty The Carriage is not being swept or cleaned who would want to travel on the kind of trains that we had then and so people didn’t it needed a big
Kick that kick comes in the shape of Ad Agency Alan bradian Marsh the research that we undertook threw up I think one fundamental um insight and that was trains were loved but British Rail wasn’t if ABM is going to secure the biggest advertising account in br they’ll have to deliver this difficult
News to British rails top Executives this task falls to the agency’s flamboyant chief executive Peter Marsh Peter Marsh as a character was an ex actor he was an ex director he was an ex theater producer he he was acting personified he saw um advertising as as theater
To win over the British royal bosses Peter Marsh plans a stunt that sounds like it was straight out of the TV series Mad Men so they came in and we kept them waiting the receptionist was sort of filing her nails and didn’t really care that they came in there were
An ashtray sort of overflowing with dog ends as they were then known as Bits of Paper on the floor and so on and so forth and they haven’t at this stage seen Peter Mar Rod Allen they brought Peter Parker the chair around at the time up to the
London office and they made him sit there I think for 15 minutes and made him wait for their pitch he getting increasingly Furious in reception and then Peter and Rod appear dressed as Railway employees what Peter said to them was you have just experienced what everybody else experiences of British Rail that’s their
Experience that’s what they’ve told us now we’re going to tell you how you can transform that expectation of British Rare that transformation involves placing the inter city 125 at the heart of the campaign BR know these adverts have to work you might just remember this One the musical jingle came about from Rod Rod Allen wrote all the jingles he had a piano in his office and he would literally just bang out the jingles and he just had a natural Talent the age of the train campaign soon embeds itself in the National Consciousness they started to get behind
It cuz they realized it but is real as she hang it coat on this this train might actually be the savior of British rails to complete the campaign they need a frontman someone seen as trustworthy and with universal appeal we looked at a lot of different
People and the person who came out tops by a long way when you started looking at all those different criteria was Jimmy sa so why not do what I do take the train I think a lot of them were done by the appalling Jimmy savvo of unon
Memory despite what we know today of sail’s monstrous ax back then he’s a popular figure and the ads are a hit they sell the 125 experience as something futuristic and aspirational you know the tables were there there was plenty of light it was clean it was the ride was relatively smooth they were
Comfortable seats to sit in you had room to work you had time to work you had the quiet to work it wasn’t noisy like the old trains had been tempting people back to the railways was never going to be easy the bad old days of British Rail has created
A nation of car lovers when I started work as a reporter um I turned away from rail as as soon as I possibly could and it was actually more convenient to drive than to go by train train was not an option that you would choose so we we drove literally everywhere if the
Advertisements had been directed by Alfred Hitchcock they wouldn’t have made me travel on a 125 train I didn’t want to go on uh uh the railways in this country if I could possibly avoid it it’s exactly this kind of attitude that the adverts go on to Target there’s a
Lovely advert they did it’s called train jam and in this advert train Jam they say you know uh you wouldn’t have to stop off at Services you wouldn’t have to change the car the wheels on your car when was the last time you made a long
Business trip and your train had to stop for breakfast stop for you to do some work or stop to spend a penny when did you last see a train with a puncture jacking up the train just be F the policeman overtakes a a 125 in a in a class 37 with
A sir and blaring it’s a brilliant advert or a train get nicked for Speeding and who’s ever heard of a train jam it was there to prove actually the one 125 is the thing that was going to take people back off the roads onto the railways and it did that the ad is perfectly timed traffic jams are becoming a familiar feature of Britain’s roads
As a result more car owners are being tempted back to the railways thanks to the 125 however there’s one area where BR is still seen as a joke cheese sandwich anyone I have eaten the Great British Rail sandwich on numerous occasions or have half eaten some of them curly
British Rail sandwich was quite notorious back then you’d have had sandwiches which would have been cheese sandwich or ham sandwich or something very very l so someone at BR cooked up the idea of asking Chef PR Le to join the board I knew Peter Parker who was the
Chairman of British Rail because my husband played tennis with him and he knew my businesses and he needed a woman who had a business and who um he thought was strong enough to be the only woman on a mail board PR is used to calling the shots now she finds herself at the
Part of a massive nationalized industry for the first three board meetings that I sat through I never heard the word passenger or customer once per is determined to change this attitude I had got it into my head that I would do something about the sandwiches the BR sandwich seems to
Embody everything that’s wrong with British Rail the press used to say that I’d been hired to uncurl the British Rail sandwich which was kind of funny but I mean they would never Cur the Bri sandwiches because they weren’t on a tray getting Curly from drying out they
