Vintage railway film - Inter City 125 - 1976
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- Опубліковано 19 лют 2022
- This vintage railway film, produced by British Transport Films in 1976, tells the story of the building of a new generation of high speed Inter-City trains.
As well as providing speed and air-conditioned comfort, the design philosophy behind the trains was to extend the modular replacement concept as far as possible. Complete engines, alternators, cooling and brake systems, and electronic controls had to be modified so that they could be disconnected quickly and replaced, thus allowing fast, easy maintenance with a high degree of reliability.
The film was made for the equipment manufacturers and British Rail.
Inter City 125 and Corcorde. Last of great British engineering.
💯
My dad, working on BR in the early 70's says this train was like something out of the future and said to this day it is the most comfortable train he has ever ridden.
"Air conditioning helps avoid fumes" is said right as rupert frimsley is lighting a fat pipe and cranking a massive bonfire lmao
Imagine if they made a film like this about newer stuff. It wouldn't take long.
"we cut every corner we could get away with and they probably won't last long so we're busy designing the next ones already".
How else do the banks keep making profit out of our stupid rail system? They done want reliability or longevity they want the next balloon payment when the trains have to be replaced. This has just happened by the way on Trans Pennine
First time I went on a "Flying banana" as they were known at first, I was blown away. I loved the scream of the Paxman Valenta engine. Can you imagine an informative and in depth film like this now?
First cabbed one in 1978 at Doncaster Works open day 17-18 June. Had the enormous privilege and pleasure to drive these amazing machines for 19 years on the ECML between KX,Leeds and Newcastle. There’s nothing to better these fantastic pieces of engineering brilliance.
Having traveled on that line a lot, mainly during the GNER days, if you happened to be my driver, thank you!
Ive clicked on this because going back to 1976 would be a great way to escape the nightmare the world is potentially facing in 2022
So luxurious, compared with most trains of today. Where did we go wrong?
By voting for lower taxes at the general elections and striking/demanding higher wages.
Britain went into an economic crisis, that’s what happened
@@JoeK25301 true that
We forgot GOD
. . . and turned to Jimmy Savile ! . . . now then ! Now then !
That was extremely interesting. I like the way it was all put together with the mechanics in mind so they could fix it when needed. Those days are long gone
What a absolute beast of British engineering
BREL - Brilliant.
HST was amazing really: introduced as an interim measure - in a hurry - pending the pendulum APT. And last 40+ years. Fast. Reliable. Comfortable.
The people working on this project would never of thought they'd last as long as they did.
These beasts were clearly ahead of their time to have lasted in service so long! A fabulous bit of engineering! 💪
They were one of the best trains of all time! I seriously wish they were in service all over England now.
“That's unlikely to bother anyone,” says the narrator about a man puffing away on a pipe… times have certainly changed!
I'm not convinced the air conditioning would have eliminated pipe smoke, considering how poorly it handled the dreadful smell from the brakes sucked in and distributed throughout the passenger compartments.
It's odd but I was thinking about this just the other day. Put aside the distinctive 'groaning' as the train started from rest or came to a halt, undoubtedly there was that Valenta scream, but to me it was also that smell of hot brakes.
British Transport Films did some awesome music soundtracks
They really did! The music at
The end of this film is one of my favorite pieces they used.
Still one of the best trains on the network today and so much better than their replacement. What a lovely film, lots of technical detail that modern film makers seem to think is boring. I remember travelling on them soon after their introduction. There was one problem with the brakes; after every application there was a pungent smell of brake dust. It took a few years to cure that. I rather like the original internal colour scheme, probably better than most of the later ones.
The cure was simple. They closed the air intakes whennthe brakes were applied.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 The smell was created by the non-use of asbestos in the brake pads. Now you know why we replace brake discs more often than before.
@@martinpattison1567 I've smelt the same smell at a major junction near where I live from all the cars and in more modern trains.
With a number of other BR loco and rolling-stock brakes, you got a kind of "burnt-metallic-particulate" smell after significant, especially sharp braking. Understandable. Don't recall the pungent, may peculiar to these
It's odd but I was thinking about this just the other day. Put aside the distinctive 'groaning' as the train started from rest (or came to a halt), undoubtedly there was that Valenta scream, but to me it was also that smell of hot brakes.
I first went on a 'flying banana' as a 12 year old back in the 1970's, invited in by the driver while it was waiting time at Birmingham New Street. I was blown away. Fast-forward to 2022 and I have enjoyed the last 20 years driving them, and the previous 10 years being a guard on them.
