Atomic Systems

The HST will be 30 years old in 2006. Do you think they'll do anything special to commerate this? I for one would love to see some HST's back in their original BR Blue and Yellow livery along with a full rake of BR Blue and Grey mk3 coache of course.

Hi

With 2 years to go perhaps its a bit early to try and predict!

I hope they do, but god knows who they will be operating under, you never know, some may have been scrapped or even sent abroad!

Chris

Hi
An excellent idea....but its sooner than you think.

"The unit carried fare-paying passengers for the first time between London Paddington and Bristol on 5 May 1975, and later that year participated in the Stockton and Darlington Railway 150th anniversary celebrations, at which commerative stamps were issued with the 125mph HST denoting the highest value stamps. "

Speaking of HSTs, I watched 43092 fail at Wolverhampton yesterday. The bonus- for some reason, when they tried to attach a 57, it wouldnt work, so they used a 47, I think.

I've allways wanted to be on a train that fails and a loco then hauls the trainset. Not yet has it happened. I'm aboard an HST tomorrow and am looking forward to it, whether it fails or not.

XPTE wrote:I've allways wanted to be on a train that fails and a loco then hauls the trainset. Not yet has it happened. I'm aboard an HST tomorrow and am looking forward to it, whether it fails or not.

We were once 'rescued' at Peterborough - having 'limped' from Finsbury Park - by a '66'. This seemed a pretty bad deal, considering that the original traction was a '47'...

The original HST, class 41, was around 30 years ago today.

Nasty horrible DMU's, doing away with lovely loco's like the Westerns and Deltics

"Nasty horrible DMU's" that saved InterCity from a slow death due to competition from motorways and internal air services. Just look how much traffic grew where 125's were introduced, even where they couldn't reach 125mph, compared to the West Coast where 1960's speeds got even slower during the 80's and any traffic growth was much slower, or even declined in some cases where air competition was fierce, such as to Manchester. Glasgow and Liverpool also suffered timetable cuts despite the growth of air services especially to Glasgow.

Virtually all objective observers of the British railway scene regard the 125 has having allowed Intercity rail travel survive the 80's and 90's - no matter how attractive, most regular punters would rather have had a sub 5hr journey to Edinburgh by 125 than 6 hours plus by Deltic, or just over 90 minutes to Bristol instead of just under 2 hrs by Western.

It was an inspired piece of bottom-drawer planning, done on the quiet for a relatively short life that got Intercity out of a fix and has paid for itself many times over. As such it deserves a better epithet than a "nasty DMU", which it isn't in any case - a DMU is a diesel multiple unit, a train capable of being formed with others into longer trains driven from one cab - the 125 cannot work in multiple with other units, and is therefore a unitised push-pull train.

A bit of banter based on previous threads about HST's.

Hence the smiley

johndibben wrote:The original HST, class 41, was around 30 years ago today.

Nasty horrible DMU's, doing away with lovely loco's like the Westerns and Deltics

Indeed!! And 50s, and 47s... the list goes on

I can't believe how many people rate these now... every time the GNER one came down west, it would be full of people at the windows... there were even people flailing and bellowing from the virgin liveried one that worked a saturday diagram It's only an HST - some people need to get out more

Sure its better than plastic tat - but flailing??? Going a bit far..

JDJonny

jdjonny wrote:I can't believe how many people rate these now...

Tis the way of the world

I was 20 in 1974 and remember their introduction. They were panned as much as the Pendolinos and Voyagers today. They failed regularly and didn't really achieve any sort of reliability until the mid 1980's. They were considered cramped and were criticised for window spacing, small windows and tinted windows. We'd all been used to seeing the weather outside and opening a window. They were also new and anything new is bad, as we all know

They eventually became highly successful, the 'new' stigma was lost, reliability was good, not least because you have two power units and one could 'get you home' on all but the Devon banks.

Now, of course, they're old, therefore good

I miss them on the WCML as they were they only things which made a good 'noise'

The 'Flying Banana' hurtles through Bletchley quite regularly and makes an impressive site.

Never mention class 50's to Chris Green. He had the unenviable task of trying to keep them running with an availability rate of below 50%.

However, they're all trains and lovable, whether super effificient or not.

The 'plastic' stuff is probabably as efficient as anything else when a fair comparison is made and they will doubtless be talked of like the HST's when they're withdrawn.

Human nature and if you enjoy something, that's all that matters. You can be sure someone will have an alternative view and statistics can prove anything when taken selectively

I've always thought they were great....the only mistake was not having buffers.
My first ride was in 1975...but as a typical 12yr old spotter...we spent the whole journey with our heads out of the carriage door...first time I'd done 125mph...brilliant.
Those Paxmans...when they start to screech....fantastic.

Personally, I love the HST (yes, class 43 to clarify!!)

Granted, those pesky, unmovable arm-rests on the Mk.3 coaches is a bit of a pain sometimes, but aside from that, I love everything about them.

I was sat at Kettering a few days ago, and several MML HSTs went thundering past. What a great sound! Especially as they start to accelerate just as they hit the platform, and on the un-refurb sets, you can really hear those Napier turbos screaming!!

I think i'm right in saying the re-furbished sets have Valenta engines? are these quieter than the paxmans?

poodles wrote:I think i'm right in saying the re-furbished sets have Valenta engines? are these quieter than the paxmans?

"During construction, each power car received a 2250hp Paxman Valenta engine and over the last 25 or more years the scream of the Napier turbocharger coupled to this engine has become a familiar sound up and down the country. Three Mirlees engines were installed in an experimental basis in a bid to achieve even greater efficiency, and during 1994 the first in a number of brand new Paxman VP185 engines was installed into 43170. GNER briefly experimented with this engine type in power car 43167, however both First Great Western and Midland Mainline seemed to have found it more successful with further re-enginings taking place. "

http://paulpax.webspace.fish.co.uk/125Group/History.htm