Were wrapped up in horrible cling film and they were soggy as anything first she has to persuade the catering boss the change is needed so he said but there most they are Britain’s most popular sandwich and I said well of course they are they’re the only
Sandwich you can buy and um he said no no no it’s because we use Britain’s most popular bread which is Mother’s Pride Britain’s most popular butter which is Anchor butter and Britain’s most popular cheese which is craft cheese slices so of course it’s the most popular sandwich Peru isn’t convinced so she
Carries out her own market research I finally did a test on Paddington Station and I made lots of other you know other kinds of sandwiches I remember sardine sandwiches salami one and prawn one I think various different sandwiches and with different breads and also one of those cheese
Sandwiches nearly 40 years after PR taste test we’ve come back to Paddington Station to see if today’s commuters can guess what was br’s most popular sandwich back in the 70s I’d say the um the um egg and bacon sandwiches uh cheese and tomato I think I would have said cheese I suspect the
Only sandwich was cheese sandwich on White Bread and I think they were stale before they were even ever gotten the train and we went around um offering them free to the customers and just watching which line disappear and it wasn’t the cheese sandwi in the 70s the most popular
Sandwich from a very limited range was the cheese s is it still a hit today very unappealing uh the cheese looks like processed cheese this is a sort of F I wouldn’t have eaten H sort of plasticky looking cheese rather than real cheese could it be yesterday s Weeks you’re not going to make me eat it are you I’ll taste it yeah this is really horrible it’s bad news for be’s most popular option so what about PR’s more adventurous sandwich selection with its cheese plowmans and smok salmon on whole meal bread we put our sandwiches into decent
Boxes the first glance is what sells something and if the filling looks good you’ll sell it these look more appealing than those if a sandwich is wrapped up in cling film you can’t even see the filling because the cing film sort of pours the bread over this over the
Filling clingfilm trapped the moisture making the bread soggy bruised boxes let the air circulate no more soggy sis so I won my case and we got um got better sandwiches the whole experience of eating on board the 125 is greatly improved thanks to bigger Buffet cars and new
Technology before you got these trins you were given the choice of cheese or ham and that that was that was pretty well it once you got these on board then the range just widen significantly every 125 is fitted out with fridges and state of the are microwave
Ovens British Rail has never had it so good its stop Gap train has become a huge success and thanks to clever marketing and better sandwiches br’s reputation is revitalized but changes in the air somebody who for dogmatic political reasons never went on the train was Mrs Thatcher when I first joined the British
Railways board it was in a final panic because Mrs Thatcher had just come to power she hated trains she was quite open about it she also had this idea that the answer to Britain’s transport problems was really to concrete over the railways make more motorways let every man in the
Country own a motor car and just forget about the railways the threat is real no longer are the railway is the quickest and easiest way from A to B BR were coming under increasing competition from the internal Airlines um it was becoming more and more feasible to travel uh by air rather than
By train the inter city 125 is turning a profit but British Rail is losing money hand over fist added to this as the spiraling cost of the advanced passenger train which is still stuck at the Prototype stage one of The Oddities of the Thatcher period was that she privatized
Gas she privatized electricity she privatized water but she left the trains alone Mrs Thatcher did not dare take on what was seen as quite a popular British Rail and certainly very popular inter city service with its 125s so one could say that the 125 staved off privatization for a few
Years the the success of the 125 means British Rail is safe for now at least however questions are being asked about the costly APD if it’s to rival the 125 it needs to emerge from the shadows and show the public what it can do the advanced passenger train was totally different
This was a new Cutting Edge technology I was very very impressed with what they’ve done with it and uh the ride was absolutely magnificent here comes the AP wow how good is that would the tilting train Mark the end of the 125 before it had even really got Started the inter city 125 is setting new standards in speed and passenger Comfort back in 1981 it’s make or break time for the tilting Advanced passenger train if it’s to survive the public has to see why it deserves to replace the 125 we saw our future on rail as the
Advanced passenger train we just had to beat the airlines the airlines were about an hour to London uh we were about 5 hours so the advanced passenger train was a big hope British rails research tells them that if the AP can break the psychological 4-Hour barrier from Glasgow to London more customers will
Choose trains over planes I remember standing on the platform at Glasgow Central as it arrived from London in 3 hours 52 minutes and we really thought this was the future we thought we cracked it practice runs are one thing the real test comes when fairp paying passengers