Truly magnificent trains..
Intercity 225 along with boeing 747 are the pinnacle of travel in the 80s. Outstanding engineering which was ahead of its time.
British engineering at its best - shame we don’t design and build stuff like this anymore
Blame the goverment and the EU
Looks like Harry Enfield at the start boarding the train with the suitcase in hand. 😀
Them trains were lovely to travel in, I miss seeing them on the east coast main line
I've ridden 125s between Birmingham New Street and London (Euston, if memory serves) only a couple of years after this was filmed
The orange and the blue. In the 70s this was the future.
They were painted BR Yellow and BR Blue.
@@TheGrumpyEnglishman I think Ivana is referring to the colour of the seating.
@@TheGrumpyEnglishmanOrange 1st Class seats and blue in standard
Rode this in 85'..........fun
50 years later, look where we are now.
Great film, what a shame re the uncomfortable IET which has replaced the train that saved BR.
Ik I been on lners hst and iet and hst win by a billion miles
Cross country still got theirs and GWR and Scott rail
It’s very good believe me
The HST and Boeing 747 are national treasures in the 70s and 80s.
What a superb film. The IC125 is a credit to British Rail engineering.
Super interesting, many thanks for posting. Most surprising fact for me was hearing that the fiberglass drivers cab front is 50mm thick!!!
awesome! thanks a lot. my grandad was one of the first drivers of these it must have been so exciting for him having come off the steam as a boy . twangs of pride from this film then i think of britain today. my god.
Amazing ! British engineering at its best !! Where and when did it all go wrong 👺👺👺
Wow that was an amazing departure,those awesome Valentas screaming.
Best British railway engineering never to be seen again, and now most are on the scrap heaps 😢
Or in Scotland. Oh, same thing. 🤣
What a beautiful train!
Absolutely ACE! Cracking story: well told.
Pity it is now a historical impossibility to update or produce current home-grown UK designed & built solutions. All gone in a generation.
Blame the electorate wanting loser taxes and prices, but higher wages. Something had to give,
@@neiloflongbeck5705 Or was it that our manufacturers weren't able to sell in overseas markets as were the competition, & UK demand for trains wouldn't support home-grown capability cost-effectively? Then, Siemens', Henschel, Alsthom (or whoever) etc wages were probably higher than our UK manufacturers
@@daffyduk77 BREL tried to sell versions of the Class 58 in both single and twin cab configurations and in various gauges but there were no takers as American locomotives were cheaper, more powerful and were seen to be more reliable. Brush traction sold several designs of locomotives overseas between the last Class 47 leaving Loughborough and the first Class 60 leaving there. But sales numbers were never than big, the biggest order I know about was the Class 9 locomotives built for Eurotunnel with 58 built. The 100 Class 60s was there last big order but even with modern equipment the Class 59 was more reliable, hence the railway operating companies ordered the Class 66.
The cost is in the design and development of new technology which did for the aircraft industry, the car industry and the railway locomotive construction industry over the last 30 years. It's cheaper for the purchaser to buy a foreign vehicle that is adapted for use in the UK than to have a British company do it and pass the costs on the purchaser. A prime example of this is TSR-2.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 True. I think the TSR-2 was heavily impacted by changing specs/requirements causing delays, Had it emerged one or two years earlier it's just possible it could have been sold to the Aussies & thus help defray the breath-taking avionics costs, If that would have made any difference.
@@daffyduk77 yes the cists of the TSR-2 were spiralling out of control for various reasons, but there was only 1 customer, the RAF. The RAAF were looking at it, but they were also looking at the far more capable F-111. My point about the TSR-2 was when it got cancelled we ordered the F-111K and all we had to pay was the construction cost plus a small amount for a few UK specific changes such as the inflight refuelling system and a fraction of the development costs that was spread across the entire production run which including the 50 for the RAF would have been around 600 airframes including the FB-111 airframes. The total de elopement cost of the F-111 was US$1,641.5 Million (in 1971 US Dollars). By the time it was cancelled the TSR-2 had cost the UK taxpayer £425 Million all of which would have been borne by the UK taxpayers and we only wanted as far as I can see 50 airframes. It would have been reduced a bit if the RAAF had purchased it, but only by around a third as they only wanted around 25 airframes.
Nearly 50 years later and the HST still looks like its from the future. And I always loved that its very likely that people that were born in the 19th century, were able to travel on it!
