The Train that Won’t Go Quietly!
There are very few engineering projects in the world, that last a long time, as the technology gets replaced. To me some of the best in the UK are :-
The New River – Built in 1613 to supply London with fresh water, It is still used in part for that purpose nearly four centuries later. Will there be a celebration in 2013?
The Thames Embankments and Bazalgette‘s Sewers in London – These transformed the city and also laid down the basic quality control standards for large construction projects. I seem to remember reading that only one person died in the construction of the sewers, which was a major achievement for the ninteenth century.
The Forth Bridge – Probably the best known bridge in the world. Opened in 1890, it still carries nearly 200 trains a day.
The Thames Tunnel – The first tunnel under a navigable river, that now carries the East London Line under the Thames.
St. Pancras Station – The head of SNCF described it as the finest station in the world. I’ll agree with him. It was originally opened in 1868 and a lot of the original design is still intact.
Welwyn Viaduct – An extraordinary structure in Hertfordshire, that still carries the East Coast Main Line over 150 years after it was built.
We may have structures that last for years but actual vehicles that last more than a four decades or so are rare indeed.
The Mersey Ferries have been around for centuries, but the current three boats are all over fifty years old. I remember them with affection from my days at Liverpool University in the mid-1960s.
The London Routemaster bus was launched in 1956 and although most were replaced by 2005, their are still two heritage routes in central London. I rode on one in September.
The Victoria Line in London has two distinctions. It is the oldest fully-automated railway in the world and it still has some trains dating from 1967. I have travelled on some quite recently and they are still in good condition. at 43 years old.
And then there is the Inter-City 125 or High Speed Train. It may not be as venerable as the other three examples, but then they don’t travel at 200 km/hr or 125 mph over routes that measure hundreds rather than tens of miles. It was also designed as a stop-gap design after the failure of British Railways to get the tilting APT to work.
Now over thirty five years since the trains were introduced, they are being refurbished, re-engined and are still in front-line service all over the country.
On my trip north from Edinburgh to Inverness in the cab of HST, 43313, talked about some of the problems with the trains and added to my knowledge.
The old rather smoky diesel engines have now been replaced in many power cars with modern units.
The rather draughty and noisy doors in the cab have now been replaced to make the working environment second-to-none.
But the slam doors of the Mark 3 coaches with their rather quaint traditional windows are a worry.
But that is now being addressed by sound engineering according to Modern Railways.
Who’s to say when we’ll see the last of the HSTs. I wouldn’t be surprised if some are still running in 2030 or even 2040, as they are classic Darwinian train, that evolves to beat every attempt to kill it off.
In the same magazine, it was also announced that one of the HSTs had run from Plymouth to Paddington non-stop in just two hours forty minutes. That is an average speed of 84.375 mph. London to Paris by Eurostar is 307 miles and takes two hours fifteen minutes at an average speed of 136.444 mph.
So Eurostar is quicker, but it runs on a line virtually without curves and it isn’t thirty five years old.
As Modern Railways said, the Plymouth to Paddington run wasn’t bad for a thirty-five year old, British Rail-era diesel train dismissed as obselete by Labour transport ministers almost a decade ago!
I could talk about pots and kettles, but in a way isn’t the HST a superb two-fingered salute to the bunch of NuLabor morons, who almost bankrupted this country, by their idiotic policies?
An Exhilirating Ride
The full video of my cab trip from Edinburgh to Inverness is just too long, so here’s a shortened version of just a few minutes as the HST runs northwards from Perth at 90 mph, through the trees.
I’ve also selected this section, as it shows how the journey brings the conversation out of the two drivers in the cab.
The Anonymous Widower 