Climb on board after 10 years in development the launch of the advanced passenger train is finally set for December 1981 people were thrilled to be going on it come and see this wonderful thing British Rail is racing to get their new train ready in what is one of the
Coldest winter months on record and in Glasgow there were two Engineers working on the whole train to get it ready for this final inaugural run or what it was supposed to be and they were absolutely shattered in Glasgow they were wrecked the first passenger run from
Glasgow to London goes without a hitch 2 days later on the 9th of December 1981 it’s the turn of the TV news there was that fateful morning of where there was that terrible early trip where journalists were taken down from Glasgow down to London do you think you’re going
To make it to London today oh of course we are season News correspondent Michael Cole is in Glasgow with a film crew boarding the advanced passenger train ban for London as the worst snowstorm in a Century approaches it was a fiercely cold morning and Glasgow Central Station
Was almost deserted there were very few people going on the advanced passenger train couple of uh newsmen another film crew and myself good morning ladies and gentlemen you are traveling on the inter city a from Glasgow to London houst the train is now ready to depart the passengers please stand clear of the
Doors it’s 700 a.m. and still dark the a is the first train of the day to run on the freezing track it more or less left on time but as soon as it was out of the station you were aware that there was a problem because the lights in the brand new
Carriages were flashing on and off but after only 8 minutes the lights flickered and dimmed and a coasted to a shameful halt ice on the over head power cables is interrupting the power supply the advanced passenger train had had a difficult first run then it had one or
Two runs that were okay but this one looked the worst of them all and I thought to myself even then no commercial organization would choose to try out its new baby its new invention its new vehicle in the middle of winter in adverse weather conditions Electric
IAL faults are only the beginning of the tilting Train’s problem the ride was absolutely magnificent until it started to get light and um some distance further down where you could see where you were going and see outside and going around a Bend you could see the Horizon going up and
Down at the same time certain members of the media were um became a little unwell should we say you could feel the The Carriage swing one way and then then another the st’s level that the coaches tilt inwards on the curves for as much as 9° it was a big risk uh taking
Journalists on this trial train so early because the journalist then complained about the Tilt they complained about their tea being spilled it isn’t just spil tea some of the journalists on board describe feeling sick as the train tilts around the BS it might have to do with the fact
That people drinking the night before being taken out as part of the corporate know press sort of style of the time I mean it was a slight motion if ever you’ve been to Disneyland this is nothing for you I mean it it was hardly noticeable I think there must be
Absolute wimps wimps or not the journalist complaints unnerved the ap’s designers who launch an investigation it was determined that um what became known as tilt sickness was very analgous to car sick sickness to seasickness and to air sickness what you can feel or in this case what you can’t feel with the
Balance canals in your ears doesn’t stack up with what you can see out of the window um you feel as if you’re perfectly level and The Horizon’s going up and down like a yo-yo while some people are prone to that some people aren’t there are more technical problems
Where in 150 mil from London it grinds to a halt now I thought well this is just British Rail being it’s usual incompetent self but I suddenly realized this is a story it’s now 11:15 the time we were due to arrive at Houston but here we are at crew 158 M
From London and we’ve been told that because of adverse weather conditions down the line the advanced passenger train will be terminating its Journey right here not that we knew it at the time that was the last commercial proper run ever for the the advanced passenger train I think the Press wanted there to
Be something wrong with it I don’t know why seems crazy why couldn’t they just praise this wonderful piece of technology after the disastrous press launch another problem is discovered the fear was that if two trains met each other one with a tilted coach that hadn’t straightened up that way and one
With a tilted coach that hadn’t come up that way that they meet on three corners just three bends on the whole network that it was to travel on they would Collide it turns out the train designed to tilt around bends can’t tilt around all of them without risking disaster It’s the
Final nail in the coffin of the AP after a decade in development and at a cost of 47 million the tilting train project is cancelled it was a colossal failure we mustn’t we mustn’t hide the fact of how big a failure this was it was taken and hidden they were that
Embarrassed the EP was a a project that was ahead of its time and it was it was pushing people and Technology to Absolute limit now then jock how does this work it’s really sad for me that it didn’t work it was a beautiful train Advanced passenger train died of
Shame perhaps the advance passenger train was just too advanced for its own good by contrast the 125s much simpler design with a power car at each end pushing and pulling the carriages saw it enter service a full 5 years before the a was finished BR had bet on two horses by the
