The Railway Magazine – July 2019

FROMTHE RAILWAY MAGAZINE ARCHIVES

The RCTS: then and now

50YEARS AGO:

Wreckage of the Down

‘Aberdonian’sleeping-car

express, 19.40 King’s

Cross-Aberdeen, after

derailment south

of Morpeth station,

Northumberland at

about 01.40 on May 7. Six

Saturday, May 18 saw the last use of GW HST sets on timetabled services.

Nos. 43093Old Oak Common HST Depot 1976–2018and 43185Great Westernare

seen at Bristol Temple Meads, before working the 15.30 and 16.00 services to

Paddington. The selection of these two power cars for the final duties was

no doubt planned, but their liveries also demonstrate the changes seen over

the years: the InterCity livery was the subject of much work in the paint shop

when first applied to the units, while the one-off GW green with HST shadows

would have had most of the work carried out at a computer keyboard, with the

application to the unit taking just hours rather than days.DAVID GODDARD/RCTS

passengers were killed

and only the locomotive,

‘Deltic’No. 9011The

RoyalNorthumberland

Fusilier,remained on the

rails, coming to a halt in

the station.The driver

admitted that the train

was travelling at 82mph

when it entered the curve,

which has a speed limit of

40mph.JOHN M BOYES

YEARS AGO

JULY 1919

M

R CHARLES BENJAMIN COLLETT

has been appointed Deputy Chief

Mechanical Engineer, Great Western

Railway. He entered Great Western

Railway service as a draughtsman at

Swindon in 1893, eventually rising to the

post of Assistant Chief Draughtsman. In

June 1900, he was appointedTechnical

Inspector at Swindon LocomotiveWorks

and the following year became Assistant

Works Manager, being appointed

LocomotiveWorks Manager in January,

1913.The SwindonWorks are collectively

amongst the most extensive in the world,

occupying an area of 265 acres, 62.5 acres

being roofed and, in normal times giving

employment to 13,000 hands.

T

HE Canadian Pacific Railway

inaugurated on June1afasterdaily

express sleeping car service between

Montreal and Vancouver andvice versa.

Called the‘Trans-Canada Limited’, these

express trains make the 3,000 mile run in

93-and-a-half hours, compared with the

110 hour journey on Canadian Pacific’s

‘Imperial Limited’.

F

OUR great memorial services were

held on May 10, 1919 in honour of

North Eastern Railway men who have

lost their lives in the service of their

country. The services took place atYork

Minster, Newcastle Cathedral, Holy

Trinity Church, Hull and St Mary’s Church,

Gateshead.

YEARS AGO

JULY 1969

A

PPROVAL is being sought by British

Railways from the Ministry of

Transport for a £12.7 million wagon

replacement plan as the first stage in

a programme to improve wagon-load

traffic. The plan provides for 3,200

wagons, almost all of which would be

built in BR workshops. They are expected

to include 1,750 four-wheel vans, 500

four-wheel dropside open wagons, 750

four-wheel steel-carrying wagons and

200 bogie steel carriers.

L

ONGMOOR MILITARY RAILWAY,

Hampshire, is to close on October 31.

The Association of Railway Preservation

Societies is to approach the Ministry of

Defence for as much as possible of the

equipment and property to be retained

and developed into a national transport

centre.

T

O OBVIATE excessive maintenance

costs, BroomhouseTunnel, on the main

line between Chesterfield and Sheffield

Midland, is being converted into an open

cutting. Already, some 55,000 cu yd of

soil has been removed from the top of

the tunnel, and during the three weeks

from August 17 to September 7 the

work is to be completed by removing a

further 22,000 cu yd of spoil and dropping

the tunnel lining onto the track before

removing it.

YEARS AGO

JULY1999

F

INAL negotiations in an extraordinary

and historic deal which would see 40

Class 37s exported to France were being

concluded at the end of May.The EEType 3

diesels will be used as part of an eight-

month contract to power infrastructure

trains in connection with the extension of a

TGV line fromValence to Marseille.

G

NER is in talks over the possible

acquisition of a limited number of

Regional Eurostar sets and Nightstar

coaches.The seven short-length Class

373 sets – which at 16 vehicles are still

far longer than any other passenger

trains operating on the East Coast Main

Line – are presently stored at North Pole

depot pending a final decision on the

North of London Eurostar services. GNER

is understood to want to lease two sets to

boost capacity and is also said to be talking

to Alstom over the possible lease of some

‘Nightstar’stock.

E

WS has advised that two of the four

Class 33s stored at Immingham are to be

returned to front-line use... in Scotland!

Although EWS would not officially confirm

the actual location, it is understood to be

Falkland Junction, Ayr, where the use of

Class 08s has found to be inadequate.

T

he design, development and

production of the HST125 units,

as retired career railwayman and

long-time RCTS member Stanley Hall

often said, was one of British Rail’s

greatest achievements.

In fact the HST was unequivocally

the most successful post steam-era

train to run in the United Kingdom.Yet

the concept was intended to be a short

term expedient to meet the challenge

of long-distance motorway and air

travel.

The society’s monthly magazine

The Railway Observerreported two

prototype power cars were built at

Crewe in early 1971 and that testing

at Derby began in May 1972. By early

1973 all the prototype vehicles were

delivered and testing of the two power

cars and seven trailers had begun on

the Eastern Region.

On May 5, 1975, the unit made its

debut on a public train when it worked

the 07.45 Paddington-BristolTemple

Meads. It would not be until February

1977 that the prototype train was

officially taken out of service.

The production HST power cars

differed from the prototype in having

a modified front end and redesigned

bogies.Those built for the Western

Region were classified as Class 253 and

the Eastern Region units as Class 254.

The first of the Eastern Region units

was allocated to Leeds Neville Hill for

testing between Leeds and Newcastle

while the first Western Region sets went

to Old Oak Common and Bristol for the

Bristol and SouthWales services.

The Eastern/Scottish region’s 32

sets were available by early 1979 with

the‘Flying Scotsman’still the prestige

Anglo/Scottish train. A third build of

HSTs was sent to the Western Region

for service on the mainline to Plymouth

and Cornwall and later, CrossCountry

routes.

The power cars with their

distinctive yellow & blue livery and their

100mph-plus performance ensuredRO

correspondents kept the editorial offices

well supplied with sightings, while the

advances in colour publishing allowed

the magazine to update the RCTS

membership with livery changes.

The passenger-carrying stock

went from blue and grey to Intercity

‘raspberry ripple’which when clean was

highly attractive. Privatisation brought

in its wake a plethora of new liveries,

ranging from Great Western to East

Coast,Virgin, CrossCountry and Grand

Central, all eventually made easier to

apply by the use of vinyls.

Keeping track of changes to the

HST fleet has been a major reporting

task in theRO,covering not only liveries

but changes of engine type, fitting of

central door locking, the numerous

namings and de-namings, as well as all

the changes to trailer numbers and set

formations.

This feature of RCTS work looks

set to continue for a few years yet –

because although HST departures

from Paddington have just passed into

history, a new chapter in the life of the

HST sets is just beginning in the South

West of England and Scotland.

Britain’s leading Railway Society

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68 •The Railway Magazine• July 2019

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