In the later 1950s and early 1960s, the British Transport Commission was modernising its rail network. CrossCountry have enough Class 43 locomotives and Mark 3 carriages to make-up five 2+8 InterCity 125 sets. LNER’s final HST services will operate on Sunday 15th December. The set was reduced to two power cars and five trailers, and there was a concerted attempt to see how fast the train would go. The design incorporated a driving desk around the driver, a sound-proofed door between the cab and the engine room, and, unusually, no side windows. Our book ‘125 The Enduring Icon’ is 100% HST and tells the story of the last forty-five years of the InterCity 125 in a new and very factual way. The service was due to begin in December 2006 although upgrade work to enable the coaching stock (which was formerly used for locomotive-hauled services and had a different electric heating/power supply system) to operate with Class 43 power cars was heavily delayed and therefore pushed the starting date back to 18 December 2007. LNER’s farewell tour will follow the last day of High Speed Trains in passenger service for LNER with the final service on Sunday 15 December. On 12 June a world diesel speed record of 143.2 mph (230.5 km/h) was achieved, and the drivers believed that 150 mph was possible, but the BRB issued instructions for the high speed tests to cease. Each set is made up of two Class 43 power cars, one at each end, and a rake of Mark 3 carriages. The Intercity 125 diesel-powered High-Speed Trains were built by British Rail between 1975 and 1982 to operate on long distance routes in Britain, and have run on LNER’s route since 1978. Its name comes from the fact it can travel at 125 miles per hour, and travels between (inter) cities within the United Kingdom. The 197 production series power cars were numbered 43002-43198. "It really was rather quite brutal, rather clumsy. The decision to use two power cars was taken early in the project as design engineers calculated that the train would need 4,500 horsepower to sustain 125 miles per hour on the routes for which it was designed (the Great Western Main Line, Midland Main Line, and the Cross Country Route), and it was established that no "off-the-shelf" diesel engine was capable of producing such power. At Ladbroke Grove and Ufton Nervet the accidents were ultimately caused by factors not involving the HST sets or their drivers, although the set involved in the Ladbroke Grove crash had a faulty AWS system;[74][75] however, the Southall accident was due to the HST colliding with a goods train which was entering Southall Goods Yard, crossing the main lines. A tour to mark the retirement of the Intercity 125 HST from service on the East Coast Main Line with LNER Reading, England, UK - August 29, 2016: A First Great Western Intercity 125 express train at Goring in Berkshire, under new electrification equipment . The final variant of this livery saw the yellow side-bands replaced with white and did not feature the British Rail name or logo: it carried the new sector branding Intercity logo in serif type and an image of a flying swallow. 47 401). As a result, Midland Mainline was asked by the then Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) to operate services between London and Manchester via the Midland Main Line and Hope Valley Line into London St Pancras while West Coast Main Line works took place. [73] Graham Farish were the first to produce a HST in N gauge, recently Dapol have produced another N gauge model of the train. Download this stock image: A tour to mark the retirement of the Intercity 125 HST from service on the East Coast Main Line with LNER - 2AGW4C7 from Alamy's library of millions of high resolution stock photos, illustrations and vectors. Eight East Coast services per day in each direction used the InterCity 125. On 6 June 1973, 131 mph was reached, which was bettered as the days passed. The world record for the fastest diesel-powered train, a speed of 148 mph (238 km/h), was set by a HST on 1 November 1987,[15][16][17][18] while descending Stoke Bank with a test run for a new type of bogie for use on Mark 4 coaches on the same route. Anyone with a seat reservation on the HST Farewell Tour and wishing to book a seat reservation with LNER to join a service to get to or from the special farewell service can contact the LNER Customer Solutions Centre on 03457 225 333 or by e-mailing customer.care@lner.co.uk, Tickets are available for sale at www.ukrailtours.com. [8] After being withdrawn from GWR service, 43002 was acquired by the National Collection in September 2019 and was displayed at the Locomotion museum. Although they were initially not permitted to exceed 100 mph (161 km/h) on any part of the route, they still delivered time savings compared with the loco-hauled trains they replaced. Another change was made in 2014, when some first class coaches were converted to standard class or composite (half standard and half first class), leaving 1½ first class coaches per set. [100], As of the start of 2019, HSTs in their original form are not permitted to operate passenger services on the National Rail network because various deficiencies make them non-compliant with accessibility regulations (in particular, the need to manually open the doors). [3], The prototype high-speed diesel train, which became the InterCity 125, was formed of a rake of passenger coaches between two power cars, one at each end. The Intercity 125 diesel-powered High-Speed Trains were built by British Rail between 1975 and 1982 to operate on long distance routes in Britain, and have run on LNER’s route since 1978. [42] Ending on 10 September 2004, the Project Rio fleet was gradually disbanded, with power cars moving to First Great Western and GNER. We play tributes to rock-n-roll classics we all love but rarely hear live. Having broken speed records and transformed rail travel since they were first introduced in the 1970’s, LNER has marked the retirement of the InterCity 125 with a four-day farewell tour. For high-speed trains in general, see, An InterCity 125 in original British Rail livery near Chesterfield, British railway locomotives and miscellany, 1948 to present. After privatisation, the Cross-Country Route was operated by Virgin CrossCountry, who replaced their InterCity 125 trains in the period 2002–2004 with Bombardier Voyager high-speed DMUs. [55], The Intercity service proved an instant hit with the British public. Most long-distance services on this route have been transferred to new Class 222 Meridian diesel-electric multiple units, although many London services from Nottingham still use the InterCity 125, as do all services from London St Pancras to Leeds. David Horne, Managing Director of LNER, said: “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to express our appreciation for the decades of service from the iconic Intercity 125 on the East Coast route. All orders are custom made and most ship worldwide within 24 hours. With power cars often requiring maintenance more frequently than the trailer cars, power car swaps soon began to take place; there were a few spare power cars to allow for this. The renumbering of the 400xx series catering vehicles in 1983 was to avoid their numbers clashing with the Class 40 diesel loco fleet (numbered 40 001 to 40 199) when BR's loco (TOPS) and coaching stock number series were merged.