The Age of the Train? ...well 30 actually!

Happy Birthday to a true British Icon

Some call it the High Speed Train, others the Intercity 125 - Those who wear bright coloured waterproofs and stand on railway platforms in Crewe might even be heard to mutter that it’s a Class 43 DMB with 8-car MkIII Consist - I just think they’re Brilliant!

OK so the TGV is bigger, faster, smoother shinier and almost any other “er” you can Imagine, but it was also expensive, and back in the 1970’s Britain was Broke!

The ageing fleet of Diesels needed to be replaced, and there was demand for a High Speed Train to bring the network into the 20^th century. The problem was that when it came to running a super-quick train, it was advantageous not to have Victorian bendy tracks. The French and the Japanese had led the way with super straight, superfast railways. That was going to be expensive!

The solution was to build a train which could run at these speeds on the existing track, without the need for a massive reconstruction of the rail network.

Now much of this network was still unpowered at the time, and the Advanced Passenger Train project (The tilty train) would have meant that a massive electrification project was needed. So it would take a diesel to do the job, and what a diesel they got – 2250bhp!

Eventually the Tilty trains would be abandoned after somebody felt a bit queasy, and the 125’s would be the staple of the network until electrification was complete in the 90’s.

My first trainset as a kid was of an Intercity 125, and the first time I ever saw one at Euston Station, I knew that one day I would be an engine driver! Years later of course I took a job in the advertising industry – So I have a short attention span!

Like Concorde, the Routemaster, the Mini and the Spitfire, the Intercity 125 is an emblem of Britain – an understated design classic. May they ride our rails for years to come, and seldom breakdown or encounter the wrong kind of snow.