Trains at: Swindon, GWML, 04/08/18
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- A very enjoyable but short visit to Swindon station on the Great Western Mainline where we see plenty of services from Great Western Railway.
This was my first time here and even though there wasn't much variety in traffic I thought that the station was fantastic and one that I will definitely be coming back to to spend a lot more time at.
As like many stations along this route it was built and opened by the Great Western Railway in 1842 and was originally known as Swindon Junction before later being renamed to Swindon in 1961.
The station is a fairly important and busy one where 3 lines all converge, there being the former Great Western Railway to Gloucester and Cheltenham Spa, the main line to Bristol Temple Meads and the South Wales Mainline via Bristol Parkway. When the station was first opened you would find that all the trains would stop and wait here for roughly 10 minutes at a time, this was to allow locomotives to be changed so the larger more powerful ones could run down the rest of the line towards Wales and the southern end of the country. The station was also the first of its type to hold a refreshments room, seeing as this was a first in the railway world it was something that everyone wanted to see and go into. This included the current King and Queen of the time frequenting there. In turn this suddenly boosted Swindons popularity which meant that people wanted to flock far and wide. The refreshment room actually had 3 levels to it, the lower level was the refreshment room, the middle and upper consisted of a lounge and a hotel. As you can appreciate back in those days train travel was a lot slower than its modern counterparts.
The current station and office block which towers overhead was built in 1972 following the demolition of the original station building.
Another first for the station came in the form of a ticket barrier by the end of October 1986, this soon became a sight in every British Rail staffed station across the country. Nowadays it's all automatic.
2003 saw the completion of a new platform which made things quite a lot easier for trains running westbound. Originally they had to move onto platform 3 and the eastbound or London bound trains had to shuffle across to P1. The trains that would terminate here from Westbury and Gloucester would use the bay platform which is P2. Still used to this day.
My next station is Oxford.
You can now find me on Facebook through the group Tornado922, there you will find regular updates, videos and photos from all of my goings on throughout 2018.
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Fantastic video as always. Today I got on a class 700 forming a Thameslink train from Cambridge North to London Kings Cross it brought me in from Royston to Stevenage.
I'm glad you enjoyed watching this
Fantastic video, I've enjoy it and the 800s do look good in GWR livery👍
Thanks very much for saying so I'm glad you enjoyed watching this, the GWR 800 series sets do indeed look good
Another Fantastic Video Their! I really Enjoyed this :)
Thanks very much for saying so I'm glad you enjoyed this
Epic video and I have no idea what an IET is but those Class 800’s have great acceleration and it’s really good to ride on them on the GWML. 😊😉😀
I'm glad you enjoyed watching this :) An IET is an Intercity Express Train, it's the name given to the class 800's
It is also on the South Wales Main Line and the Golden Valley Line
0:07 -> loving that intro 😂good video too
I do try ;)
I really have a soft spot for the class 800. I think i like "her"more than the class 390 but my favorite of all is the class 374. The last one i can see in Germany too. I am sad they don't have them here. Great video again thanks for sharing.
I'm glad you enjoyed watching this, we are slowly getting more modern trains entering our network now. The 390 still holds a special place for me but the 800's do indeed look amazing :)
Great video as always bud, but I gotta say the brakes on the 800’s don’t half pierce the ears... reminds me of the screech of the 180’s pulling to a stop.
Thanks very much for saying so, I know what you mean about the brakes. They could so with a bit more working in before let lose on the rails :)
Tornado922 that’s for sure 😅😅 have to wear ear defenders around the 180’s when I’m waiting for my connecting services in Doncaster 😅
Great video as always
Thanks very much for saying so
Great vid mate love your content
Thank you both for saying so
I really like the Class 800 in the Paddington Bear livery and I did watch Paddington 1 and 2 films it was amazing also I would recommend for you to ride in the Class 800’s it can be comfortable. 😊😉😀👍👋
I've travelled on an 800 on this day. It was a great ride, however the MK3 carriage has more comfortable seating in my opinion
the 800 has the worst type of seats for intercity travel.. rock hard..
Great video!!
Thanks very much I'm glad you liked it
Love those HSTs! I never went on one of them.
You should ride on one before you miss the chance to do it
Cool video!
Thanks very much for saying so
Great job! B.P.
Thanks very much :)
Swindon Home to the world famous Swindon Locomotive works Immortalised by several books including Dusty Durrant's Swindon Apprentice and where Evening Star the last Mainline Steam Locomotive was built i might add Jarred before the works closed around 1986
You would be correct my good man. Plenty of railway history to be found around the Swindon area. Many famous steam engines can be traced back to this town
I think it's GWR, XC and Freight... Goodness knows. Maybe on a weekday. 👍👍
When I was there at Swindon on July 14th it was so busy because the crosscountry were being diverted as well so got lucky and got a lot of trains on camera
That would've been a great time to go there for the diverts. Shame that when I was here there wasn't anything freight wise
Godspeed
I only got the 222s on EMT.
Well hopefully you'll be able to get a HST
UK magic u have
Question when did they change the engine on the 125 HST when they did they were less noise and less smoke 💨 coming out the engine
The HST you see today has an MTU engine inside which has better fuel economy and is more environmentally friendly. The older engine was Valenta which produced more noise and more smoke. However if you look at the EMT HST's you will find that they have a VP185 engine installed in them which produces the same noise as a Valenta and just as much smoke. Hope that helps.
i think the Great Western HSTs were re-engined in 2005-2007
The 800s look ridiculous with two units coupled together. They should be in ten car units straight.
The 800 0 series is a 5 car set, these are the first ones to enter service so they have put multiple units together to increase capacity on the busier routes, you then have the 800 3 series which is a 9 car version.
I'm abit concerned, how often does a single 5 car, a 10 car and or a 9 car run in service
It depends on the time of the day and what route they are working
pardon my ignorance but whats behind the de branded units?are they due to go elsewhere?
The de-branded sets are being moved up north to Scotland
The hitachi 800 class look great on the outside but look pretty naff on the inside
I find the ride to be a bit harder on these than the HST MK3 carriages. But then I find the 800's run smoother and quieter
I love the 800 units. But why don't they have the pantograph
The 800 units are Bi-Mode trains, this means that they have diesel engine and a pantograph. This section of the line isn't 'live' at the moment which means the 800 series have to run on their diesel engine. Once they pass Didcot you will see them running on their pantograph :)
Why do hsts have still have slam doors
They may have the doors replaced when the sets are due for an overhaul, don't quote me on that.
7:33
The catenary structure is there, but is its the electrification active? How far west from Swindon does the catenary structure stand?
From what I can understand about it all the catenary is live from Didcot down to London. The cut off point I think is situated just after Didcot Parkway. As to when the wires here go live I wouldn't be to sure. The catenary structure runs all the way down to the junction where the line to Wales branches off and carries on all the way down to Bristol Parkway. As for the line heading to Bath I think they have got the masts up to Sydney Gardens in Bath but they are having trouble in getting the approval for the catenary beams to go along the line through that area without spoiling it. As to how they are going to achieve this I wouldn't yet know.
Thanks for your reply. I really enjoy your channel (along with Geoff Marshall's). I'm on the other side of the pond (and all the way on the other side of the USA). Looks as close to my traveling on UK rail systems as I'll ever get.
7:21 you mean 18 06
I probably do haha