Intercity 125 on Channel 5 15 May, 9 pm

[Jaded]

First of two programmes about the train that saved Britain’s railways!

I remember my first one. I was up Arthur's Seat and heard an unworldly whistling, as one pulled into Waverley. Marvellous!

[Exit Stage Left]

It's about 20 years since I was last on one of those. It was the Aberdeen to Penzance service. I caught it from Truro, where I'd dropped off the one-way hire car that we used to get us to the beginning of LEJOG. Never seen much of them, as we live next to the West Coast Main Line.

[Jaded]

I was on two on Friday. Rather marvellous, they are.

[Exit Stage Left]

We live about 200 metres from where they change the locos on the Cumbrian Mountain Express excursion.
So we saw an electric loco built in 1965 take over from a steam loco built in 1945 on Saturday. The first 125s were built in 1975, only 7 years after the demise of steam on BR.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFtBe-9PzvE

[pcolbeck]

Still a few on the East Coast main line for the trains that run past Edinburgh (the electrification stops there).

[pumpkin]

We live about 200 metres from where they change the locos on the Cumbrian Mountain Express excursion.
So we saw an electric loco built in 1965 take over from a steam loco built in 1945 on Saturday. The first 125s were built in 1975, only 7 years after the demise of steam on BR.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFtBe-9PzvE

And in that time the french built the TVG and the Japanese are on the 3rd(?) generation of Bullet train

[drossall]

My first experience of them made me miss some lectures as a student. I'd cycled from Leeds to Newcastle for the weekend, to visit the future Mrs Drossall, who was up there also as a student. When I turned up at the station, it was this new-fangled thing that didn't have room for bikes, unlike the usual guards van. So I headed back to the friend's student house where I'd been staying, and went back to Leeds the next morning, when there was a proper train

[Exit Stage Left]

It's ironic that their introduction was about the same time as the withdrawal of the charge for bicycles on trains.

[Wowbagger]

What were the trains on the West Coast line then? When I was at college between 1972 and 75 the rolling stock was all changed: I went for my interview at the Poulton le Fylde Techers' Training College in September 1972 on an old corridor train* but by the time I left, the corridor trains had all gone. Clearly they can't have been 125s as they were not introduced until 1976, after I left. The electrification of that line occurred around the same time, so they may have been some sort of electric equivalent.

*on my return to London, I shared a compartment with a certain Mary Whitehouse.

[pcolbeck]

What were the trains on the West Coast line then? When I was at college between 1972 and 75 the rolling stock was all changed: I went for my interview at the Poulton le Fylde Techers' Training College in September 1972 on an old corridor train* but by the time I left, the corridor trains had all gone. Clearly they can't have been 125s as they were not introduced until 1976, after I left. The electrification of that line occurred around the same time, so they may have been some sort of electric equivalent.

*on my return to London, I shared a compartment with a certain Mary Whitehouse.

Rolling stock was probably replaced with Mk II BR coaches and maybe Mk III by 1975 (which the HST coaches were a variant of). Motive power would have been Class 86 or 87 electric locos.

[pumpkin]

May well have been Class 50 diesel as there  were electrification upgrades. The 87 was introduced about the time of the upgrades and the 50s moved to the western Region (old trainspotting memory from long hours on Preston station). In fact a Wiki does say the 50 was used from Preston. Rolling stock was introduced as well I think to those newer carriages that had a more oblong tinted window

[rogerzilla]

They're rather less screamy and smoky since the Paxman Valenta engines were replaced with MTU prime movers.

I have a soft spot for Class 50s.  I've driven one about a mile and I have the EE engine builder's plate from Courageous.

[toontra]

Still prefer the 125 coaches to the nasty Hitachi replacements being rolled out by GWR.

[Jaded]

The 125 Mark 3 variant coaches are solid, comfortable and very strong. I’ve yet to go on one of the new trains, but remember the Adelantes, which were horrible and thankfully very unreliable.

[toontra]

The 125 Mark 3 variant coaches are solid, comfortable and very strong. I’ve yet to go on one of the new trains,

The seats on the new Hitachi's are small, cheap and plasticy - more akin to something you'd expect on a tram or bus.  Lower back with limited head-rest.  As for the "bike spaces" - diabolically limited hanger compartments which you have to juggle to get even a normal-shape bike into, and a convoluted dividing bar system which I can imagine making a nasty dent in a carbon frame.

Train staff I have spoken to have real sympathy for cyclists using these trains.  No idea how this design passed any meaningful consultation.  The over-riding brief must have been to minimise all non-paying space.

[Jurek]

First of two programmes about the train that saved Britain’s railways!

I remember my first one. I was up Arthur's Seat and heard an unworldly whistling, as one pulled into Waverley. Marvellous!

Thanks for that. I enjoyed that immensely.

[Kim]

As for the "bike spaces" - diabolically limited hanger compartments which you have to juggle to get even a normal-shape bike into, and a convoluted dividing bar system which I can imagine making a nasty dent in a carbon frame.

Train staff I have spoken to have real sympathy for cyclists using these trains.  No idea how this design passed any meaningful consultation.

This thread refers: https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=79449.0

The design was presented to us mostly as a fait accompli.  They'd come up with a clever modular system whereby toilets, bike spaces, catering provision and whatever were easily added or removed from the trains according to the customer specification.  (I hypothesise this may have something to do with their objection to installing appropriate signage.)

Clever, that is, apart from the idea that hanging cycles is acceptable, which the volume afforded by the modular system requires.

I'm more disgruntled than usual, after spending Friday evening in the company of a middle aged lady with a Dutch-style city bike, and her son with a typical modern wide-barred mountain bike, trying to fit our cycles in the dangly bike spaces of a CrossCountry Class 220^[1].  I was the only one tall enough to accomplish this safely, and neither the Dutch bike nor my recumbent^[2] actually fitted properly (the mountain bike did, to the exclusion of anything in the adjacent space, because handlebars).  Any cycling provision that doesn't work for a typical middle aged woman with a typical middle-aged woman's bike fails at the first hurdle, IMHO.


_{[1] Actually two, because once we'd succeeded in cramming everything in, they kicked everyone off that train and withdrew it from service.
[2] I'd tested this and knew that I could fit the bike in if I brought some extra straps to secure it diagonally.}

[toontra]

I missed that thread at the time (being in the darkside forum).

Since my journey I've learned things are actually worse than I first thought.  On the GWR intercity service there is apparently now only space for 2 bikes.  There are actually 2 of these lockers but 1 is reserved for other bulky items.

So that's 2 bike spaces for trains with more carriages and significantly higher seating capacity than those they are replacing.  That's very roughly a 70% reduction in bike-handling capacity.

Fu**wits.

[rogerzilla]

/Bobbi Flekman

Money talks and bullshit walks.