I had a day out with my Mum at Reading Station in 1979 and saw endless HST's. And I finally went on one from London to York in 1982, aged 10, and it was so exciting.
I wonder does it look futuristic to the teenagers of today....? Given that the modern trains look very basically, the same.
5:10 that sound
Beautiful trains the best
Excellent informative film about the HST 125, the fastest diesel in the world..! Everything that was fast and comfortable back in the day was the best of British..! When I was a young man in the late 1970s we had so many great iconic things coming on stream, Concorde the HST.. all we've got now is mobile phones and battery cars, which are not a modern idea either, we had the Sinclair C5 battery car back in the day, and yes that was British too..! 😂😂😂😂
Absolutely brilliant, superb upload... thank you very much. 👍
Great video. Sadly the Paxman (MAN) engine works closed in 2021, probably to become a housing estate with street names reflecting the once great works output.
The MK3 Coach is still the best riding coach on the UK rail network, in my opinion. They got so much right with the HST.
Well that’s sad no more vp185s in prod oh they got retired in 2020 lol
@@ashleyjiscool The VP185 was used very heavily in the marine environment and was in production till last year as it was recognised as a very good dependable engine, many of the orders were for patrol boats and auxiliary generators.
yes the mark 3 is by far the best riding (and best overall) peice of passenger rolling slock in the UK, a flawless design in every right. why we feel the need to go about replacing something that still does its job exceptionally well with uncomfortable, bumpy foreign junk is beyond me
@@Trainman10715 This always stumps me too. I understand replacing things for progress when they are better but when you already have a better design why replace it with something worse? Of course we know its to fund someone's greed but really that shouldn't ever have been allowed in anything public. Allow reasonable job pay and profits but not just a free for all when we're all paying for it.
@@siraff4461 it's the culture of the west nowadays, everythings gotta be new all the time, gotta replace your car and phone every few years even though they still work perfectly. It's all because of the stupid leasing system for trains that we have nowadays, every new TOCs gotta do a full fleet replacement to look all new and it's ok because someone else pays for it. it will have to end if we're to go with this green and sustainable agenda that they're always talking about, and all the TOCs who did go about buying loads of new trains they didn't need all look a bit foolish now with current passenger numbers. if I were in charge they would have just refitted the HSTs with the power doors and toilet tanks and then put electrical gear in the former guards compartment in the rear of the power cars therefor making them electro-diesels like the 800s, because why replace something that works perfectly when you can just upgrade it for a comparably tiny cost
Absolutely fascinating!
Seems like the sort of film shown in cinema. They would show a short before the main film.
Fascinating, thanks for uploading.
Thanks for posting this!
Takes me back to my Loco-building days. Awsome video.
Brilliant, love these trains. Great insight in design and build.
What an excellent video, many thanks for the upload.
Fantastic movie ! & All British Made in GB Where have we gone wrong !!
Love the HST’s. This video is FANTASTIC! Thank you so much for posting this. I love driving these trains in Train Sim World 4
Still running here in Australia, somewhat modified and with different carriages. It's called the XPT and does the long runs between Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and othe rural NSW centres. They are due for retirement in the next few years
.
Its a shame you are retiring them. Ive travelled on the HST replacements here in the UK and nothing beats the MK3 Coaching stock... or the Valenta sound....
@@mattcoyne3923 You can still travel on the shortened HST ‘Castle’ sets in the south-west. Not as good as the original HSTs though, with their spacious seating and the thrilling sound of the Valentas!
Great stuff!
Fascinating.A true British icon.Comparable to Concorde IMHO.
Concorde may have been a technological miracle... but only for the top 0.0000001 %. And you couldn't fly it supersonic over democratically-governed land-masses. But the daft quest for moon & Mars tourism takes the biscuit
Best train ever built. Bar none....
this train inspired australias XPT and its still in service since 1982
Still in service on west coast services just castle smaller sets in Scotland with Scot rail
And cross country services still
A few around and still sound amazing 40 + years later 👍
The train in entire still looks so modern. I was shocked that it still had a piston engine!
One could say the last British designed and built Train, but just like everything else we now rely on Foreign companies to design and build our trains. soon there will be nothing British anymore. Great, disappeared a long time ago from the word British. Thank god will still relive the good old days of the British railways and before that the Big 4, those were the days. Martin. (Thailand).