Mid 80s only one is still running the survival of Britain’s Railways rests on the success of the 125 it was exactly the right technology and it worked it was exactly the right product and it increased its passengers by a third in 2 years the 125 enabled more people to
Travel much faster over longer distances in could commuters despite the twisting tracks of the West Coast and the north the 125 is still able to cut Journey times Newcastle is now 3 hours from London Manchester a little over 2 and a half the 125 is not just changed the railway
But um good Communications and fast rail links change the the social makeup of of the country as you can see I’m traveling along in the utmost style and comfort and at 125 mph it became possible to have a meeting in the morning in leads and have a
Meeting in the afternoon in London or in Sheffield or in Edinburgh or in brist still you know you could move around between the cities in a much much more comfortable and quicker way upto-date people in Britain travel by train we went not just for Speed in Britain but
We went for frequency these are the everyday trains of Britain and if you miss one there’s another right behind they were part of making us more British and less Regional the railways of Britain spread out across the countryside drawing community unities closer to each other its speed is also opening up new
Opportunities for the commuter it’s Swift it’s smart it’s smooth it’s prompt and it’s Nationwide in the 1980s Keith Roberts was working as a manager on the London Underground with the young family he was Keen to escape to the countryside PetVille was just that bit too far
Because of the train service and uh it was slow and sometimes unreliable the 125 arrived and suddenly I could leave Cent London and get home to Peterborough before some of my work colleagues could on the London Underground it’s not just about the journey time the 125 offers unprecedented levels of comfort it it
Rode comfortably uh it was air conditioned and it was a comfortable journey and that was important you didn’t want to end up in London tired because you were commuting this ability to commute greater distances Sparks a boom in house building remember when a new house cost just £14 a week no me Neither quite remarkably somewhere you would see as the country road with a few Fields would suddenly turn into a housing estate a new generation of commuted train Springs up along the route of the 125 Peter bur is joined by Milton keing Swindon and reading as the commuter belt
Grows by 1986 passenger numbers between London and Bristol have increased by an incredible 20% the age of the commuter has arrived I think it had quite a big quiet but quite a big economic impact actually and a feeling that we were all part of one thing thanks to the 125 an army of
Commuters is now driving Britain’s burgeoning economy then in September 1997 that success is called into question in the most tragic of circumstances it happened at lunchtime when an inter city Express traveling from swans to Paddington collided with a Goods train at South or the yellow freight train was virtually cut in two
By the into City 125 the South allall crash killed seven people and injured 139 2 years later in October 1999 another 125 is at the center of what remains one of Britain’s worst rail accidents two trains at least 500 passengers then at 11 minutes 8 this morning warning the Crash the crash at ladbrook Grove leaves 31 people dead and 523 Injured if the fundamental design of this train is found to be at full it could spell the N for the 125 one aspect of the train we all take for granted nowadays is its sheer strength and that Mark I coach in the 1970s was really built to withhold
Accidents and keep you safe in a capsule inside the train these Mark I coaches which are still in use today are linked by what are called vestibules self-contained areas next to the train doors we also have large vestibules for movement as well and effectively crash zones and crumple zones between the
Vestibules you’ve got to have a complete safe train built for that kind of Speed The Mark II coaches had successfully absorbed much of the impact their external steel skin supports the entire structure making it exceptionally Strong an inquiry attaches no blame to the design of the 125 both crashes are the result of trains passing red stop signals whilst there were deaths and injuries sadly they would even massively worse than the oldest stle Trends the these are tough Trends the inter city 125 has an
Excellent safety record today it has a new role you can’t buy a ticket for this 125 some but it’s the key to keeping rail passengers safe we have come across a Problem the inter city 125 trains are tough old workhorses they put in over four Decades of service but now they’re being replaced by new trains from Japan over the next few years 122 of these high-tech trains built by Hitachi will come into service all will be electric
And almost half will be able to switch between running on overhead wires or where a line has not been electrified as diesels the diesel 125 is slowly disappearing from service but there’s one train that’s escaped the cull meet the flying banana it’s the nickname for Network rail’s new
Measurement train this modified 125 is the most technologically advanced train of its kind anywhere in the world the 125 was chosen to perform the role of the new measurement train um as it can travel at 125 mph fit in between passenger trains and not delay passenger vehicles covering over 100,000 m a year
It can survey the entire Mainline rail network in Just 4 weeks we’re looking ahead now we’re trying to pre-plan we’re not reacting to uh faults we’re trying to predict where those faults are going to appear in the future so it’s moving into a digital age to help us be more