I'm sure that was when there was barely a need for stuborness. When most people:
* Admitted their mistakes
* apologised to one another when required
* were not jealous of other people
* minded their own business
* cared for one another when required
* did not discriminate
* knew how to forgive
* could trust one another
* cared about what the truth is
A table at every window!
But not every seat with a window (see1:03)
@@AndreiTupolev Yes. The open 2nd carriages had eight evenly-sized and evenly-spaced windows each side of the saloon. There was one set of back-to-back non-table seats (eight seats in total) at the mid-length partition and eight sets of table seats (four seats each) more-or less evenly spaced along each side of the saloon. The result was that the tables at either end of the carriages were almost perfectly aligned with the window centres and the table centres ‘drifted’ slightly in relation to the window centres as you moved towards the middle of the carriage. There’s a nice diagram showing this in the book ‘Two Miles a Minute’ by O.S.Nock.
@@dukeofaaghisle7324 I ndon't suppose they inflicted that on the fat cats in First Class. Never got to find out
@@daffyduk77 If I remember correctly, 1st class were spaced with a table at each window and the usual 2 + 1 seats across the width. I travelled it once (on special offer) Paddington to Penzance.
Even so, the old 2nd class layout was absolutely luxurious compared to today’s sardine-can arrangement.
Christmas 1977 to Wales, was my first INTERCITY 125 experience
The HSTs were really the Thunderbirds of British Rail.
I also remember the introduction on the Western Region - 2 catering cars and the bar had draught beer!!
Hold on fools! Three class 43’s and their passenger stock have been prepped for shipping to Mexico for passenger use!!!!! Holy shit, never in my 48 years of being alive, would I think the class 43 would leave its home for another country for service.
Despite ALL of that "Space-Age" Technology NO Robots with swinging Arms flailing about..they were all built by hand. And NO American or 'other' manufacturers parts either. As it said:-Built in British Factories. Where did it all go wrong? These days when you think 'Transport' you think German/Siemans or...God forbid..the Koreans or Chinese!
The electorate are to blame. They wanted lower taxes and prices. But also wanted high wages. Something had to give.
I presume you would celebrate if other countries wanted to import British engineering. It goes both ways!
@@LondonRider12 Then we had to re-import our technological miracles 🙂 Pendolino
Used to love seeing these bomb past Cricklewood station in the 80s
When we still used to make things.
Gary Watson, the narrator, is still alive.
Yep, he's 91 and still going.
Remember seeing the power cars being built at Crewe in the seventies, it'd be a works open day, great train,gave sterling service and built in Britain, quite why we keep giving contracts overseas I cannot understand.
To answer that, look through this video again and write a list of the company names you see making the larger parts, then bear in mind the other companies that made the smaller parts that went into making those, and then the producers of the various metals and polymers used to make them too. How many still exist in the UK? If any at all, not enough. Paxman - gone, Brush - gone, GEC - gone, British Steel - gone, ICI - gone and many many more. You’d have to import every component, so why not just contract out to Germany, France, Spain, Czech Rep, Italy or Japan who didn’t spaff their future up the wall?
0:52 1976 Britain has automatic doors in their 125's
meanwhile here in America in 1976, we were still using our muscles to open doors between passenger cars. LMFAO
Cracking!
THE AC GENERATOR IS INTERESTING
Was hoping to see n hear a static testing of the mighty Valenta
Also worth remembering that the Class-43 holds the world record for fastest diesel locomotive with an absolute maximum speed of 148 mph (238 kmph), and a regular service speed of 125 mph (201 kmph).
It's amazing that they didn't sell any of them to the Europeans.
@@kiwitrainguy Politics and the Europeans are more electrified. Australia bought power cars and built their own coaches - the power cars were re geared to a lower speed to suite the conditions I believe.
Silly me. I just realised. There wouldn't be any point making a film like this today because no one would watch it. They are all far more interested in putting pictures of their dinner on the net while driving into the back of the car infront as they do so.
...Moreso because current rolling stock is bland and abysmal
Hst was built on previous experience like the RT becoming the RM bus. Now it's all off the shelf computer designed
Has anyone done any video of the four power cars that had the Mirrlees MB190 engines in the 80s
We only ever go backwards in this country!
Aah, this was the future once. And what a fortune these trains earned for BR InterCity!
HS(D)T was BR Research's pragmatic response to 'sex up' the main routes that the government wasn't going to authorise for electrification anytime soon. Technical evolution and not revolution, most of it developed in-house, at modest cost to the taxpayer. The MkIII coach is still the standard by which other InterCity stock is judged.