Efficient in what we do banks of sensors feed into the onboard computers which are monitored by a team of technicians you’ve got lasers we’ve got Gyros we’ve got act inertial boxes for actually the speed we’re moving so every little bump every little movement left and right is
All outputed on here from experience the team know exactly what kind of fults to look out for there’s about 40 plus uh devices underneath a train which gives us the outputs in a digital format we can actually record dat 125 mph so we can analyze the track defects that we’re
Looking for so we’ve got three main defects and all three of these can be liable to uh derail a train uh which we’re trying to prevent so the first fault we’re looking for is a bounc in the rails kind of the roll in the rails this bouncing effect gets worse with
Every passing train eventually a freight train comes along their suspension isn’t as good as a passenger train so if left unchecked it could bounce B off the tracks uh the second one is a Twist bolt which is a left or right rail which is raised slightly more than the other
Which can cause a train to twist this twisting and tilting effect can become so severe that it derails the train uh and then the third one is the width of the track the the distance between the two rails this distance known as the gauge should remain constant over time ballast under the
Tracks can shift causing the rails to move either closer or further apart the job of this 125 is to make sure that fults like these are found and fixed before they cause problems it’s a demanding job but it has its benefits got a different view out
The window every day uh got a great delivery manager we can be in Penzance one day we can be in abedine the next it’s uh you know it’s we we get all over the country this ability to troubleshoot while traveling at 125 mph is vital to keeping the network flowing and more importantly
Keeping all of us safe now something that literally throws you about may become something like a broken rail or a significant fault that we need to stop the train and we stop the train and we literally we will phone the signalman and tell them they got to block the line
And we put that information out to the maintenance teams who go out and repair the track the new measurement train is proof that the 125 still has an important role to play they’ve been the backbone of the inter city Network for 40 years and those in the know still rap these old
Workhorses 125 is the best train ever built as far as I’m concerned it was built when British built things and the British built locomotives it was uh it was designed by the the guys on the drawn board the draftsman and it was built by engineers
Um this day and ede I think will be designed by a computer built by a robot and the computer and the robot didn’t have to drive them so you know I like these a things happen a lot quicker we cover in 2 miles a minute and your
Concentration level has to be spot on you cannot let it weather if your attention’s distracted for a couple of seconds you you’ve covered qu of a mile them higher speed you really have to be switched on it’s 125 mph with your hair on fire you get the feeling Tony quite
Likes these trains and it’s clear they’re still capable of performing a vital role for the railway and remember the tilting train that failed so spectacularly in 1981 well it turns out it has a legacy too do you can travel on Advanced passenger trains in the UK to this very day the
Virgin super Foria trains run with active tilt systems that are fact similes of the advanced passenger train tilt system we seem to be very good at inventing a technology out here in the UK developing it to a particular level then giving it up and giving it to
Everybody else and say here are guys you get on and and do this and we’ll go and Bumble on and do something else instead great pity the stop Gap became the reliable Workhorse restoring our faith in rail travel it gave us a high-speed train that served for more than 40
Years 40 years for another train to do 40 years as well as these have I can’t see it I think the 125 was the first train that was really modern and comfortable and for everybody he been running every day at 125 mph just imagine your ca car
From the 1970s doing that on the M1 every day it transformed the commuter belt delivering workers to cities across the country fueling Britain’s booming economy the 125 enabled people to live a different kind of Lifestyle it deserves recognition as a national icon they’ll give another 20 years
They’ll be certainly I bet you they’re here longer than I Am Uncovering a legendary hidden network Rob Bell’s walking Britain’s lost Railways from Sheffield to Manchester New next on Channel 5 whilst next over on Paramount Network the Stephen King season kicks off with the Jack Nicholson classic The Shining
Broadcast on Channel 5, 15th May 2018
Uploaded for entertainment purposes only
Chris Tarrant takes us for a trip into the heritage and modern history of the great Intercity HST.
From the original conception as the doomed APT, into what would become the fastest diesel train in the world.
From the prototype 41001 into what would become the Class 250 then the 43 as we know it. With footage of when the 125 group restored and operated the prototype, with interviews from press personalities such as Tim Dunn, Christian Wolmar to many others, to the designer of the HST, Sir Kenneth Grange, into taking on the deltic in the late 70’s.
From the upmarket express trains to restaurant trains, and the infamous “British Rail Sandwich” into Pullman, and then into privatisation.