I shudder to think what might have happened if InterCity travel was at the same crossroads in 1996 and not 1976: uncoordinated and inconsistent train replacement policies depending on each TOC and the chosen 'flavour' of its franchise, taking years longer to deliver new trains because of the haste to reinvent wheels... and and at four times the price. (Rant over!)
Thanks for the cool video - does anyone know of any routes (if there are any) that this stock is being used on today?
Currently used on Scotrail services (branded as 'Inter7City')
Also on short-formed 'castle' sets in the south-west of England, and a few still operate on NE/SW Cross-Country services.
I spent 30 years on them. 20 of those years driving them. Incredible trains...
2:37 - that's what she said!
As a young train basher on the ECML in the late 70s early 80s my friends and I hated these “rats”. Watching the Deltics being slowly replaced by these overgrown bog units was more than we could stand.
Haha yellow wedge go eeeee
The original flying banana livery was class
I always wondered why all trains don't have that aerodynamic front car that slants rather than being square.
THE PAXMAN ENGINE USES THE SAME STYLE TEXT AS CUMMINS , ARE THEY RELATED?
All that engineering prowess - destroyed by Thatcher and Major.
So how long did it take for them to be thought up till they were made? 6 years in production?
Prototype: built in 1972
Production start: 1975
In service: 1976
End of production: 1982
End of service: 2030(?)
I wonder why they didn't just link the engine to the wheels like in a car. Converting to electricity and then powering electric motors is pretty inefficient. In the video they said the alternator makes 1468, which equates to 1968hp, which is quite a bit less than 2250.
To all you not brits, we still use these trains lol!
1:03shows where it began to go downhill; by making it their mission to get in as many seats as possible, they no longer all lined up with windows, and this was the result for some. Personally I preferred a Mk 2
Bums on seats, dear chap
Yes, The Mk 2 was a lovely way to travel. Nearly as good as a voyager! (I like my sarcasm on the heavy side!)😀
@@davidmansell5986 For me, the move away from passenger-operated windows was a step too far. Aircon is a wonderful thing, but when a train stops somewhere for an extended & seemingly indeterminate power-free breakdown 😞 ... just nice to have some autonomy in that way
@@daffyduk77 Agreed.
the seats line up perfectly well with the windows on mark 3s, they were properly designed so they lined them up properly, unlike with the modern IET junk
HI ... I Love your Video's ! I was watching BR "TOPS" & it got removed half way in, Do yu have it elsewhere ?
I don't sorry. It was blocked by a third party group, the 'Lasso Group'.
And when you think for a while that we are calling class 810 the same way that they did with class 125 and it will end the same way like class 125
Nice to see Rick Wakeman about 5 minutes in
SMOKERS RULLED YEARS AGO.
Haha, I had a couple of heated disputes with smokers (in the non-smoking coaches) years ago, one of them involved me being chucked off the train by the guard (a smoker)
That word valenta though 🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤
No Jimmy Saville voiceover?
similar to the XPT in australia
Indeed - the XPTs are more or less the same design, and their engines are the same as those used by the HSTs on the Midland Main Line
Where has it all gone wrong, designed here, engineered here and built in the UK. Beyond me ,you can blame the unions or the goverments at the time, but its a sad reflection that nobody seems to have any pride of what we were once capable off.
They want to try making comfortable seating these days instead of the hard seats now. Ah but I forgot, they aren't made in Britain like the HST's were. Maybe that's where the railways went wrong, back to third class seating.
(Ex railwayman)
And yet the "Made in France" TGV and "Made in Japan" Shinkansen have outlived the HST - and ran on electric from the outset.
@@emjackson2289 no they havent... the HSTs are still in service with more than half the power cars currently registered with an operator. the original Shinkansen was retired years ago and the TGV sud ests were retired recently i believe. so no, the HST has infact outlived them even though it was only designed as a stopgap. running on electric isnt a requirement for high speed as the HST thoroughly proved, and it even achieved the same speed as the Shinkansen dispite being a diesel
The seats are made hard so that they last longer, so you have to put up with them for longer than the comfortable seats.
These were the most reliable trains because they were designed and made in Great Britain. All other trains failed with unreliability and faulty parts. This just proves that the best things are always made in Great Britain
Gestures at British Leyland...
Err….. No. 🤣
Wait until you find out about BL